“Then ask it,” Savannah said, her voice breaking, “andgo.”
She wasn’t a person who broke, wasn’t a person who quivered, and Rohan had never been one to drop to his knees and offer up his throat, but he did it now. He literally, physically went down on his knees before her, tilting his head back to meet her gaze.
“Do I love you?” he asked. Everything in him rebelled at the question. Every muscle, every bone, every ending of every nerve, every wall built up in his mind over years and years. He repeated himself. “Do I love you?”
A tear slipped from Savannah’s eye as she stared down at him. “I hate you,” she said. “I hate you so much.”
Rohan stood, taking her head in his hands. “That’s not an answer, love.”
Savannah closed her eyes but didn’t pull back from his touch.“Go.”
“One more right answer,” Rohan told her, “and I will.”
Her chest heaved with every breath, and still, she did not pull back. “I hate you, Rohan.”
“I know,” he murmured.
“You’re a liar.” Her voice broke again.
“I always have been.” He allowed his thumb to trace her jaw.
“This is the part,” Savannah whispered, “where you tell me that we are all liars.”
“This is the part,” Rohan replied, his voice hoarse, “where I tell you that I’ve been stripped down to raw truth: what matters, what doesn’t, what I am, and what Icouldbe.”
“I am not asking you to beanythingfor me.”
“You weren’t made forasking, Savannah Grayson. Everything about you is a command. Your eyes, your lips, the set of your jaw…” Everything about her was perfect to him. “Answer the question, love.”
And there I go, giving the answer away again.
“Don’t,” Savannah said fiercely. “Don’t call me that.”
“Savannah.” Rohan lingered on her name. “Do I love you?”
Her hand made its way to his face. “Idon’tlove you,” she whispered.
“Good thing that wasn’t the question,” Rohan said. He hadn’t come here to make her showherthroat. He hadn’t come here with any expectations at all. “And as it happens, I’ve never known you to back down from a wager.”
“Youdon’tknow me.” She didn’t call himBritish, the way she had, once upon a time. She didn’t call him Rohan, didn’t even call himnothing.
Nihil.
“I know,” Rohan told her, “that short hair suits you, and so does winning. I know that you hate flowers and most especially roses. I know that you were your father’s favorite, and your sister is yours. I know that you are a woman of your word and that you seeright through me.I know that someone made you think that you are cold when you burn like no one I have ever met. I know that you cannot bring yourself to lose to me, even now. So tell me, Savannah Grayson: Do I love you?”
She stared at him and into him. She threw knives at him with her eyes. “Yes.” Her voice broke. “Now go.”
“A deal,” Rohan said, “is a deal.” He didn’t get to decide what he was to her. All he got to decide was whohewas without the Mercy, and that was a person who had dared at last to reach for something warm and real.
He turned—to go.
“Just like that?” Savannah said behind him. Her words washed over him, and Rohan heard her take a single step forward—toward him.
“Consider it proof,” Rohan replied, his own voice breaking, “that I am capable of holding up my end of a deal.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t behind him anymore. “I hate you,” Savannah told him, tears streaking down her face in earnest now, and Rohan could not help thinking that she saidI hate youthe way Toby Hawthorne had always said the nameHannah. “Ihateyou, Rohan.”
Rohan stared at and into her, memorizing every last detail of her face, of her tears, of this moment. “I know.”