**
“Shouldn’t you be with your fiancé? Celebrating the upcoming
nuptials?”
The growly quality in his voice made something warm stir low
in her abdomen. She cleared her throat. “He’s out there with Patch.”
“Ah.”
The alcohol honesty chose that moment to rear its ugly head.
“You aren’t much of a conversationalist, are you, Santiago Flores?” She wanted
to hear more of that rumbly voice.
“You want conversation?” The words sounded like a threat. “Then
by all means, let’s converse. Do you really want to marry Roman?”
This conversation again. Joy. Lila sighed, resigned. “It’s
doesn’t matter what I want. It’s what I’m going to do.”
“Are you really such a martyr?” That lovely growl was back
in his voice.
“It’s not martyrdom.” She was certain it wasn’t. She just
couldn’t seem to think past all the alcohol to figure out why precisely.
“So you don’t think you’re giving anything up, is that it?”
That was it. No sacrifice. How helpful he was. “Exactly. What
would I be giving up?”
“A thousand opportunities.” He spun to face her, dark eyes
flashing in the night, all that contained ferocity suddenly erupting with
startling intensity. “The chance to be something more than what others would
make you.”
“So I can be what you would make me instead?” She turned to
face him head on, throwing her chin back to growl up at him. “Everyone wants me to be their version of
what I should be. Even you.”
“Then what do you want? Who do you want to be?”
“I don’t know! Don’t you see? If I wanted something more
than this life, maybe I would go after it, maybe I would be brave, by your definition of the word,
but I don’t. I never have. So what’s so terrible about what I’m doing? What am
I giving up, Santiago Flores? What is supposed to stop me from doing what I’ve
always known I would when the time came? What is it you think I’m supposed to
want?”
“Me.”
**
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