Page 110 of A Beautiful Crime

He laughs but it’s hollow and dark. “Well, you’ve certainly done a great job in trying. You’ve nearly succeeded.”

Wounded. Constantine Donati is so very wounded. More than just his pride, but also his heart. And I’ve done that to him.

“My feelings have changed, Constantine.” His eyes soften for a mere second at the sound of his name. “I don’t loathe you, Constantine.” My confession softens him once more. “Perhaps I never really did.” Confessions. He might as well be my priest for how I’m confessing everything. “How can I hate you when you are the only one who has ever seen me? How can I hate you when you are the only one who accepts all that I am?”

He’s weakening. I can feel it, sense it. Yet his eyes remain doubtful. “How do I know you aren’t trying to fool me? How am I supposed to believe these strong feelings of disdain and hatred have changed?”

I’m not used to begging. Even as young as I can remember my papa told me how a Fiore is to never beg. We aren’t dogs, he had said, and we aren’t weak blooded. And so I never did. Cried, when the lashings proved to be too painful, but never begged for mercy.

And I won’t beg now.

I won’t beg for Constantine to believe me. I won’t beg for his forgiveness. Not because I am a Fiore but because I am meant to be his Queen.

Queens do not beg.

They are women of action. Of words.

This is how I will prove it to him.

Without second thought and throwing away all rational thinking I grab the very same steak knife I used against him weeks ago. Except this time I place the sharpened edge of the knife against my own throat.

CHAPTER 23

Carina

Constantine’s eyes widen with worry. “Carina.” His voice sounds strangled.

He goes to take a step closer but I stop him by pressing the knife deeper in my skin. I hiss from the slight sting of pain as blood wells and drips down my neck. His eyes stay transfixed on the sight. His muscles are straining. His fists so tight his knuckles start bleeding once more.

“You want me to prove it to you. I can prove it to you by forsaking all others, even my own self.” The knife cuts me as I speak and he swallows roughly.

“Carina, put the knife down.” His voice is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Stern yet soft. Even yet uncontrolled. Like a thread he’s unraveling.

I tighten my grip on the knife and his breath hitches. “My blood of your blood,” I tell him with an eerie calmness I don’t feel.

“Carina,” he says my name with warning and worry. Apprehension swallows his eyes whole. “Mia leonessa,” the sound of my pet name has my resolve weakening, “stop this.”

My fingers flex around the handle. “I will gladly bleed for you,” I echo the words he told me on the night I destroyed us.And as he meant it then, calling to my dark desires and accepting it, I mean it now but in a different way.

“I would never ask that of you.” I see in his eyes his words to be true.

“A King can die for his Queen but she cannot return the favor?”

He dares to take a step towards me, a small step forward to gauge my reaction. As he sees I haven’t dug the knife deeper he takes another. Step by step he closes the distance until he stands before me.

Slowly, cautiously, he raises his hand until his palm covers my own over the handle of the knife.

How heavenly it is to feel his skin against my own.

“If you were to die for me, Carina,” my name rolls off of his sinful tongue calling to my blood, “I would have nothing to live for.” His confession leaves me breathless. And wanting.

“You have an entire empire,” I remind him breathlessly. I don’t even know why I am arguing with him. Maybe I’m trying to convince him that what he feels for me isn’t that strong. Maybe I just want to hear him say the words that I mean everything to him.

Validation.

Is that what I’m seeking?

Or am I seeking the proclamation of love?

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