Page 30 of Greed: The Savage
“Now, you do,” she shot back, deserving of her indignation. “Are you so self-centered, so self-absorbed, you think I spend my nights gathering a group of staff here at the club where we then make light of you,Malric? Is that what you truly believe I do?”
Addien packed such sadness into that question it took a minute for Thornwick to recognize the sentiment for what it was.
Pity.
He recoiled.
My God, shepitiedhim.
That stabilized him.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I heard the other women, Addien,” he curtly reminded her. She couldn’t dispute that.
Fire flashed in her eyes. “I’m not other women.”
“I’m fast discovering,” he muttered under his breath.
An utter wildling, Addien marched back, her white linen nightskirts snapping as if in angry support of their mistress. She placed her palms on the table and leaned close. Her body arced towards Thornwick, causing Addien’s demure neckline to gape. It offered a glimpse of gentle, delicate swells, meant for hispalms; dusky peaks, pebbled from the cold, stretched towards him.
He briefly closed his eyes and prayed for restraint.
When he trusted himself to not gawk at her supple body like some randy schoolboy, he opened them again, cursing that she should be so blasted beautiful while readying for battle.
The fight he expected didn’t come.
Addien’s eyes, the color of storm-lit heather, met his own.
“You are correct,” he murmured.
By the delicate lift to her arched eyebrows, she’d not expected that.
Thornwick’s pride hadn’t let him see anything other than Addien, the title he’d assigned her to read, and a group of her friends, and automatically he’d been the object of their discussion. He’d devoted his life’s work to being a man who left a mark, other than the blood-stained, debauched evil his father would take to the grave. He might have built himself to be different than the ruthless Duke of Calderay, but there were other ways he was fast discovering to be a wretch.
“I was a complete and total prick, making myself the center of something that had nothing to do with me. My apologies,” he said stiffly.
The incredulity on her countenance made apologizing so oddly agreeable he could almost envision making a habit of it with this woman.
“Yes, well, a man who believes himself quite wise once told me that apologies are empty and to show with my actions.”
Thornwick winced. “Me?”
Addien snorted. “As if you don’t remember.”
“Yes, but it’s easier to pretend it may have not been me?” He gave his best attempt at a sheepish smile.
Addien eyed him warily, reinforcing the actuality that Thornwick had never been one of those charming, roguish sorts—not even in his university days.
Sobering, he lifted his head in acknowledgment of a wrong. “You are right in your suspicion, and you would be right to leave.” But he wanted her to stay.
It’s why he’d given her leave to go. She’d remain out of contrariness.
As he’d wagered, Addien sat.
He quickly took the seat across from her. “How long have you been instructing the staff?”
“Are you going to report me to Dynevor?”
Annoyance brought his lips into a sharp line. “Do you believe—?”
