Page 29 of Greed: The Savage
“I was not making light of you,” she called out.
When he didn’t stop, her desperation grew. Addien raised her voice, despising the shaking to it. “YouknowI wasn’t.”
The daunting lord whipped around.
He said nothing, just waited for her to speak.
“I don’t know how much you heard. Some of it. All of it.” Addien whipped her hand at the air. “Regardless, Malric, Ialsoknow that however long it was, you wouldn’t have ever heard me speaking ill about you.” She paused. “The other girls were. Andmaybe you should stop and think about why they’ve got so many nasty things to say about you.”
“I really don’t care much.”
Addien edged her chin up. “If you truly meant that, you wouldn’t be here feuding with me and trying to take away my livelihood.”
His furious eyes met Addien’s.
But he did not leave.
Then it hit her.
He wanted something from her, something specific. It wasn’t an apology.
She flared her brows.
He wanted the truth.
“I’m teaching them to read.”
Her revelation left Mauley slack-jawed and silent.
Just how she preferred him.
Addien took in a steadying breath. “I’ve been teaching the girls to read. This is the time I have for myself. And since you have me reading this rub—” At the narrowing of his eyes, she swiftly caught herself and corrected course. “Rivetingbook for ladies on how to conduct myself properly. The way I see it, I have only two options.”
And she resented that the little freedom she was afforded in life, he’d snatched away. It made her hate him, especially after this morning when she’d seen a new side to him and thought maybe…
She cut herself off from the unwarranted but very real regret of that.
“One.” Addien shoved a finger hard against his chest and winced.
Malric’s warrior-like frame didn’t even budge. His bronzed features, kissed by the sun and gods, remained a stoic mask. She’d, of course, be the only one of them punished by her point.
She jabbed him again and repeated it for good measure. “One. I can fulfill your requirements of me while, at the same time, providing my services to the women and children here, ortwo…” She poked him with a second finger, even harder this time, because to hell with him. And to hell with her for believing he’d done her a kindness this day. “I can stop teaching the people here who weren’t all gifted fine tutors and impressive educations to read.”
“And I will be damned, Malric Mauley, Marquess of Thornwick, I will bedamnedif I abandon them because you don’t approve of how I’m doing my work.” The vibration of emotion running through her snatched those words from Addien’s chest on a gasp and left her chest heaving.
Feeling more exposed than she’d ever been, having relished his distance and no one else. Knowing that she let people closer than everyone thought, she edged her chin up.
Chapter 7
“…I’ve been teaching the girls to read…”
Thornwick scrubbed a hand along the day’s growth of stubble on his cheeks.
Of anything and everything Addien might have said to account for her sitting around the kitchen tables withThe Book of Manners, that hadn’t been it.
“I didn’t know,” Thornwick found an ability to grudgingly concede.
He was starting to realize for all the notes kept, he knew next to nothing about Addien Killoran.
