Page 95 of Spearcrest Queen

“Not in a thousand years.”

“You’re so jealous you could choke.”

I hate him. I want him dead. I want him. I want him dead.

“What’s there to be jealous of?” I snap. “We’re not together, are we?”

He has the audacity to laugh in my face.

“You’re already acting the lawyer, playing with the truth like it’s a game.”

“Do Ilooklike I’m playing?”

“You look like you just got caught alone with a man you don’t want to make the man youdowant jealous.” He steps closer, not touching me but standing close enough that I can feel his body heat, smell his cologne. I step back. “You look like you’re angry, and restless, and so goddamn pent-up one touch would make you explode like dynamite. You look like you know exactly what you want and how to take it, but you’re still fighting some stupid battle onlyyoucare about.”

“Oh!” I laugh too, my laughter a twisted echo of his, heavy where his was light, grating where his was airy. “Working in publishing’s made you socreative.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

He steps forward; I step back.

Fuck. My back hits the door.

Evan braces an arm next to my head, looking down at me.

“Or better yet,” he murmurs, “tell me to leave.”

I glare at him, but he remains gentle, self-assured.

“Say it,” he coaxes. “Refuse my terms. Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll walk away. I’ll respect your decision, even if I know it’s the wrong one. I’ll leave knowing exactly what’s in your heart. I’ll give you whatever you ask for, Sophie, even if I know it’s not what you actually want.”

And I realise that I’m not just backed up against a wall. I’m backed up against the edge of some vertiginous cliff, a black, stormy void gaping at my feet. Any control I ever had, I’ve lost.

There’s no more running I can do, nowhere left to hide.

No more holding back; any power I ever had frittered away, burnt to ashes. If I want him, I’m going to have to let myself fall back over that cliff’s edge. I’ll have to choose the unknown over the certainty of my own painful loneliness, choose risk over control, and it’s so terrifying I can hardly bear it: the awful, heart-bursting exhilaration of letting go, of giving in.

“Don’t over-complicate things,” I say haltingly.

My heartbeat is so loud in my ears that I wonder if Evan can hear it, can feel the mad panicked pulse in my neck, in my body.

“I’m not.” His fingers brush my jaw. “The opposite. All you have to do is say a single word. Yes, or no. That’s all. That’s it.”

He cups my face like a precious ornament, like a rare artefact, brushing a thumb along my jaw, fire catching wherever he touches, the coatroom too small, too hot, as red and pulsing as a locked heart.

My knees buckle beneath me and I reach up to settle myself, gripping Evan’s collar in my hands, knuckles turning white.

“You know what you want,” Evan says, or maybe he doesn’t say it, maybe it’s just my feverish mind, which is also screamingyes.

Yes. Why shouldn’t I? I want him. I want him so badly I could starve, I want him like air, like sunlight and water. And he’s mine. He’s always been mine, hasn’t he? So why shouldn’t I have him? Who am I punishing? I already punished everybody that needed punishing. Everything that I wanted, I’ve worked for and taken. Everything except for him?

So why shouldn’t I?

“Iloveyou,” I bite out angrily.

He pulls back, eyes widening, and there’s a victory there, despite my confession—the satisfaction of still being able to shock him.

He watches me for the moment it takes him to catch his breath.

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