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I glowered at him. For once I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm.
When I didn’t audibly react, he opened his eyes and looked at me. His brows drew together, exasperation written all over his face. “What would you like me to say?”
What Iwantedhim to say and what hewouldsay were two entirely different things. In the hope of avoiding an actual fight, I took a slightly less hostile route. Slightly, being the operative word. “This trip wasyouridea, so excuse me for wondering what your plan is for doing damage control when we get home. Unless you regret the whole thing already, in which case we need to have an entirelydifferentconversation.”
He turned his glare on his book, like an irritated cat ignoring a human, and lowered his voice. “Do you regret going?”
“Do you regret asking?”
“Doyouregret asking?”
Turning back to the window, I propped my elbow on the arm of the chair and bit my knuckle to keep from screaming. Way to take my question and use it against me, dick. Going on a month-long vacay without telling your girlfriend about it and a marriage proposal werenotthe same thing, yet he had the balls to try and compare them. I shouldn’t have expected anything less from the King of Deflection.
I tried not to growl out the next question, but I knew I did a shit job the second the words rolled off my tongue. “Youaregoing to break it off with her, aren’t you?”
In the most maddeningly serene manner, he picked up his book again and turned the page. “No. I figured, given your feelings on adultery, you’d beperfectlywilling to accommodate an open relationship at my bequest. I hear that is acceptable within the LGBTQ community, even expected in some circles. But you’re the expert, so I defer to you, mon coeur.” Each perfectly enunciated syllable dripped with sarcasm, even his French.
Before I strangled him with his tie, I exhaled slowly and turned away from him. Forcing my gaze out the window once more, I tried to focus on the fluffy clouds streaming by, looking for shapes or animals like when I was a child.
It didn’t work. All I saw was a leggy blonde dying in a multitude of ways.
Poison was too nice, too clean, for the amount of rage she called up from the depth of my soul. Likewise, an ice pick was too clean. Too smooth. It was going to be a knife. A serrated knife. Maybe that would clue her in on how fucking furious I was. But not too big... couldn’t let her bleed out too quickly, because that wouldn’t be very cathartic, either. She needed to suffer.
After another minute of silence, the book dropped again. “You won, Bennett.You. Not her. There’s no reason to sulk.”
“I’m not sulking,” I replied through clenched teeth, refusing to reward him with a heated glare.
His hand slipped into mine. I still refused to look at him, even when he lifted our joined hands and pressed a kiss to the onyx ring he gave me last Christmas. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?”
I cut a quick glance in his direction, fully committing to the role of the silent martyr. I was too far gone to quit.
“She won’t be there,” Leander continued. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“How reassuring. Making sure the mistress is gone before the lord of the manor returns.” I snatched my hand from his and stood, striding to the bar. It shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but it did. Maybe because I was used to being the interloper in other peoples’ relationships. Now, in a twist of fate,Iwas the cuckold. Neither the hypocrisy nor the sense of karmic justice were lost on me.
“Am I to be punished forever?” His voice may have been soft, but I detected the edge creeping in.
Dropping a couple of ice cubes into a tumbler, I blatantly ignored him while I emptied the rest of the bourbon into the glass. I swatted the bottle into the garbage can and carried my drink to the couch — conveniently located at the other end of the plane.
I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but since he’d been fairly mum about his time withHerI was left to fill in the blanks on my own. With an imagination like mine, it wasn’t a very pretty picture. Despite the events of the past month, uncertainty remained about where each of us stood in Leander’s affections. He wasn’t exactly helping his case by refusing to give any clear-cut answers.
Halfway through my bourbon, his fingers grazed my shoulder. He circled around in front of me slowly, a dark brow lifted.
I continued ignoring him in favor of my drink. He had his book. I had bourbon. We could spend the rest of the ride relaxing with our preferred method instead of devolving into a full-on fight.
Without warning, he kicked my feet apart. Smirking at my narrowed gaze, he stepped into the space he created and knelt between my legs. If he thought a blowjob would get him out of answering, he was dead wrong. I mean, he was welcome to try and persuade me, but my mind was fairly well made up.
“Talk to me,” he purred, his hands gliding up my thighs.
“So you can keep trying to pacify me with vague answers?”
“So I can try to understand why you’re so angry about something that means nothing. I’m here, with you.”
I glared at the shifting ice cubes instead of him. “Do you love her?”
“No.” He answered too quickly, which only made me more suspicious.
“Did you?” Lifting my gaze again, I watched each minute tic on his face. His brow furrowing, his lips pursing, eyes narrowing. All in a split second before they were gone again, wrangled into submission by his incredible control.
