“Taff’s not one for subterfuge,” Dom said. “Really unable to read a room too. But Mimic? He can walk in and get the lay of the land in under a minute. That’s what he did tonight.”
“I don’t care.” I shrugged his hands off my shoulders. Didn’t help, I could still feel the weight of them. “I can’t believe you brought him here just to fuck with me. That’s so fucking typical of you.”
“No, I brought him here to show you that you’re wrong. That you don’t want to see me moving on any more than I do.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Don’t you realise how fucked up that is? You’re insane, Dominic.”
“What I am is in love,” he shot back fiercely. “Yes, I know the way I’m acting isn’t right, but you know what? I don’t give a fuck. I’ll do a lot worse if it means getting you back in my life.”
Dom’s words sent fire through my veins. A fire that went straight to my heart, attempting to melt the years of ice that encased it.
You do not find that attractive. It’s sick and twisted,I hissed at my heart.
But he’s ours,my heart protested.
He wasn’t. Not anymore.
I balled my hands. “You’re still labouring under the delusion that I want you back, Dom. I don’t. I want to be with Kate.”
“Ah, Kate,” Dom mused. “Yes. Let’s talk about her some more. I really enjoyed the part where you almost combusted just because she was checking out my tattoos.”
Not tattoos. My art,my heart whispered.See? He never forgot about us.
It didn’t matter. Not with how he’d behaved in the years since. The silence.
The way he’d left me.
“Of course I was bothered. My fiancée was touching you.”
“Funny, you didn’t seem as bothered when she was touching that other guy. That was far more intimate than what she did to me, but you barely blinked.”
I snorted. “Because that’s her stepbrother. There’s nothing to be jealous over.”
“Stepbrother?” Dom considered that for a moment before shrugging. “Yeah, I don’t think that matters.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that love doesn’t give a fuck about trivial shit like that.” He reached out to brush a lock of hair from my forehead.
I let him. I let him touch me.
Why am I letting him?
“If it did, we wouldn’t be in this predicament,” he said. “That’s why you hated it when she touched me. Because it wasmeshe was touching. As fucked up as it is, you don’t wantanyone else’shands on me, because I’m yours. Just like you’re mine.”
“There’s nothing going on between Kate and Rafe,” I said finally, deciding to just ignore the other part of his statement. “They don’t even talk.”
He tilted his head mockingly. “Just like we don’t?”
I swallowed, my throat tightening at the reminder of all those lonely years, wondering if he was okay. If he was injured. If he and Max had finally got together. If he ever thought about me.“Exactly. There’s nothing between them, and there’s nothing between us.”
Dominic leaned close, until there was no more than an inch of air and a decade of broken promises between us. “Liar.”
I jerked back a step to glare at him. “I know what you’re doing, Dom, and it’s not happening.”
His lips twitched in amusement. “And what am I doing, Shadow?”
“You’re trying to plant seeds of doubt in my mind about Kate. It’s not going to work. Our relationship is strong.”