“It’s not a complicated question,” I said, blinking back the tears that leapt into my eyes. I didn’t want to push him, but I’d been through too much the last few days, not to mention hell last night, and couldn’t stop myself. I needed him, and I would recklessly go after what I wanted.
Royce’s gaze drifted down to settle on my lips, and his thumb brushed softly over my cheekbone. “The way I feel about you is hard to put into words.”
I swallowed thickly. “Try.”
His eyes turned back to meet mine. “Everything I’ve ever really cared about has been taken from me.”
He hesitated and fell silent. This wasn’t a ‘poor little rich boy’ act. He was talking about so much more than just possessions. He was talking about opportunities. Choices.
And his mother.
“So, after a time,” he finally continued, “I learned it was better not to get attached to anything. It’s easier then when he takes it away.” He leaned in, setting the top of his forehead against mine. “You made that fucking impossible. I wanted to be cold, an unfeeling stone.” His voice went low and thick. “But you, Medusa? You have the opposite effect on me.”
He pressed his lips to mine, dropping a short, abrupt kiss on my mouth, too fast for me to react. Or maybe it was his words that made me slow.
“I’m never going to get that image out of my head,” he said. “When he was on the stairs and had you in his arms, and I thought that was it. Like everything else, my father had succeeded in taking you away, and something in me—I don’t know—broke.”
I clasped my hand around his wrist, giving us yet another place where we were connected, wanting to show him his fear wasn’t true. I’d never been or would be Macalister’s.
“Before, I wanted to destroy him,” he admitted. “Not just him, but everything he has too. Take away his money, and his power, and his company—”
I finished the thought for him. “Everything he cares about.”
“Yes. And in that moment, where I thought you were his, it meant I’d have to go after you too, and I . . .” He searched for the right words. “I told you I wanted to take over my family’s company so badly, I wasn’t capable of caring about anything else. But, Marist, last night showed me I was fucking wrong.”
I was short of breath, but he was too, like this confession was taking everything out of him. It was how I knew it was true. He lied with ease. Only the truth was difficult for him.
“The way I feel about you wasn’t part of the plan. I’ve spent so long like this, not allowing myself to care, I wasn’t sure I was even capable anymore. Honestly, in the beginning, it didn’t matter who got hurt, just as long as it wasn’t me, and I got what I wanted.”
He’d told me this the night of our first date. “Because it’s win at all costs.”
“Yeah. I mean, it was.” His relentless stare held me tight. “Until you changed the game on me. All I’ve ever wanted was to run HBHC. Every decision I’ve made has been toward that outcome, all until you came along with your green hair and your mythology book, and that little gasp you made when I had you pushed against that bookcase. I heard that goddamn moan in my head for weeks after that night.”
Heat rushed through me and clenched my body so tightly I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.
“I want HBHC,” he said, “but now I’m wondering if I want you even more.”
He’d kept me walled off for so long, it felt like he’d just thrown open every floodgate, and it swept me away. “I think I need to lie down.”
“You’re already lying down.” A smirk flashed on his lips before he turned serious again. “I think I can get to the place where I can say it back, when we’re alone and you tell me you love me, but I’m not there yet.” Determination flickered in his eyes. “I don’t want to say those words until I know they’re absolutely true.”
I stared at him. “I know I’m on drugs, but are you too? I thought Royce Hale didn’t talk about his feelings.”
His smile was pained. “He does after he thought his fiancée might die and he didn’t tell her any of the shit he should have.” When he released me and rested his hands on the bedrail, my skin mourned the loss of his touch. His hands were spread wide, making his shoulders high and tight, while his head stayed tipped down toward me. “If you don’t want to say it anymore until I do, I get it.”
I ached for him and his banker’s heart. He thought of love like a transaction, like a currency. A thing that shouldn’t be given away without receiving something in return.