Page 135 of The Wrong Man

“You’re going to hate me.” My voice cracks on the words. “But I can’t keep lying to you. I can’t build a life with you on a foundation of lies. You deserve to know who I really am.”

“Dylan.” His voice is careful, controlled. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

I take a breath. On the screen, a new herd of wildebeest is gathering at the river’s edge, preparing for their own crossing. I wonder how many of them will make it.

“I knew you were lonely,” I begin, the words scraping past the tightness in my throat.

Dante is very still. Watching me with those dark, unreadable eyes.

“And I saw an opportunity.” The tears are starting now. I can’t stop them. “I was so scared, Dante. I was trapped, and I didn’t know if you were going to get fed up with keeping me alive and kill me, and I thought if I could make you want me, maybe I could survive. Maybe I could escape.”

I force myself to keep going. To get it all out before I lose my nerve.

“I had a plan. I was going to seduce you. Make you fall for me. Use your feelings to manipulate you into letting your guard down, and then run the first chance I got.”

The wildebeest begin their crossing. The crocodiles begin to circle.

“The baking,” I continue, my voice breaking. “The macarons. It wasn’t just because I was bored. It was strategy.”

I’m sobbing now. Ugly, heaving sobs that make it hard to speak.

“The whisky. The conversations. The way I started touching you, letting you touch me. All of it was calculated. All of it was part of the plan. I was manipulating you, Dante. I was using your loneliness, your attraction to me, your capacity for love that you didn’t even know you had. I was using all of it against you.”

I force myself to look at him. His expression is unreadable. Blank in a way that terrifies me.

“But then I realized it had become real.” I take a shuddering breath. “I don’t know when. Maybe when you bought me the baking equipment. Maybe when you held me through the fever. Maybe when you almost killed Carlo because you thought he was threatening me. Maybe it was real from the very start and I was lying to myself the whole time.”

The tears are streaming down my face. I can’t wipe them away fast enough.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is wrecked, barely recognizable. “I’m so sorry. I understand if you can’t forgive me. I understand if you want me to leave. But I couldn’t keep lying to you.”

On the television, a wildebeest goes under. The narrator’s calm voice explains that this is simply the cost of survival.

Silence.

I wait for the explosion. The cold fury. The door slamming shut behind him as he walks out of my life forever.

Instead, I feel his hands on my face.

Gentle. So impossibly gentle.

“Dylan,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”

I force myself to meet his eyes. Brace for the rejection I know is coming.

But his expression isn’t cold. It isn’t angry. It’s pure softness in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times, usually in the dark, usually when he thinks I’m asleep.

“You were a prisoner,” Dante says. “My prisoner. I kidnapped you. Tortured you. Held you captive for weeks. You did what you had to do to survive.” His thumbs brush the tears from my cheeks. “There is nothing to forgive.”

“But I manipulated you. I used your feelings...”

“You used the tools you had available.” His voice is steady, certain. “That’s not manipulation. That’s survival. Do you think I don’t understand desperation? Do you think I’ve never done things I’m not proud of to stay alive?”

“But the beginning... it wasn’t real...”

“When did it become real?” he asks softly.

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out for weeks.”