Page 44 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

‘Tell me what I need to do, Olivia,’ I said honestly. ‘Tell me what I need to do to get you to trust me.’

Surprise rippled over her lovely face. ‘You want me to trust you?’

I gritted my teeth, not liking that this should come as such a big surprise to her. ‘Yes. That’s what I said.’

She gave me a long, measuring look. ‘Well, not kidnapping me would have been a good start.’

‘We’ve been through that,’ I said impatiently.

Tiny sparks leapt in her gaze. And then she was striding up to my desk, slapping her hands down on the top of it and leaning forward, the look on her face blazing now.

‘I don’t think you understand, Valentin,’ she said, abruptly fierce. ‘You picked me up and tossed me over your shoulder. Youkidnappedme. Then you said you weren’t sorry about it. And that wasafterletting me believe you were dead forfifteen years!’ Colour stained her delicate cheekbones and I could see, all of a sudden, the decades-old pain she was hiding. ‘You broke my heart. How can you expect me to trust you after all of that?’

There was a wrenching sensation in my chest, as if there had been an arrow in my heart and she’d just jerked it free. And now I was bleeding, inexplicable pain radiating through me.

You knew what she felt for you. And you hurt her. Everything you’ve done has hurt her.

‘I was trying to save you; don’t you see?’ My voice had roughened. ‘Domingo was still alive, and I was afraid he’d so something to you if I—’

‘You think you’re the hero of this story, don’t you?’ she interrupted. ‘And I’m just your damsel in distress. You have to save me, and you have to save Constantine, and I don’t think for one minute it’s about either of us. Because, if it had been, you wouldn’t have pulled that ridiculously dramatic stunt with the lights and public announcement.’

She leaned forward a little more. ‘You wouldn’t have cast me in the role of the helpless victim you need to protect at all costs, taking away my choice by taking me away by force, and then using all my memories of you, the love I once had for you, to make me stay.’

She was breathing very fast now, her eyes glittering. ‘You wouldn’t have treated me like...like some weak little woman, like your pet or a plaything. And, yes, you could have sent me a damn email. You could have called me. You could have asked me to meet you to talk and we could have gone from there.’ She pushed herself away abruptly. ‘But you didn’t do any of that.’

All the pleasure I’d felt at seeing her had drained away, leaving behind that pain and a hot, defensive anger, both of them demanding an outlet. Demanding I tell her that she was wrong, that she was wrong about all of it. I hadn’t treated her like that, and I’d never seen her as some weak little woman, and especially not as a victim.

But you did. You saw her as still that fifteen-year-old girl with no power.

I didn’t want to admit she was right. I didn’t want to accept that what I’d done hadn’t been in her best interests but in mine. Yet the way she’d said it, and the look in her eyes, the pain I could see lurking in the depths...

Your fault.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last, forcing it out. ‘I’m sorry for how I treated you. That was the...wrong thing to do.’

But she was having none of it.

‘Are you sorry?’ she demanded. ‘Or would you do it all over again in a heartbeat?’

I gripped the arms of my chair and shoved it back, sending it skittering along the floor as I got to my feet, full of frustrated, directionless rage I didn’t understand and didn’t know what to do with. ‘What more do you want from me, Olivia? Yes, it was wrong, and I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t want you to say anything. What I want...’ She stopped suddenly and took a breath. ‘I’m not your victim, Val. But I’m not your enemy, either. I’m not Domingo and you don’t have to fight me.’

Tension gripped me. ‘I don’t think that.’

‘Don’t you? Aren’t you seeing me as him right now? Him trying to force something from you?’

‘No, of course not.’ I felt a muscle jump at the side of my jaw. ‘No.’

But she only looked at me. ‘I’m not trying to prove you wrong. That’s not what this is about. You wanted to know what you have to do to get me to trust you—but how I can trust you while I’m still a prisoner on your island?’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Olivia

HESTAYEDWHEREhe was. He wasn’t smiling any more, all that lazy charm gone. Now he was angry and defensive, with flames in his eyes.

He was dressed casually again today, jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that deepened his olive-skinned tan and made his eyes and hair look even blacker. The familiar scent of his aftershave wound around me...

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