“To me?” I craned my neck to look up at him and took a step back so we weren’t so close.
“Well, yeah.” He tucked his thumbs in his pockets.
“I can think of about a hundred things off the top of my head that matter more to me than the frequency of women through that revolving door you call a bed.” Okay, maybe that was a lie. But just a little one.
“Well, that’s a shame, because there’s nothing I can think of that matters more to me than who sleeps in your bed.”
Well, shit, I was speechless. Luckily, I recovered quickly.
“Does this matter right now? Because we are standing in front of one of the most beautiful tributes to love in the world, and I’d honestly like to enjoy it without arguing with you.”
“I never said I wanted to argue,” he, ironically, argued as we walked the path toward the giant marble mausoleum. The afternoon sun softened the white glow of the structure, giving it an ethereal glow.
“Yet here you are, arguing with me.” Could he be any more frustrating?
He grinned like he’d followed my exact train of thought.
“What?” I snapped.
“Just enjoying our progress.” He shrugged, his eyes dancing.
“Progress?”
“A week ago you weren’t speaking to me. Now I’ve gotten you to go away with me and we’re bickering like we used to. Progress.”
“I did not go away with you!”
“Well, by definition, we are away, and you are standing with me.”
“Oh my God, I’m not talking about this anymore.”
“Fine. Change of subject. How is it you can find a grave to be a monument to love?”
Every step we took brought us closer to the structure, the details appearing and consuming my vision. “Just look at it,” I said as we paused outside the entrance. “Look at the beauty, the symmetry of the inscriptions, the hue of the marble. It’s perfect. He loved his wife so much that he built her a monument to be unrivaled.”
I felt his eyes on me but couldn’t tear mine away from the intricate carvings along the arches. My attention was constantly shifting, drawn by a new element. “It’s exquisite.”
“I never thought you were a romantic.”
I shrugged. “I’m not. But when you’re shown a love like this, what other choice do you have?”
“It’s a beautiful building,” he said as we started up the steps.
“No,” I told him softly, taken in by every nuance of the monument. “It’s perfection. The symmetry is perfect, the art is perfect, the setting is perfect. Everything is taken into account.”
I glanced over to see him observing the architecture as we made our way around the space. “They’re both buried here?” he asked.
“They’re in the crypt below,” I answered. “And the only imperfection lies where the marble was broken when Shah Jahan was laid to rest with his beloved.”
“How beloved could she have been if he had other wives?”
“You’re one to preach on monogamy,” I drawled.
“There you go again,” he muttered. “I’ve done it before. It’s possible. With the right person.”
I looked up at him, skepticism crinkling my forehead. “Right. And how did that work for you?”
He stepped in front of me and turned, forcing me to stop. After a tense moment of silence, I finally brought my eyes up the wide expanse of his chest, over the lips I knew were impossibly soft, and to those eyes that currently looked incredibly wounded by my sharp tongue. “I didn’t say I didn’t fuck it up. I said it was possible for me to be with one woman. Love one woman.”
My stomach clenched, and my grip on my camera tightened. I tried to ignore the slamming of my heart and the way that tiny little flame of hope I’d tried to snuff out flared up just a bit. Maybe he meant it. Maybe he meant me.
Do not go there. He left you. Destroyed you. He only wants you because you’re unattainable, and once he has you, he’ll mark the notch and move on like last time.
“One woman like me?” I asked, my voice a hell of a lot stronger than I felt.
“Maybe only you,” he said softly.
Don’t let him weaken you. I gathered the bricks of my crumbling defenses and shoved them back into place. “What is it about me? Is it the chase? Are the other girls on board too easy for you, Nova? Am I a convenient game?”
His mouth dropped slightly. “You are anything but convenient. I’ve had parachute malfunctions more convenient than you. You’re the most frustrating, complicated, utterly addictive woman I have ever been around, but you are sure as hell not convenient.”
“So it’s the challenge. Nice to know.” Why did he have to do this here? Why couldn’t he let shit go and leave me in peace? I took one last look around and walked outside the mausoleum, leaving him behind.
I took a breath of the stifling, hot air and wiped the small line of sweat from my forehead. Breathing acid would have been easier than trying to breathe around him.
“Stop walking away from me,” he said as he came out behind me.
“Stop trying to convince me that you could be some devoted…” Lover? Boyfriend? “…guy.”
I kept moving until I reached the edge of the reflection pool and saw Bobby crossing the distance with a cameraman. Perfect fucking timing.
For the thousandth time, I cursed myself for signing that stupid release.