I pull my hand out from under his grasp. “I… I can’t feel anything for you,” I clarify. “I won’t.”
“And why is that?”
“Because of who you are. Because of what you’ve done.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“It’s reason enough!” I snap. “You’ve killed two men right in front of me. One used to be your father-in-law.”
“And what about that frightens you the most?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I ask.
“Pretend it’s not and tell me anyway.”
How can he be so calm? I wonder. He’s looking at me like I’m the problem that needs solving.
“You killed your wife!” I blurt out clumsily.
He doesn’t seem bothered by the accusation. Just shakes his head sadly. “I did not.”
“You’re still sticking to that story?”
“It’s not a story; it’s the truth,” he says. “Why would I lie?”
“Because people lie to themselves all the time,” I say, parroting his words back to him.
His mouth tips in a barely decipherable smirk. “I’m not most people.”
I groan. “Okay, then you’re lying to try and convince me that you’re not the kind of man that you so clearly are.”
He snorts. “I don’t waste my time pretending to be someone I’m not. If I had killed Marina, then I would say so.”
“Despite the war it would have created with your father-in-law?”
“I’m not scared of a war. I’m not scared of the things I can control.”
“You can’t control everything, Anton,” I tell him softly. “You can’t control me.”
His eyes soften somewhat. “I’m not trying to, Jessa. Which is why I’m going to tell you the truth.”
An alarm bell sounds in my head. “So you haven’t told me the truth?”
“I meant I’m going to tell you the whole truth. About Marina and me.”
This is what I want. At least, it’s what I thought I wanted. But now, faced with his willingness to share his past with me, I’m scared.
But there’s no going back now.
So I swallow hard, summon up all my bravery, and rasp, “Tell me.”
His eyes flash silver, like a pair of full moons on some alien planet. “You know how we ended up together,” he says. “It was a marriage of convenience. Both our fathers planned the thing when we were still teenagers. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I was marrying Marina. I assumed it would be easy enough. She was an attractive woman; she understood my life. On paper, it was perfect.”
Even knowing how Anton feels about Marina now, jealousy swirls inside of me. I squash it down. She’s dead. What’s there to be jealous of?
“Then we got married and I realized how naïve I’d been.” Anton shakes his head. “She had a temper. She was controlling and possessive and prone to fits of jealousy. If a woman so much as looked at me, she would fly off the handle. She went ballistic with a maid one day because she walked in and found us talking in the garden.”
“Did she have anything to be worried about?” I ask.