Page 23 of Love Her

“Nothing,” I protested, fighting him a little, which he allowed, loosening his grip on me. “I just—for a second it felt like everything that’d happened earlier was a dream,” I lied, nestling into his utter realness—the way he smelled like the soap we’d both used, the way his skin felt against mine, how fun it was to run my fingers through the hair upon his chest.

“I only wish part of it was,” he said, talking into the top of my head, as his own hands roamed my body without intent, like he just wanted to know more of me, but not in a biblical sense, and then he inhaled deeply. “You’re special, you know.”

I snorted against him. “I always have been,” I muttered, somewhere from the vicinity of his chest.

Special enough to be born a Ferreo.

Special enough for my uncle to torture me.

“No, Lia—I mean it.”

I somehow got my body a full millimeter closer to his in all dimensions. “How?”

“Because you know the real me. Isabelle…did not.”

I went still against him. I hadn’t been intending on continuing that plot thread unless he’d brought it up again—but now that he had, it was clear he had something to confess. I rose up to my elbows slowly, so I could look down at him, and see the glitter of the nearby urban landscape in his eyes. “What happened?”

“She got a glimpse of my real life and ran away.” I felt my brow furrow as he went on. “It was messier than that. We just had an unspoken arrangement, you know?” he said, not really asking, as he licked his lips and stared up at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t bring work home, so to speak, and she wouldn’t ask—so I wouldn’t have to lie.”

I knew what kind ofworkhe meant, immediately. “Why’d you take up with her, Rhaim?” I’d always wondered what kind of magical glamour some other woman could have over him.

“I think—only with the benefit of introspection, because despite what you see on TV, men like me donotgo to therapy—I wanted to try out something normal. Like something that would befit my station.”

I nodded softly. As CFO of Corvo Enterprises, it wouldn’t have looked good for him to be out tomcatting around. Plus, also, maybe, he was just curious.

Lord knew I was, having spent long enough on normal’s other-side.

Which…might be why I read so many goddamned books….

“But I should’ve known I’d hurt her,” he said, and then looked fully at me. “And, Lia, there’s a chance I might hurt you.”

“I doubt that,” I whispered to him.

“You might have to pretend to hate me, at some point in time, during our charade,” he countered, only half of his lips lifting into a grin.

“I feel capable of that, no problem,” I said, grinning back, before sobering. “But if you weregoingto hurt me…how?”

“By dying,” he said simply, like it wasn’t a frightening thought.

“Rhaim—” I hissed.

“No, little girl,” he said, cutting me off. “Let’s be honest with one another—because what’s the point of being truly in love, if you can’t be?”

I bit my lips instead of fighting him.

Look at that. Personal growth.

“I don’t want to. And I can tell you right now that I’d crawl out of a grave to see you, if I had it in me. But—if something happens to me—if I go to jail, you don’t know me. You completely write me off. Don’t send letters, don’t visit, nothing, do you hear me?”

“How come you get to be the one making all the rules?”

“Because I’m your Daddy, so knock it off,” he said, patting my cheek. “And if I die—you don’t come after me.”

It took me a moment to parse what he’d said. “Rhaim—” I said again, this time far more angrily.

“I’ve seen your fucking wrists. So hear me out—if I die, you can visit my grave, but if you come and see me even one second before God intended in the afterlife, I swear to you I will run the fuck away.”

My hands clenched into fists, and I moved to kneeling, furiously looking around so I could find something to throw—or maybe I could smother him with a pillow.

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