Page 70 of Phantom Mine

This time her laugh contains mocking levity. “Why should I? You’ve been far from honest yourself.”

“Explain.”

“How long have you known who I was?” she questions, placing her palms on my desk and leaning towards me across the surface.

“How long have I known you were the woman from that night?”

“Yes.”

“Since the first day.”

Valentina inhales sharply. She straightens, her arms crossing over her chest as her glare returns. “That long?”

“That long,” I confirm. “I recognized you the moment I saw you in that dark alley,cara.”

“How?”

The greedy ache to possess her thrums through my veins at the tumultuous look in her eye. “It was easy to recognize you when I’ve seen your face countless times sinceCarnivale.”

Her brows pinch together and I don’t miss the suddenly wary expression on her face. “Where?”

“Every time I close my eyes at night. Every time I’ve fallen asleep over the past eighteen months solely to seek refuge in the comfort of my memories of you.” She bites her lower lip and a worrisome pressure tightens my sternum. I clear my throat in aclumsy attempt at getting rid of it. “I followed you intoFirenzeand forced my way into your audition because I had to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. That I hadn’t seen you in my dreams so often that I was now hallucinating you in my reality.”

I stand and stalk closer. “If you won’t tell me why you’re here, can you at least tell me why you didn’t come that night? I’ve spent eighteen months wondering why.” The words claw past my throat. “Put me out of my misery.”

She shakes her head, jerking her chin out of my grasp. “I… I had somewhere else I needed to be.”

The more she stubbornly digs in her heels, the more she hides herself and her secrets from me, the more I find I want to dig for them. The stronger the itch for her gets, in no way scratched by having fucked her once.

“Don’t ask me why I didn’t come that night, Phantom. Don’t ask me what I’m doing here. Don’t ask me anything. You don’t want to know the answers. You would hate them, believe me.”

She flicks her gaze back up to meet mine. The force of the ferocious look in her eyes nearly makes me take a step back. Unyielding resolve shines in them, the kind reserved only for those you love deeply and wholeheartedly.

The kind you only witness on the faces of people who’ve suffered unconscionable loss.

An awful feeling leadens my stomach. Unease squeezes the next question right out of my throat.

“Are you avenging a dead lover?”

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until she shakes her head and answers, “No.”

The possessiveness I feel towards her is as foreign as it is out of control. There’s no reason I should be seeing red and nearly pawing at the ground like a raging bull at the thought that she’s appeared in my life because of another man.

And yet my stomach unknots and a long exhale settles my shoulders as she tells me otherwise.

I palm the back of her neck, kneading the skin there. “I’m going to keep asking why you’re here.”

Beneath my fingers, I feel her pulse flutter. “And I’m going to keep telling you it’s none of your business.”

“That’s alright,cara.” A cocky grin spreads across my face. “I’ll get through your walls eventually.”

“There’s not enough time in the world.”

“You have no idea how patient I am.”

I’ve been plotting my revenge for ten years. Spending a few weeks getting her to believe she can trust me is going to be child’s play in comparison.

“You’re not very patient where I’m concerned.”

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