Page 15

Anger surged, fiery and ready to be unleashed. I leveled him with a look that dared him to repeat himself.
“Considering?” My heart hammered as a murderous haze clouded my eyesight.
My other hand drifted beneath the table, brushing leather against the dagger strapped to my thigh. One twist and his throat would part like silk. Blood would bloom across Elias’s white marble.
He swallowed, a blush creeping into his cheeks. He looked sheepish, but not enough to stop himself from saying the asinine thing that was about to come out of his mouth.
“Considering what you went through. It’s not exactly private—everyone’s heard.”
I let out a breath that felt too loud. My gaze narrowed, pressing him into silence.
He leaned forward, as if we were about to share a secret. “Tell me, Calista, since it’s just the two of us. Were the rumors true? The ones about what they did to you? Because of the stories… God, they made it sound like you were torn apart.”
I sat very still, the blade in shadow at my side.
My jaw slammed open, heat flushing my cheeks. How dare he? We’d only just met.
He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur, as if that lessened the offensiveness of his words. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you look really good.”
He sank back in his chair, a thin sheen of sauce glinting at the corner of his mouth, and grinned like he’d just delivered a compliment.
“Seriously, you look great. You’d never know a thing by looking at you. That’s why I asked if it was as bad as I heard.”
His words fell between us like shards of broken glass. Beneath the table, my fingers tightened around the knife’s handle.
I imagined the satisfying give of warm flesh and the metallic tang of blood scenting the air, then wrenched the thought away before it could escape.
“I’m not sure how to answer that, Dominic.” I forced a brittle smile and met his gaze. “But let me assure you, the deepest scars are the ones you can’t see.”
He cocked his head. “Oh, you mean like…”
He scanned my body, tracing the line of my blouse, and I closed my legs, the table’s edge cutting off his view.
“I mean psychological scars,” I stated, my tone composed yet firm.
My palms itched to rise, to send every fork and wine glass crashing off the polished oak.
I was seething with anger now, and I wasn’t doing much to hide it. How could he not notice? He seemed blissfully unaware of how he was affectingme.
He held up both hands, palms forward, flashing that smug smile. “I don’t mean to offend. I was curious since we were talking about marriage. Sometimes those things break women. They don’t always come back from it. Seriously, though, you look good. You don’t seem broken at all.”
A piece of lamb dangled from his fork as he watched me with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a specimen. The chandeliers overhead rattled softly in the hush his words had carved out.
You don’t seem broken at all.
The echo of his praise morphed into a blistering insult in my mind.
My pulse throbbed against my temples.
I pressed my lips into a thin line and leaned forward until the lace edge of my sleeve brushed the table.
“Don’t worry about wedding bells, Dominic.” I tilted my head, offering him a smile as brittle as cracked porcelain. “I have several suitors to consider. I’m nowhere near saying yes.”
He shrugged, wiping sauce from his chin. “That’s fine, but obviously I’m the best choice. You’ll see.”
I lifted my glass, rosé catching the candle’s glow, and sipped cool wine before setting it down with perfect, unhurried poise.
“Will I?” I whispered, my smile unwavering.