"Because you don't hate it here. I would hate it if you weren't with me," Caius said, his voice laced with emotion.
Rose narrowed her eyes. "What?" But she wasn't yelling. His words annoyed her—and at the same time, they didn't. That was the part that unsettled her most.
His words didn't hide his selfish nature or what he wanted, but it wasn't something she had ever thought she would hear him say. The admission sat between them like something fragile and dangerous.
Rose wasn't foolish enough to mistake it for anything other than lust, and yet it carried a weight that made her chest tighten despite herself. He said it so simply, as though it were an obvious truth, as though her presence in his life was something essential rather than convenient.
A bitter part of her wanted to laugh. Another part—the traitorous one—wanted to believe this, to find some meaning in it.
