Page 62 of Blood Vows

“Everyone keeps looking at me like I'm about to.”

“I’m not everyone,” Dante said.

“No. You’re the man who was inside me ten minutes ago, and now you’re interrogating me about who had access to my crib.” Dante went completely still, and Elena immediately regretted the words—not because they weren’t true, but because of the hurt that flashed through his expression before he buried it.

“Dante—” she breathed.

He got out of bed and pulled on his pants. “Get dressed,” he ordered. His voice had gone cold.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she insisted.

“I know exactly what you meant,” he spat.

“No, you don't.” He grabbed his shirt and tugged it on. Elena climbed out of bed, wrapping the sheet around herself. “I’m angry, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

He turned to look at her. “Doesn't matter.”

“It matters to me,” she whispered. That stopped him. Elena crossed the room to stand in front of him. “I wanted what happened between us.”

His jaw tightened. “I know.”

“Do you?” she questioned.

“Yes,” he breathed.

“Because right now you look like you regret it,” she said.

“I already told you I don't,” he insisted.

“Then stop shutting me out.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s rich coming from you.”

She blinked up at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means every time we find another secret, you remember something else your father left behind,” he said, sounding like he was accusing her of some kind of wrongdoing.

“That isn't fair,” she hissed.

“No. It isn't.” He stepped closer. “None of this is fucking fair, Elena. Someone built an eighty-million-dollar company around your identity before you could fucking walk. Your father knew something. Hale knew something. Someone inside the Camorra family apparently knows something. And you keep getting shot at while I'm trying to figure out who the hell I need to kill to make it stop.” Her anger disappeared because she heard the part he didn't say out loud. It was the part beneath all his orders and threats—fear. Dante was afraid for her.

Elena reached for him, and he caught her hand before she touched his face. For a second, she thought he was going to push it away. Instead, he turned his head and pressed his mouth against her palm. The gesture was more intimate than anything they'd done in his bed.

Her chest tightened. “I’m scared too,” she admitted.

His eyes closed. “I know.”

“I don't know who my father was anymore.”

Dante opened his eyes. “That doesn't mean you didn't know him.”

“What if everything about my life was a lie?” she asked.

“It wasn't,” he insisted.

“You can't know that.”

He lowered her hand but didn't release it. “I know that men don't spend years trying to protect something they don't care about.”