Page 75 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
Her laugh was short and sharp. “Oh, your curse. As if that’s the only way you might bring harm upon somebody. Curses aren’t real, Harry! But the way you treat people you profess to care about, thatisreal. The things you say to me are what’s real. And you’ve never been careful not to hurt me. You’ve never given a damn.”
He was startled by the fact that she had spoken so harshly. Perhaps she was startled too, for she fell silent.
For a moment, the two of them stood there, neither one looking at the other.
“Stay out here,” Juliet murmured. “I’m leaving. I don’t want anyone to know that we were out here together.”
And she pushed past him towards the curtain.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
All Juliet wanted in the world was to get away from Harry. She couldn’t believe she had allowed him to make her feel sorry for him. In the face of his so-called “curse,” she’d forgotten all about the fact that he had always been insensitive towards her. And even now, when she was giving up something she badly wanted for his sake, he was thinking about her younger self. Her ugly face. Her chubby cheeks.
Chipmunk.
She was about to leave, but he caught her by the wrist and pulled her back.
She gasped, her whole body going rigid. It was too reminiscent of the way Lord Stickland had treated her. She couldn’t even bring herself to try to pull away from him. The bruises Lord Stickland had left on her arm were too near in memory.
“Oh—” Harry dropped her arm as if he had touched something hot and burnt himself. “Juliet, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“You never think.” The words came out thoughtlessly, but she was crying in earnest now. She couldn’t believe this had all gone so wrong.
“Don’t leave,” Harry pleaded. “Please don’t leave. Just stay and talk to me. Just tell me what I did to upset you.Please.”
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him right now. She was humiliated.
But she wasn’t afraid of him. Even though he had grabbed her arm the way he had, she still wasn’t frightened. And that mattered. The fact that she felt safe with him even as she hated him… that mattered.
Maybe he really doesn’t know.
Daniel hadn’t known that those words were hurtful to her. Maybe Harry didn’t know either. And the same thing was true of both of them. They should have known, but maybe the Duke really didn’t.
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But then I want to be done with this.”
He didn’t answer.
She could feel the heat in her face as she spoke, but perhaps the darkness kept him from being able to see how embarrassed she was.
“You have to stop calling me that,” she said.
“I have to stop calling you what?”
“You know what.”
“No, really, I don’t.”
He was really going to make her say it. She hated that. She didn’t want to be the one to speak the word.
She swallowed hard. “Chipmunk.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“You don’t like that?” he asked at length.
Juliet was astounded. “Who would like that? How could anyone want to be called names?”
“I’ve always called you Chi—” He stopped himself and tried again. “I’ve always called you that.”
