Page 135 of Dishonored

“You mean fuck me?”

Caesar gave her a pointed look.

“Is that an offer?” she asked when he said nothing.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Good because the answer is no.”

“Ever?” he asked innocently.

Aria narrowed her eyes. “Not tonight.”

“So, even though you want to kill me a little bit, we’re still good to fuck is what—”

“Not tonight. And not when you’re feeling like you do right now. At least give me the respect of not using me like some object to make yourself feel better because you don’t want to deal with your issues, Caesar.”

Fair point.

“I’ll take the couch,” he said, “because I still don’t have a place to live since your husband burned it to the ground, I don’t want to grab a hotel, and I am not going back to the mansion.”

“You can take the bed with me.”

Lady’s choice.

Who was he to argue?

“Have a tart,” Aria said waving at the sweets in front of her. “They’re my specialty.”

He arched a brow, and gazed at the sweets. “Did you poison them?”

She smiled. “You know me better than that—nothing is ever as it appears, and I don’t do simple when I want someone to die.”

Truth.

He ate a tart.

It was good, too.

And not poisoned.

EIGHTEEN

A LOT OF things were not supposed to happen in this plan of hers. From the moment Aria had started to work out exactly how she was going to free herself from the marriage to Raffe, and take over her father’s Camorra in the process, she had a clear goal.

One path.

One road to travel.

One prize at the end.

And sure, she had sought out Caesar specifically because she figured—given the things that were widely known about him and his family—he would be an easy way in to cause problems, and someone she was capable of manipulating.

He had been exactly that. He’d also ended up being far more to her, too.

Aria had not been prepared for him, or the hurricane he would be once he swept into her life. She’d expected a man—like every other man she’d encountered—but he hadn’t been that kind of man at all.

He’d been this man.