“I like this movie,” I mumbled.
“It’s sad.”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, we had a cat named Maximus. My mom named it after Russell Crowe’s character. He was really cute—the cat, I mean. Russell Crowe isn’t really my type.”
Theo snorted a laugh and picked up my hand from where it’d been resting on his thigh to toy with my fingers. He ran his thumb back and forth along the tips, sending goose bumps blooming on my arms.
“Your mom has a way with names,” he said.
I snatched my hand away, but he took it right back, trapping it between both of his.
“Are you making fun of my name?”
He shook his head. “I used to think it didn’t fit you, but it does.A face that launched a thousand ships. That’s you.”
He meant to be sweet, but I cringed at his Helen of Troy reference. “That’s the Helen my mom named me for, but not because she thought or hoped I’d be some great beauty.” He brought my hand to his mouth, brushing his lips back and forth. “When I was old enough to sort of understand, she told me Helen of Troy was a ruiner of men. She said some people saw her as a victim, but she was really a seductress. Her beauty and wiles had set off a full-blown war. My mom wanted a daughter who’d be like that, to have men so worshipful of her, they would destroy the world to right the wrongs done to her.”
“Shit,” he breathed.
“It was a lot for a kid to hear and take in, and she kept telling me that as I got older.‘Make them love you, Helen, and they’ll do anything you want them to.’I don’t want to launch a thousand ships. I don’t want to cause a war, and I sure as shit don’t want a man fightingforme oroverme.”
“You had me until the last part. If you ever decide to give yourself to a man, he’d better be willing to fight for you and over you. Only way he’d be worthy of having you as his woman.”
I huffed. “Okay, whatever. I won’t hold my breath.”
He rubbed his mouth back and forth on my hand, then he brought it to his forehead. His silence told me he was thinking. His sigh said it was about something heavy.
“I speak from experience, Helen. I didn’t fight for Abby. That’s how I knew it was really over. Two years together, she dumps me, and I let it lie. I didn’t have the urge to chase her down and fight. I knew, and I accepted it.”
Since he was being open and I was curious, I asked. “Why’d she break up with you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “She said it was wrestling. It took too much of me from her, and that was true. The training was grueling. But she knew that’s who I was. She signed up for it, and she liked being the girlfriend of a champion. So, I don’t know. It might’ve been that themoreshe was looking for wasn’t my time, but me. I wasn’t giving her all of me.”
“Why not?” I tried not to move, so I didn’t draw his attention and end his sharing.
He sighed, and it was so heavy, it weighed down the air in the room.
“I know you think I was born into this life, but I wasn’t. I grew up in government housing where youdid notgo out at night unless you were wearing gang colors and prepared to defend yourself. I lived there with my pops until Andrew Whitlock swooped in and brought me here so he could trot me around like a prized pony.”
“Theo...what?” This was...not expected. At all. That was how closed off he was. He’d given me no inkling he hadn’t grown up here, living with his esteemed dad, in a big house, with no worries or cares except making weight for wrestling.
He turned his head, the light from the TV making his eyes practically glow. “It doesn’t matter. I grew up rough, and I had no choice but to be hard. I had to fight to survive that world, and when I got pulled into this one, the fight didn’t end, it just got better dressed, you know?”
I nodded. I knew that intimately. Being in a rich, fancy, private institution didn’t keep out the ugly. The ugly just wore designer clothes and could shoot you down with a flick of their powerful connections instead of a Glock.
“I know,” I whispered.
He moved his foot over mine, rubbing it rhythmically. “Abby fit my new life—pretty, popular, rich, Andrew Whitlock approved—and I did love her. But I didn’t fight for her because I was never going to give her all of me. I don’t even know if I know how, but if I ever figured it out, it never would have been with her.” His foot scooped mine up, pulling it toward him so my leg draped over his. “You should have a man who’ll burn down the world and rebuild it for you, Helen. Nothing less for you.Nothing.”
My heart twitched painfully in its binds. I heard the implications behind his words. He wouldn’t be that man. He wouldn’t burn down the world for me. Not now. Not ever. He thought I should walk away because I deserved more than he would ever give. I heard all that, took it in, and hated it. I hated it, not because I believed I deserved it, but because Theo did, and he knew he wasn’t going to be that for me.
“You should have a woman who’ll make it easy for you to light the match, Theodore.” I took my feet back and tucked them to my side, ending our physical connection.
Theo rounded on me, and in the dim light, his glare was slightly menacing. Not that I was afraid of him. I wasn’t. Except I didn’t know what that glare meant.
A second later, I did. Theo shifted his body, and then mine, so I was flat on my back and he lay half on me, half on the cushions. His head was on my chest, arm firmly wrapped around my middle. I was trapped beneath his weight, but it was the most dangerous type of trap, the kind that felt so good, I didn’t even attempt to escape.
“Don’t pull away from me the second I get real with you,” he groused.