Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“What’s your weakness, Evander?” I whisper, afraid of the answer.
“I have a lot of them.” He looks back at the ceiling like staring into my eyes is too difficult. “I’m quick to anger. I solve my problems with violence. I’m stubborn to a fault. I’m not willing to forgive. I have impeccable taste in suits—”
“Not a flaw,” I point out.
“—but my taste is also very expensive.” He’s smiling slightly at his own joke, but the smile fades. “I hold back. I’m slow to trust. I feel things, asteraki mu, sometimes too deeply, and I let them tear into me without doing anything about them. I want to be better, but I don’t think I ever will be. Those are all flaws. I have more, but I don’t think I know what they are.”
I chew on my lip for a second, digesting. I’ve never heard him talk like this before, and the look on his face suggests it isn’t easy. “That was hard for you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admits. “But I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to keep going in this war, keep risking my life without ever telling someone that. Without ever admitting I’m imperfect.”
“Nobody thinks you’re perfect, Evander. Nobody expects you to be, either.”
“In a family like this, even if everyone knows the lord is flawed, they pretend otherwise. Admitting to flaws is admitting to weakness, and weakness gets you killed when you’re standing at the top of a mountain built on blood.”
“But you trust me enough to say it?”
He closes his eyes. “You might be the only person I trust, asteraki mu. I know you’re angry with me—”
“I’m not angry.”
He opens them and looks over. “Then why have you acted like you don’t want to be around me?”
“I’m trying to be realistic,” I say softly, forcing myself to stay calm. I swear, he must be able to hear my heart racing. “We got involved because you felt bad for me. We got married because you wanted to keep your promise to keep me safe, but you were worried how your family would react having an Italian Capo’s ex-wife around. We never said this would last forever, and do you really want that? Do I want that?”
“Camille,” he whispers.
I shake my head. “It’s okay, I know you weren’t talking about our marriage. I have flaws too, you know. I get in my own head. I obsess about the past. I worry about everything to a fault. I’m terrified someone will hurt me like Christopher did. I also want to be better, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be my own person and it terrifies me. How am I supposed to know what I want if I haven’t experienced anything at all?”
He’s silent for a long moment. He looks like he’s digesting that, and I wish I hadn’t said it. This wasn’t supposed to be about me or our relationship—it was about him.
But it’s the truth. I’ve been so sheltered all my life. Now it’s like I’m seeing things around me for the first time, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with any of it.
Slowly, he moves closer. His hand touches my leg, and instead of flinching away, I let my eyes drift down to his chest then back to his mouth. He’s looking at me like he wants to shred me, like he wants to break me.
No matter how dark things get, there’s always this.
An animal, instinctual attraction.
Physical and undeniable.
“Nobody knows what they really want, asteraki mu,” he says finally. “Of anyone I’ve ever met, you’re the most well-adjusted. You’re the only one that actually tries to do what she thinks is right.”
“How’s that? All I do is lie around the house.”
“Exactly. You could leave, you could go to the diner. You could do anything at all—spa days, shopping weekends, whatever. Instead, you stay here.”
“Because right now, I’m only trouble.”
“The fact that you know it, and you let it dictate how you live, means you’re a better person than most.” He touches my cheek softly. “We’re both flawed people, but I don’t know how much credit we get for knowing it.”
“Will you do something for me?” I feel like I’m going to explode, like my nerves are going to break out of my chest and go for a rampage. “Come here. Come closer. Yeah, like that.”
He shifts himself over, his front against my side. He wraps an arm around me, his mouth nestled in the crook of my shoulder and my neck, his breath warm on my skin. I chew on my cheek to try to calm my heart but it’s hard, with a man like him so close.
I should get out of bed. I should walk away. Letting him lie like this, asking him to touch me like this, it’s only going to complicate things even more.