Venture to Uncertainty (#1)

29 | The Temptation of Uncertainty

"You think I'm infatuated with the perfection of you?" he asked. "The fact that you don't make mistakes? That you don't get beaten?"

"I don't think," she said, voice cool and calm but her eyes light and focused.

"You're making a lot of mistakes today," Archer said. "I'm walking all over you."

She maintained that calm expression, but she was fuming, by his insinuation, and because he was right. Not only that, but she couldn't even start throwing the knife—to do so would be to broadcast that she was threatened by the mind game. He was quite proud of himself; she was perfectly cornered into listening to his words. Like a check that was about to become a checkmate.

"I think you're confusing your lovers," he told her. "Bardarian wants you perfect. Bardarian wants you undefeated. Bardarian wants your reputation. I respect those things about you—I think they're part of who you are, but they don't make my opinion of you."

Now she spoke, quick and focused, "You couldn't move. You didn't even know I could bleed."

Archer leaned forward. "You know what seeing you like that did to me?" he asked, but didn't wait for the answer. "It humanized you. It took you down from this otherworldly god to a woman not much older than me. It made you real. Attainable. Loveable, even."

"Loveable," she repeated.

"Novari, listen to me," he said, making a gesture to draw her gaze. "It was lust when I thought you were out of my reach. It was infatuation when I realized I had just a fraction of your attention. It was love when you reached for me first on that deck. When you couldn't go to him, because he might think less of you, but you could go to me, because you knew I'd think the same of you."

She might've anticipated his words, for she didn't react, but he preferred not to believe she did. He preferred to think he'd shocked her with his revelations.

"You're not an untouchable woman who's so much older and smarter," he continued. "You're talented, incredibly so, and you're smart as hell, I'll give you that—but you're not invincible. You bleed, and you lose your shit from time to time. You're not so far out of my league; you're just a person. Your father did you wrong and you lost your mother. You fell in love with a man when you were eighteen and he was twenty-six. He had power over you and your career, and you couldn't stand it. He gave you what you needed for a while, but then he stopped, so you forced his attention by using me. He's giving you all you wanted now, but you still can't let go of me. You're just a person, deeply flawed, like the rest of us."

"Little wordsmith you became there, Kingsley."

"Archer," he corrected.

She looked down at him.

"That's a strategy," he told her daringly. "To not call me by my first name. Keep it impersonal. Your mother teach you that? So you're less likely to break rule number five?"

She ignored the insinuation. "You know what would end all my problems, Kingsley?" she asked, taking a step closer. She leaned down so she was crouched beside the bed, her eyes now looking up at him. Archer didn't lean off his hands. He'd made it this far keeping a rather level head. He needed to keep that streak; he couldn't lose his mind just because she closed the distance.

Archer looked down at the knife, answering her last question.

"That's right, Kingsley. Killing you would solve all my issues."

"It's Archer."

She grinned and rested her forearms on his knees, leaning into him. "I need you gone, Kingsley. I think I should do it now, before you can wreak more havoc on my life."