Page 58 of Harlot (Hush)
Pushing his seat away from the table, Wilder stands to his feet and gestures for me to follow. “Get up. I want to talk to you outside.”
“No, thanks,” I say.
This leads to him coming around the table to physically pull my chair back. “Walk on your own, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder.”
“Barbaric,” Lydia says under her breath. “Just like I said.”
I knew I was tipsy at the dinner table, but it’s worse on my own two feet. The floor feels like marshmallow, and my legs weigh a ton. My attempt at acting sober comes off as dramatic. My speech is too slow, over-enunciated, and slurred at the end. I blink too fast and smile too wide. Wilder pulls me back from standing too close to the edge of the balcony, and he sets me in a chair.
“Drink this.” He hands me a bottle of water. I take a sip, and he bends down in front of me. “Now talk.”
“Is this how it works?” I ask. “We only talk when you want to? You can kiss me, and sleep with me, and then decide not to say another word to me until you’re good and ready. And I’m supposed to be okay with that?”
His hands fall from the top of my knees to the side of my thighs. Wilder bows his head, maybe to come up with a way to kill me softly, or maybe he’s wondering why he ever got involved with me in the first place. I’ve always suspected that I wasn’t good enough for him, but now I know it for a fact.
“I was wrong to treat you like that again,” he says, falling to one knee. His hands slide higher up my legs. “I shouldn’t have left without talking to you first. I acted like a coward, and I hurt you. And I am so fucking sorry because you don’t deserve to be treated that way. Not by me or anyone else.”
I grip the armrests to keep from raking my fingers through his hair or rubbing the worry from his eyebrows. “I understand. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t understand anything, Camilla.”
Anger ignites inside of me like a torch. I push his hands away from my body and cross my arms over my chest, closing myself off or holding myself together. I don’t know.
Wilder crosses the balcony to lean on the wall, tilting his head back against the stucco finish. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. Even that insignificant little thing sends my heart racing.
“I can’t stop thinking about the way Luca looks at you, like you’re something to be devoured, and wondering if it’s my fault. I’m usually stronger, not so quick to react, not so easy to provoke. But I can’t control myself with you, and I’ve let you down. I’ve failed my brother and Lydia, and I couldn’t even handle business in New York because I couldn’t stop thinking about how fucking terrified I am to lose you.”
I shake my head to disagree, but he continues.
“The worst thing I ever did was let you walk into that meeting room with my scent on your skin, and yours on mine. I fucking loved knowing I was still inside of you, pooling between your legs, liked I’d marked you. But I’d dangled you in front of a killer and widened the target on your back. Then I had to watch you stand up to Luca with tears in your eyes, and it killed me, Camilla. I did that when I should be the one protecting you.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” I say in a small voice, and it’s mostly true.
“You should be, and you should be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you either, Wilder. I’m pissed off and confused. I don’t know where or how I fit in with any of you, and when I finally felt like maybe it was starting to make sense… when we were together in your office, for just a little while it didn’t feel like circumstance. Then you left without saying anything, and I saw that picture of you with that woman who’s everything I’m not, and I didn’t know anymore.”
“How many men have you been with since me?” Wilder asks like an insult. He knows the answer, but he asked anyway. “How many of them do I know? How many of them do I have to look in the eye with the knowledge that they’ve fucked you?”
“They don’t mean anything.” A crater opens inside my chest, and I hold my hand over my beating heart, hoping to catch it when it falls.
“Neither did she. It was business, you understand.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No.”
“Is she coming Tuesday with that man?”
“No.”
“None of this would have happened if you’d just talked to me first.” I take another sip of my water. Champagne lowered the heat, but it’s turned my emotions all the way up. My jaw aches, and my eyes sting. I release my bottom lip from between my teeth and say, “I’ve spent my entire life being told how to act and how to feel. We’re thrown together a lot because of Lydia and Talent, and things happen. I understand. I understand that I’m small, and you’re an entire movement, and I’ll never be enough. But you’re the first person I’ve ever given my body to and expected nothing but respect in return. You’re my choice. I can handle the rest.”
“Camilla,” he whispers, palming the back of his neck. “I can’t do this to you.”
I stand up and the water bottle falls to the ground, spilling water across the balcony as it rolls away. “You can’t or you won’t? I’m not asking for a goddamn ring. I’m asking you to stop treating me like a fucking whore.”
Gray eyes the color of thunderclouds strike like lightning, setting my soul on fire. His smile is pure electricity, and I turn to ash.
