Page 33 of Hearts Of Darkness

His methods may be more than questionable, but Dante is ripping the hood from my eyes. There’s no future for us, but there is a here and now, and I need to pursue this if I want to learn more about this darker side of me. I have to go deeper if I want to discover more about my brother’s killers.

“This way,” he says, guiding me out into a small courtyard. A table for two has been set underneath a wooden pergola, adorned with trailing jade creeper and the most exquisite white flowers.

“It’s gorgeous.” I grind to a halt in surprise.

“I have impeccable taste.” He pulls out a chair for me and I take my seat, admiring the ornate silver candelabra. Thiswhole set-up is almost sinister in its idealization, but that’s him all over—a beautiful façade with an undercurrent of menace. “What are we having?”

“WhateverIdecide we’re having,” he says, running a finger slowly down my cheek.

He sits down opposite and shoots me a loaded look.

I hate how submissive I am around him. Today, he’s decided how we make love, what I should wearandwhat I eat. The independent woman in me is shaking her fist at him and screaming in protest.

“Wine?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Ah yes,” he says, looking at me speculatively. “Any particular reason why not?”

“I don’t like the taste.” It’s a lie. I don’t like the loss of control. I don’t want my senses stupefied any more than they already are around him.

“Water, then?”

“Please.”

He smirks and pours me a glass and then sets about de-corking an expensive-looking bottle of red for himself. “That’s the first time you’ve used that word with me… In a non-petitionary sense, of course.”

“I believe it’s customary to beg and plead for your life when a dangerous criminal is holding a gun to your head.”

“Criminal is a relative term,” he says lightly.

“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?”

“No fighting,” he says. “To you, my angel.” He raises his glass in toast before bringing it to his lips. I don’t raise my glass of water to join him. Instead, I fiddle with the stem,running my fingers up and down the delicate column. There is no sentimentalizing us. He’s a bad man who is holding me hostage. Our worlds don’t belong in sync. They don’t even belong in the same universe.

“You’re overthinking this too much,” he says, reading my mind.

“It’s a little difficult when two days ago you had me under lock and key.”

My words strike an unpleasant chord. He grits his jaw and I watch the powerful muscles flexing beneath his olive skin. He hasn’t shaved tonight, and that shadow of dark stubble is lending even more of a wicked edge to him.

“I regret my treatment of you.”

My head jerks up in shock.

The corners of his mouth are curving. He’s perilously close to a smile. “Don’t look so surprised. You had the good grace to show me your manners just now. It’s only right I do the same.”

Right?This man doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Everything about him and his life is wrong.

“Social etiquette is important to you, is it?”

“In the right context.” He takes another draft of wine. “What do you do for a living?”

“Receptionist.”

There’s a pause. “Do you enjoy it?”

“It’s okay.”

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