Page 88 of Taming Achilles

“I … don’t like your occupation.”

“Fair enough.” Lea flicked her wrist, and the blade closed in her hand. “But you like my brother.”

Chloe’s face reddened to a deep crimson, which was unusual for such ochre brown skin. Her glorious constellation of freckles blossomed, and she was a little girl again. Just as she had been at St. Michael’s.

“Geordie loves you.” Lea’s words surprised me. Her deep, near-black eyes bored into me with a strange intensity that I didn’t understand. “No matter what he says, or what he might do wrong, he is devoted to you.”

“But not enough to marry me,” I said bitterly, baring my soul to the last woman who should ever know anything about me.

“Right, because of you.” Her eyes cut to Chloe.

“Me?” Cabbage sat up, her eyes confused, and wrinkled with scepticism. “What do I have to do with it?”

“Our little Scottish friend won’t marry you, Dame Fox,” she said my title with a strange derision that only existed amongst the uncouth yanks who didn’t understand their value. “Until you, dear Cabbage,” Chloe recoiled at the assassin using her nickname. “Accept me and Cal, and him and Pippa.” Lea shrugged. “He won’t marry her until you’re willing to go to Venice and stand up in the bridal party of their wedding.”

Lea crossed her arms, the little closed blade sticking out of her fist and glinting in the overhead fluorescent light.

“I guess Geordie thinks that’s important to you, or some such sentimental bullshit …” She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling, looking bored again. “It seems pretty important to him.”

I looked at Chloe, who looked back at me with astonished eyes. We both turned to the assassin, whose up-turned head only gave us a glimpse at her slim throat, and the underside of her chin.

“He told you that?” I asked.

“Ugh! Yeah, the guy practically vomited that bullshit out.” She shuddered in disgust. “Fluffy bunny bullshit, is what it is.” She spread her arms out to the side, tilting the chair back so it balanced on the back two legs. “I don’t get it. Your life is on the line, and this is the kind of shit you guys are bitching about …”

“He said that?” I demanded, wanting to get up from my bed, and shake the woman so she’d talk plain.

Chloe lunged towards me, grabbing my forearm with her slim, cold hands. “Am I … are you in danger?” Her chocolate eyes pleaded for my answer. “Am I hurting you?”

“No! Cabbage! No!” I said, my hands reaching out to her face, and pulled taught by the God damn tubes and wires still attached to my arms. “Oh God! No! My love, it’s not your fault at all!”

“Yeah it is,” Lea said, her voice grabbing our attention again. “That's why he wouldn’t marry you. Not because he doesn’t love you. That ring,” she pointed at the Marquis diamond that was still on my ring finger. “Is real. To him, you are engaged and fated.” Then the seriousness left her eyes, as she tilted back in the seat again. “He’s just a groomzilla.”

I blinked at the callous woman, her careless words, and everything that was happening.

“Are you … are you doing this to hurt me?” I was confused. Truly. Why would she say this? “Are you trying to hurt us?” I meant me and Chloe. “Why would you say this?”

“I kinda like Geordie,” she said with a slight smile. “He was at my wedding. Both of them.” She abruptly leaned forward, the two front legs of the chair slamming on the ground. She landed with both feet on the ground, her elbows on her knees as she stared at us on the bed. “And his pain is hurting my husband.”

Her wrist moved. The knife came out again; the blade glinted at us.

“He is barely sleeping over it,” she pointed at us with the tip of the blade. “So get it together, because I don’t like what it’s doing to my husband.”

I tightened my hand on Chloe’s wrist, leaning on her for support. For love. For … something. She held me tighter too, leaning into me, as we both stared at this strange, cruel, feminine hallucination that kept talking, even when my heart wanted her to stop.

“How’s your relationship with your father?” She abruptly changed the subject, but still pointed at me with her blade, her eyes burning my skin.

“What?” I asked, avoiding her eyes.

“Answer the question. It should be an easy one,” she said. “Do you love your father?”

“He’s my father.”

“Not an answer.”

“That's all I can say.”

“Bullshit. Do you care if your father lives or dies?”

---