Page 50 of Hero & Villain
“Crazy. Absolutely insane,” he ground out, shooting me a dark look. “You are killing me.”
I got up a little higher and then winced and pressed my hand against my chest where it hurt.
He cursed and then started the car, taking off in a swirl of dust that blocked out the stars. “I’m taking you to the hospital. Did you have a heart attack? I’ve never seen a panic attack that bad, but it seemed like?—”
“It wasn’t a panic attack.” I cut him off, forcing myself upright, ignoring the throbbing in my chest, the way breath wasn’t working, the way my limbs were still numb. “I was just excited about making out.” I took a few shallow breaths while he shot me a glower.
He opened his mouth to say something scathing, but at the last second he changed his mind and pulled on his bored Boston socialite face. “Sure. I’m still taking you to the hospital. I’d hate you to sue me for the misuse of my prodigious sex appeal. It’s killed people stronger than you, you know.”
I grabbed his arm. Every single one of his muscles was taut. “How could I sue you if I were dead? You can’t take me to the hospital. I’m serious. If you do, they’ll check my fingerprints, and word will get back to…” My throat closed up at the image of my grandfather’s face the first time he’d dislocated my fingers so I understood from both sides, also so that I wasn’t distracted from my duties by my cello. I had to struggle through a few breaths before I could try for another smile.
“I’m fine. Just take me to Jezebel’s house. She’ll put me on oxygen and anything else I need.”
“You’re fine? Of course you are. Utterly edible, including the greasy glitter. I’d consider it a personal favor if you talked to the therapist.”
I bit my bottom lip until it hurt. I didn’t want to think about therapy tonight after I’d gambled everything on him so carelessly, so stupidly, and won. “Or what? You’ll take me to a hospital if I don’t agree? I’m fine!”
“Or I’ll lick your face again. The tears look delicious mixed with all the glitter.”
Tears? Did I cry? In front of my target? No! I sneered at him, covering the panic with contempt. “I’m getting used to it. I’ll just call you Mr. Maples and get you some treats.”
He tilted his head, raising a brow slightly, still wearing that annoyingly civilized veneer. “And who is Mr. Maples?”
I rubbed my chest where my heart was still being weird. “The sweetest cocker spaniel mutt, but he’s not very bright.” Like me when I forgot about seduction and just wanted to drown in his kiss until my old trauma came back and punctured my lungs.
“You have a dog? How charming.” He was still channeling the bored Bostonian, but his hands weren’t releasing their death grip on the steering wheel. He covered his anger with good manners. How civilized. I hated it.
“It’s the doorman’s, I just walk him sometimes,” I said with my own ice queen impression.
“I suppose you can’t wait to return to Boston so that you can walk Mr. Maples.”
“He’ll be dead by then.” Ouch. The thought of losing Mr. Maples brought new tears to my eyes while my lungs snagged on my sadness. He’d be gone when I got back. Dead. Like my mother.
He covered my fisted hand with his and squeezed until I could breathe again. “I’m sorry about Maples. Death is stupid. It takes the best people and leaves the worst ones behind.”
“Like me? Death left me behind.” My mother meant for us both to die, but I hung on. Because I was a villain, and villains don’t give up just because it hurts. And they don’t snivel because they survived. I pulled my hand out of his and reached back for a box of Greek. I opened it and studied the contents like we were on a picnic at the beach. “The dolmades are passable, but the rice is hardly yellow at all. Such a shame.”
“Isn’t it, though?” He put down the gas, driving like he really was Dirk Dagger, adrenaline junkie. So fast, seemingly out of control, but his reflexes were very good.
So much for seduction. I stared at his profile in the reflection of my window and nibbled on stuffed grape leaves until I could breathe normally. My heart still hurt, aching for two things I couldn’t have.
In that moment, more than anything else, I needed him to hold my hand and never let go. But I settled for kebabs instead.
Chapter Fifteen
HERO
Iwent through the orchestration Roger added to her second performance after she’d taken off her coat. I did the editing personally, because no one else was going to see my goddess of death in a spiked corset, at least not until I published it for the world to see. Judge. Desire.
I groaned and pressed my palms to my eye sockets. I needed to kill something. Ihadto block out the whimpers she made when she was lost inside whatever memories she wouldn’t tell me about. Of course she wouldn’t tell me. She was here to seduce me, destroy me, bring me and my business to its knees, but instead she was sporting a bandage from Marcus Licinius Crassus, who needed to die, and having the worst panic attack I’d ever seen. Not that I hadn’t been seduced. I’d been happily on my way to inviting her into my house, where she could peruse my stealable tech without a blinking mountain lion attacking her. And I’d keep her there, where I could protect her from the real enemy.
She was a victim of Haversham as much as I was. More, because he’d been in her life longer than mine.
I knew that Haversham was evil, but what kind of sick and twisted man would hurt his sensitive granddaughter so badly that it left her…
I shook off the memory of her seizing up, the whimpers, the not breathing.
When I was kissing her, it felt like the perfect moment with the perfect woman, who had bet everything on me, even after she’d been exploited by so many men.
