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“I’m not a thief.”
He looks at my mouth again, seems to get angry with himself. “Liar.”
He gives my wrist a shake to emphasize his point.
“I’m not a liar. Let. Me. Go.”
He’s moved closer. I can feel the heat licking off him, the anger fueling him. There’s an awareness dancing over my skin at his nearness, prickly and hot. It’s inconvenient since this isn’t a seduction. It’s not even foreplay.
“Let go!”
“Turn out your pockets and I will.” He says this with a low, dark growl.
I shake my head and the hair coming loose from my bun scrapes the back of my neck. “No. I won’t. I’m not your Artful Dodger.” How dare he accuse me of stealing? I’m not some pickpocket from his bedtime stories.
I glare at him and his eyes widen with a quick flash of surprise.
“The Artful Dodger? You read?”
I want to kick him. Hard. “Yes. Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve been doing it since I was four.”
He narrows his eyes, unamused. “Madame, turn out your pockets, or I will for you.”
Apparently, he’s done with the small talk.
I close my eyes and suppress the urge to twist my wrist free and knock him over the head with a book—one that I’veread. PerhapsThe Tale of Two Citiessince it’s huge and it’d hurt more.
Maybe it’d knock some sense into him.
If I could take my wish back, I would. Instead I’d wish that I never fell in love with Max Barone. Or maybe I’d wish that I never met him.
It wouldn’t make a difference to him. He wouldn’t miss me. He wouldn’t feel a hole in his chest at the thought that I wasn’t there.
In fact, I doubt he even knows my name.
“Do you know my name?” I ask him, opening my eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“My name.”
He shakes his head, then abruptly stops and says, “Dorene.”
“No.” My lips turn down. “Not Dorene.”
“No then,” he says curtly. “I do not know your name. I only know you take what isn’t yours.”
My shoulders sag, and that empty feeling I had in my gut when I saw the engagement ring Max made for Fiona Abry returns a thousand fold. How stupid is it that I’m in love with a man who doesn’t even know my name? After three years of seeing me in his house. After three years of sleeping on the bedsheets that I wash.After three years.
He clearly doesn’t know me at all if he believes I would steal from him.
I don’t know what’s worse, him not knowing my name or him thinking so little of me.
“All right,” I say, dropping my chin and staring at the perfectly cleaned rug. “But I expect an apology when you realize you were wrong.”
Max scoffs. “I never apologize.”
Oh gosh. Maybe if I’d talked to Max for more than fifteen seconds, I would’ve realized he was a jerk. I wouldn’t have been swayed by Dickens on the nightstand, hazelnut ice cream in the freezer, and British detective dramas in the kitchen. That would’ve saved me a few years of wishing for the impossible.
