Chapter 444: Cara Mia

"You didn’t know."

"I knew something was wrong. For a long time I knew, and I never asked." He pressed his palms against his eyes. "I told myself it wasn’t mine to ask."

Eve put her hand over his wrist and gently drew it away from his face. His eyes were red-rimmed and dry.

"That’s not the same as knowing," she said.

"It isn’t enough."

"I didn’t say it was enough. I said it wasn’t the same." She held his gaze. "What else?"

He hesitated, and she saw him decide.

"There is an antidote," he said.

Eve’s breath caught.

"Prometheus has a counter-compound. It was made alongside the first, in case it ever had to be reversed. It would bring her off the dependence in days instead of weeks." Dimitri’s voice was very even. "He’s had it since the beginning."

"Then he can give it to her."

"He can."

"Will he?"

"Not for nothing." He stared at the lamp. "He wants Dante kept away from the laboratory. He wants him told that the trail is dead, and he wants him to believe it. If I do that, he gives me the antidote. If I don’t, he keeps it."

For a moment Eve couldn’t speak.

"He’s using her," she said at last.

"Yes."

"Again."

"Yes."

"And if you tell Dante the truth?"

"Then Lorenzo hears it. The alliance falls. My father burns everything he can reach to stop it." Dimitri’s mouth twisted. "I’d have a war with him, and a war with Lorenzo, and Dante at my throat on top of it."

"And if you do what your father wants, Isabella stays sick."

"For weeks. But alive."

"And Dante never learns who did it."

"No."

Eve looked at him. At his face, at the tightness around his eyes, at the hand she was still holding. He was waiting for her to tell him what to do. She could see it. He had come into this room expecting someone to hand him an answer.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"I don’t know."

"That’s not what I asked."

"It’s the only answer I have." His voice cracked on the last word, small and quick, and he looked away. "I don’t know, Eve. I’ve never not known."

She slid off the desk and knelt in front of his chair. Taking his face in both her hands, she turned it back toward hers.

"Then you don’t have to know tonight," she said.

"I have to decide."

"Tomorrow." She brushed her thumb across his cheekbone. "Not tonight. You’ve carried everything for everyone for as long as I’ve known you. Your family, your men, a girl you never wanted to marry. Put it down."

"I can’t."

"You can for one night."

He looked at her for a long moment. The lamp threw his shadow against the wall, tall and still. His eyes were the color of old silver.

"I don’t know how," he said quietly.

"I know." She stood, and held out her hand. "Come with me."

...

He followed her down the corridor without a word. In the bedroom, she closed the door behind them and turned the lock, and the soft click seemed to ease something in his shoulders.

She didn’t turn on the lamp. The city light came through the tall windows, pale and gold, and laid long shapes across the floor. She led him to the edge of the bed and stood in front of him.

"Sit," she said.

He sat.

She stepped between his knees and began undoing his tie. He watched her hands. She pulled the silk free and set it on the bed beside him, then started on the buttons of his shirt, one by one, taking her time. His breathing changed when her knuckles brushed his chest.

"Eve," he said.

"Hush."

"I don’t...."

"You don’t have to do anything." She slid the shirt off his shoulders. "Not tonight. Just let me."

He closed his eyes.

She leaned down and kissed him, slowly, with her hands on either side of his face. His mouth was warm and his lips were not quite steady. She kissed him until some of the tension went out of him, and then a little more. When she drew back, his eyes were open, dark and unguarded.

"There," she said softly.

"There what?"

"There you are."

He caught her wrist and pulled her down against him. She went willingly. He kissed her harder this time, and she felt the control in him fray, the hunger he’d been holding under everything. His hands slid up her back and tangled in her hair. She made a sound against his mouth, and he went still.

"Don’t stop," she whispered.

"I didn’t want to hurt you."

"You won’t."

"I’m not...." He swallowed. "I’m not gentle tonight."

"I don’t need gentle." She pressed her forehead to his. "I need you here. All of you. Not the man who carries everything. The one underneath."

For a moment he didn’t move. Then he exhaled, slow and shaky, and something in his face broke open.

"Cara mia," he said.

She smiled, and reached for the hem of her dress.

...

She undressed slowly, and he watched every moment of it.

The dress slid down over her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it, then reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. His gaze followed each piece of fabric as it fell. When she stood before him in nothing at all, he drew a breath as though he had forgotten how.

"Look at me," Eve said.

He did.

"I’m here. I’m not going anywhere."

"I know."

"Say it."

"You’re here," Dimitri said.

She pushed him gently onto his back and finished undressing him herself, taking her time with the belt, the zipper, the last of his clothes. He let her. His hands stayed at his sides, open on the sheets, and she understood what it cost him. He was a man who had never once let someone else take the lead.

She climbed over him and settled her weight on his hips. He drew in a breath through his teeth.