“What?”
“I dreamed of who I thought was Beatrice, but she had your hair. It was you. I was making love to you and then you were torn from my arms and I was held back as someone slit your throat.”
Her mouth dropped open and she gaped at him, completely at a loss for words.
What on the goddess’s green earth was going on?
She’d dreamed of him too. The same exact dream. Except it was his throat that was slit.
“Does that dream sound familiar?” he asked, watching her closely.
She blinked and shut her mouth so fast, her teeth clacked together.
Damn, she always got caught in her lies.
“Sibyl, I know you were lying about your nightmare that night. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
She stayed silent, not ready to let go of her rage and instantly deciding she did not want to hear anymore of this latest revelation. Really, how much could a girl take?
“You’ve had the same dream, haven’t you?” Her eyes went to the door with visions of escape dancing in her head but he shook her again. “Haven’t you?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she told the floor to her side.
His hands released hers but he didn’t let her go. His arms tightened around her, holding her to him even as her hands went to his chest and tried to force him away. She didn’t lift her eyes above his throat as she pushed with all her strength.
All this work was to no avail. He didn’t shift an inch.
“Stop struggling and talk to me,” he demanded.
Her eyes lifted to his and she obliged, “You made me your whore.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him and he seemed, for a moment, genuinely to be in pain. And she felt, to her surprise and annoyance (for a moment), upset for him.
“You were never my whore,” he murmured gruffly, his eyes drilling into hers.
“I felt like it,” she informed him with complete honesty, still trying to pull away.
His arms tightened. “I’m sorry for that but I never thought of you that way.”
“You did that first night,” she corrected him.
“All right, I never thought of you that way after that first night,” he conceded through gritted teeth.
She knew that. Rationally, logically, looking back at all that transpired between them. She wasn’t exactly hip to how paid sexual partners were treated but she doubted their men took them out to dinner and on jaunts to National Trust properties on the weekend.
She knew all of this but she wasn’t rational or logical at that moment.
Far from it.
“Then how did you feel about me the night you threatened to f**k me on my dining room table?” she pushed, her voice was nasty.
Now she was out of line, he threatened it but he didn’t do it.
He didn’t apologise for threatening it but he still didn’t do it.
She wasn’t going to feel badly about being out of line. He’d been lying to her for weeks.
She told herself that but what he said next made her feel like an absolute heel.