He wasn’t watching her carefully anymore. He realized what she was talking about and his jaw clenched.
Then he asked, “Why?”
“It doesn’t mean anything to you. And, when I bought it, I wasn’t certain it meant anything to me.” She watched the muscle leap warningly in his jaw at these words but she was too enraged to care. “But then it did. It meant something. And it isn’t right, if it means something to the giver, for the receiver to wear it if it means nothing to them.”
He paused for a moment before he spoke.
Then he said in a tone that was as much of a threat as the muscle jerking in his jaw, “Can I ask why in the f**k you think it means nothing to me?”
Sonia ignored his tone too.
She dropped her hand and snapped, “It doesn’t matter how I know, I just know. Now give me my ring!”
She watched his body grow taut before he stated, “You’ve got about two seconds, baby doll, to tell me what the f**k you’re on about.”
Something broke inside her and the pain was excruciating.
Because of that she leaned forward and hissed, “Don’t call me baby doll.”
And the second the words were out of her mouth, she saw it, clear as if she was an inch away.
His eyes instantly turned golden.
And he started toward her.
Sonia was alert enough to retreat.
“Two seconds are up,” he growled as he stalked her.
She was still throwing caution to the wind in the frightening face of his mirrored fury. She might have been alert enough to retreat but she was definitely not going to back down.
“I didn’t know your kind existed,” she threw at him. “But you knew about humans. You knew what wedding rings were.”
“And?” he clipped.
She stopped retreating, braced and shouted, “So I had an excuse when I started to take off my claiming chain! I didn’t know what it was!” She jabbed her finger at him as he stilled his progress and stared at her. “But you knew what a wedding ring was and you took it off just the same!”
His head jerked slightly, his face cleared of his fury and he murmured, “Honey.”
“Don’t call me that either,” Sonia snapped. “This charade is over. You don’t like blondes? Great. Fine. Whatever. Consider your duty served, Callum. In public, if your people want me, I’ll be their queen. My parents wanted that. It’s my destiny. Even I feel it, though I don’t want to. But in private, it’s over. I’m done. If you aren’t okay with that, that’s good too. I’ll just go home.”
Sonia thought that was pretty good. However, when she focused on Callum and not what she was saying she saw he was grinning.
Yes, grinning.
He was such an arrogant bastard!
Then he asked calmly, “What makes you say I don’t like blondes?”
Sonia gaped at him.
Was he mad?
“That crazy woman said it before you sequestered her!” Sonia cried.
He started toward her again, not stalking in the same way but definitely still stalking.
“Baby doll,” he said with humor threading his tone, “She’s crazy.”