If either of them had known what the other was thinking, the conversation would have arrived at a different second of itself.
Neither of them did.
"I will not talk to you if you do not talk —" Cixi began. "No. Probably I should have accepted Rafael's offer —"
She did not finish the sentence.
She did not finish the sentence because Cassian Crown, who had been across the low table from her one second earlier, was now beside her on the couch.
His hand was at her jaw. His fingers held her face. The face she turned her eyes up to was not the patient, half-amused face he had been wearing through the entire conversation. It was a face she had not, until this bright second, ever seen.
"Did I not tell you to stay away from him?"
His voice was low.
"Or maybe I should go and kill him now."
