Her words stabbed him like a physical attack. He heard echoes of his mother’s harsh voice, long ago.
Stop bothering me. I’m sick of your whimpering. Leave me alone.
Leonidas had spent three decades distancing himself from that five-year-old boy, becoming rich and powerful and strong, to make sure he’d never feel like that again. And now this.
Senseless, overwhelming rage filled him.
“You could never love a man like me?” He lifted his chin. “But you’re full of love for a liar like your father?”
“Don’t you call him that. You’re the liar! Don’t you dare even speak of him—”
“He was a criminal, Daisy. And you’re a fool,” he said harshly.
“You’re right. I am.” Her lovely face was pale, her clenched hands shaking at her sides. “But you’re a monster. You took everything. My father. My home. My self-respect. My virginity...”
“Your father made his own bed.” He looked down at her coldly. “So did you.”
Her lips parted in a gasp.
“I never took anything that wasn’t willingly—enthusiastically—given to me,” he continued ruthlessly.
“I hate myself for ever letting you touch me,” she whispered. Her tearful eyes lifted to his. “I wish I could hurt you like you’ve hurt me.”
Leonidas barked a humorless laugh. “You can’t.”
New rage filled her beautiful face. “Why? Because you think I’m so powerless? So meaningless?”
“No.” He wasn’t being rude. If Daisy knew about the pain of his childhood, he suspected it would satisfy even her current vengeful mood.
But she couldn’t know. Leonidas intended to keep those memories buried until the day he died, buried deep in the graveyard that existed beneath his ribs, in place of a heart.
“I hate you,” she choked out. “You don’t deserve—”
“What?” he said, when she didn’t finish. “What don’t I deserve?”
She turned her head away. “You don’t deserve another moment of my time.”
Her voice was low and certain, and it filled him with despair. How had he ever thought he could win her?
Leonidas saw now that he’d never make her see his side. She hated him, just as he’d always known she would, the moment she learned his name.
It was over.
“If you think I’m such a monster,” he said hoarsely, “what are you still doing here? Why don’t you go?”
She stared at him, her arms wrapped around her belly. For a moment, she seemed frozen in indecision. Then—
“You’re right,” she said finally. She crossed the bedroom and opened the door. He briefly smelled her perfume, the scent of sunshine and roses. As she passed him, he could almost feel the warmth from her skin, from her curves barely contained beneath the tight green dress. “I never should have come up here.” She gave him one last look. “As far as I’m concerned, the man I loved is dead.”
Daisy walked out of his bedroom without another glance, disappearing into the shadows of the hall. And she left Leonidas, alone in his mansion, feeling like a monster, surrounded by rich and powerful friends, in a world that was even more dark and bleak than it had been before he’d met her.
CHAPTER THREE
Five months later
IT WAS EARLY MARCH, but in New York, there was no whisper of warmth, not yet. It was gray and cold, and the sidewalks were edged with dirty snow from a storm a few days before. Even the trees had not yet started to bud. The weather still felt miserably like winter.
But for Daisy, spring had already begun.