But she knew how to handle this. He was a wild creature. A beast. And the only way to tame a beast like him was to lay her heart out on her sleeve and feed it to him.
“That’s a shame,” she said hoarsely. “Because I need you.”
“No, you don’t.” There was a strange kind of tension in his voice. “You have your brother. You have your friends. You don’t need me.”
“But I do. My brother is…” She blinked back the sudden prickle of tears. “I don’t know what he is. A monster, sure. And yes, I have my friends, but … they don’t give me what you give me.”
His mouth twisted. “I give you fucking nothing but pain.”
That he meant it was obvious. It broke her heart. “No,” she said forcefully. “You don’t.”
“I kidnapped you, shot at you. Fucked you up against a goddamn wall.” He’d pushed himself away from the door now, his hands dropping in fists to his sides, the tension pulling tight. “You slit your wrists to get away from me and then, when you needed me to protect you, I wasn’t there!” His voice had risen, echoing in the vaulted space of the apartment. “I was going to kill your fucking brother, but I didn’t. And you know why? Because I couldn’t bear to cause you any more pain, Violet. I just … couldn’t fucking bear to see it.” His chest heaved and for a second she saw the anguish in those midnight eyes. The same anguish she’d glimpsed back when he’d held that gun to her brother’s chest. “That’s all I give you, princess. That’s all I ever give anyone. So I repeat. Why the fuck are you here?”
She couldn’t stand still any longer. Couldn’t hold herself back. She walked over to where he stood, coming up so close. Not touching him, but getting into his space so he knew she wasn’t going to be backing down.
“You destroyed my world,” she said fiercely. “But I’m glad you did. Because my world was a fucking lie. My whole life was a fucking lie! And yes, that hurts, but it wasn’t you who lied to me, who pretended to be something they weren’t. It wasn’t you who faked their own death and let me believe it. You never lied to me, Elijah. You always told me the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts but I’d take that any day over a lie.” Her breathing was fast and hard, and she didn’t look away. Holding his gaze so he could see that she was telling the truth too. “I’ve been wearing a blindfold all this time and you ripped it away. You made me see myself. You made me see that I’m stronger than I ever thought possible.” She wanted to touch him, but she didn’t. She had to lay her heart out for him and see if he would bite. “I’m flawed, Elijah. There’s something bad in me, something hungry. And I wanted my brother to live, despite knowing what he’s done, because that bad thing in me doesn’t want to be alone. Because he’s all I have. And I was so stupid not to listen to you when you told me that I had you. So fucking stupid.” She let the emotion thicken in her voice, didn’t hold it back. “I chose the wrong person. I should have chosen you. So that’s the truth of why I’m here. I want to choose again. I want to choose you.”
His face was set, iron in every line. He was a man constructed entirely from hard materials, iron and granite and jet. A man of stone and metal. “Why?” A metallic, cold sound.
Violet didn’t blink. Not once. “Because I’m in love you, that’s why.”
* * *
No one had said that to him for a very long time. Not since Marie, the night before she’d disappeared, whispered with tenderness in his ear after they’d made love and before she’d gone to sleep. And he’d said it back, carelessly, holding her in the night. Never dreaming that would be the last time he’d do any of those things. Make love. Hold a woman. Tell a woman he loved her.
Now another woman was saying those words, looking up at him, turquoise eyes vivid in her small, pale face. Telling him she needed him. Telling him she loved him.
And he could feel that somehow those words were changing him, reaching inside him and rearranging him, creating a different kind of landscape from anything that had gone before.
He didn’t know what to do or how to respond. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she couldn’t love him because he wasn’t any longer the kind of man a woman fell in love with. But he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He didn’t have the language, not anymore.
She loved him. How did that work? After everything he’d done? After all the pain he’d put her through. He didn’t understand.