There was almost a scuffle at the elevator. She tried to take him out with a knee to the groin, but he was quick to foil her. Hugged her arms to her sides and stayed pressed against her so she couldn’t try again.
“You’ve been in my room,” she hissed so close to his ear if she bit, he’d sacrifice skin.
“No.” He pressed her floor with his elbow. “I want to talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“We have what happened to make you run to talk about.”
Not what she expected him to say. He’d successfully confused her. The breath she took softened her muscles. But it would be a mistake to trust that. “Are you going to attack me again?”
“I’ll do whatever I want.”
“Talk to me.”
She jerked her chin up. “Five minutes and then you leave or I’ll shoot you.”
She didn’t have a weapon on her; he’d swept her body for anything concealed, including a pat down of the soft purse she had slung across her shoulders, but it was still a viable threat.
“Five minutes, and if you’re not happy you can shoot me. I’m going to release you now.” Before someone called the elevator and they had to ride it back down again. “Try not to kill me in a public place.” It would be an amateur move and an ignominious end.
He let her go and she lurched for the open-door button. He followed her down the corridor, and when she fumbled through her bag for the keycard, he obliged by using his.
She blocked his entry with an outstretched arm. “Why are you still here?”
He pushed past her. “I told you.”
She following him inside and shut the door. “You know I have Sweet Celestia. Why didn’t you toss the room, take her and go?”
“More interested in tossing you.”
She blinked, then flushed, turning away and making a show of checking for Celestia, opening draws and fussing about, while his heart recovered from the pleasure of seeing that bright color in her face. The way she’d responded to him in that alley wasn’t simply leftover lust from her banished playmate.
“Not going to happen.” She turned to face him, perfectly composed. He’d stared at still images of her as Melody, so unlike his Aria, but now with her hair dark again it was easier to see his punk-ass danger girl. “Start talking.”
He didn’t want to stop looking at her, stop touching her, but for now, he’d settle for having her listen. “Your father was a son of a bitch. I don’t know if he was any easier for you to live with when your mother was alive, but from what I saw, he didn’t know what to do with a daughter.”
She dropped her chin and her hair swung forward, obscuring her face.
“Worse, he didn’t try to love you, just shut you out.”
She tossed her head. “Shut me out? That’s what you think happened? He left everything to you because he shut me out, like I was a stray cat with fleas he’d regretted giving access to the house.”
Something like that. The more Aria had rebelled to get her father’s attention, the more the professor withdrew from her. “He left everything to me because he was a heartless bastard and he didn’t expect to choke on a chicken bone at lunch.”
“Easy for you to say. You inherited the house, the money, his collections, his client list, his contacts. My entire legacy.”
“I was an idiot kid. I didn’t have a thought in my head about wills and inheritances. All I thought about was the next thrill and being with you. I had no idea what he’d done. Until they read the will I thought I was jobless, homeless, but fucking so in love with you none of that mattered. I thought we’d go on together, go straight maybe, never have to worry about him turning me in, turning you into someone who had to fight to breathe the same air as the rest of the world.”
“Liar. My father didn’t love me, but you manipulated him into leaving you everything. All I got was enough money to fund a degree, already paid to a college I didn’t want to attend. You stole it all and then you blame me for cutting out.”
“I know you, he never did. But you didn’t run from him—you ran from me.”
“What should I have done? Stayed to watch you spend my money, live in my house, sell off my antiquities so you could holiday somewhere tropical? He turned you into him. Egotistical, insufferable, lying, thieving, cheating bastard.”
“I didn’t steal anything from you. I’m nothing like your father. I know how to love you. But you didn’t give me a chance.”
“You know nothing about me.”