Page 88 of Greed: The Savage
The earl drummed his fingertips along the sides of his glass. “Not the situation with Dunworthy?”
She gave him a questioning look.
“You said it doesn’t have anything to do with Dunworthy. Not the situationinvolvingDunworthy, which leads me to believe your leaving has something to do with Thornwick.”
Shite. Bloody hell. She was rusty.
She’d been safe and secure for too long. She’d initially sought Dynevor out, believing she needed to erect space between her and a cold, hard man she’d fallen in love with. In actuality, itwas so much more than that. He wasn’t the reason she needed to leave.
Security was the reason she needed to. Safety. The fact she’d let herself grow so close to him, and it wasn’t just him, it was Alice, who’d gone, and it was all the courtesans here. Roy. She cared too much and one couldn’t stay alive by caring about other people.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with him,” she lied.
Dynevor gave a frosty half-grin. “You took a minute to think on that one.”
Yes, she had because she’d been knocked off her game. Her shoulders sagged. Dropping the ball with Dunworthy had been one thing, but falling recklessly in love with Malric was another. Her throat convulsed. “Gone and got my head all mixed up, I did.”
“Yer head or yer heart?”
Addien still couldn’t speak her folly aloud. “Do you believe in love?” she countered.
He chuckled, a hard, cynical sound. “I believe people call it love when it’s really just people finding another person who they lust after more than any other, who also makes them a perfect business partner.”
He spoke so confidently.
Mere days ago, she would have agreed with him.
Not anymore.
Tapping his ink-stained, calloused fingertips on the brim of his glass, he let his expression ask for an answer.
“I’ve let myself get soft,” she said. He could understand that.
From the corner of her eye, a tear sneaked out.
Dragging together the remnants of her pride, Addien turned her head and wiped away that telltale moisture.
Before Addien faced the earl, she took a deep breath. “I have to get out, Dynevor. It’s got nothing to do with Dunworthyor even Thornwick.” She grimaced. “Not really, not entirely.” Addien tried to explain. “I never let anyone close because people don’t stay. You get that, right?”
“Better than anyone.”
“And you can’t control other people. You can’t have them make the decisions you want. You can’t make them care about you or l-l …” Her voice broke. “As I said, I’ve let my guard down. I’m no good here. And it ain’t about being afraid of anyone. It’s about being weak. I’ve relied on you and the Devil’s Den. It ain’t good to get this close to people.”
Dynevor sat, studying her pain.
He knew what she spoke about. She needed him to acknowledge that fear, to know he carried it too.
Even more, she needed him to urge her to stay. To tell her she was family. That she mattered to him and the people here at the Devil’s Den.
But he didn’t because people didn’t care about her or need her. That was, they didn’t need her beyond whatever way she might serve them.
“…I’ve been honest about why I’d marry you. But hear me when I say: I respect you. I admire your strength, your courage, your unshakable convictions…I love having you in my bed…I will keep you safe…I will keep you secure…I will keep you so well sated you’ll forget what it is to want…”
She’d waited desperately for the one profession she’d yearned for him to make.
But it hadn’t come.
In the end, he’d promised so much, but it was the one thing he hadn’t said that had broken her.
