“Like you’ve been nice all along.”
“Maddie—”
“Since the beginning. Except that one time when you weren’t nice but that was understandable.”
“My dove, will you cease speaking so I can—”
“And I’ve been a bitch.”
Apollo shut his mouth.
She had to let it out?
He’d allow that.
And he knew she had to let it out because she didn’t stop.
“A silly, childish, selfish, thoughtless bitch.”
Apollo said nothing.
“And that’s not nice but last night was way not nice. It was cruel. I’m cruel!”
Her voice was rising but Apollo held his silence.
“I’m a silly, childish, selfish, thoughtless, cruel…bitch!”
Apollo remained silent and Madeleine fell into the same.
After some time, her eyeballs rolled this way and that. Finally, they stuck on him.
“Um…why are you holding me in your arms?” she asked hesitantly.
“Because you were weeping and saying foolish things and I wished to comfort you and assure you that you were being foolish. However, you wouldn’t be quiet and allow me to speak so I couldn’t assure you that you were being foolish so that left just my holding you in an effort to comfort you.”
She stared at him a moment before she queried, “You want to comfort me?”
He gave her a squeeze and answered, “Yes.”
“But I’m a selfish, thoughtless, cruel bitch,” she reminded him, and with effort he successfully fought back his chuckle.
After he accomplished that, he stated, “My dove, the more time I spend with you, the more I learn about you and the more I come to understand there’s much to learn. What I have learned is that you are amusing. You are spirited. You can be charming. You can also be disagreeable. You can further be vexing. You’re annoyingly very good during an argument. But that simply means you’re quick-witted, which is not a bad thing, unless one finds themselves in an argument with you.”
She blinked endearingly and he finished.
“What you are not is a selfish, thoughtless or cruel.”
She studied him closely as if his face would tell her the veracity of his words and she must have read it wrong because her eyes again clouded.
“But, Apollo,” she started softly, pain beginning to thread its way back into her voice. “I look like—”
He gave her another squeeze and dipped his face close.
His voice was threaded with steel when he declared. “Ilsa is gone, Madeleine. And you are here. You look like her, indeed. But you are not her.”
“But you said looking at me felt like brands searing into your eyes.”
Bloody hell, she remembered his exact words.