“I don’t want your attention, I don’t want anything from you!” I breathe.

“You do want something. Is it me? Am I what you want?”

“Fuck, no!” I growl in outrage, swinging out my suddenly free arm.

Again he catches my wrist midair. I remember wanting his head on a platter. I remember vowing to myself that one day I’d make him tell me he loves me, and I’d laugh and leave, like he did. And I whisper, “My god, it’s really gone to your head, hasn’t it? You think you can get anything you want and always have it your way? I have news for you, asshole. I’m here to make your life a living hell, and it will all be on film. Your complete humiliation. Just watch me!”

He looks at me and says nothing. My entire body is aware of where he grips me, not hard, but . . . firm and hot. “No, baby,” he says, his teeth gritted. “You won’t ruin this for me. You got it? We give them what they want, and you won’t fucking ruin this for me.”

I clamp my jaw. “If you don’t want me to ruin this, then when we get to Madison Square Garden, you’ll say on that stage that your fucking song is a lie.”

“That’s our number one song.”

“If I do like you say . . . you tell all your fandom that it’s a lie.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate it, I hate hearing it. If they see me kiss you, they’ll think I’m Pandora, and you paint me as . . . you paint me as . . . a whore, a liar, and a . . .”

Mistake. Something dirty. Hidden. Something you regret.

Just remembering infuriates me all over again, but Mackenna keeps those silver eyes leveled on me, as though truly considering what to do.

“I can’t take that song back,” he says at last, dropping down on the seat and crossing his arms behind his head and his feet at the ankles. “But if you want to write a song about me, we’d be happy to add some music to it and play it.”

“I’m not a lyricist. Hello?”

“We’ll take it slow. You tell me what you think of me, and I’ll help you.”

“Asshole. Dog. Liar. Cheat. Scum. If you regret our time together, I regret it tenfold.”

His eyes flash dangerously, but he remains in that deceptively calm posture. “Go on,” he warns.

“Why? Your pride hurting?”

A smoldering look settles in his eyes as he trails them purposely down my body. “Enough to want you to change your mind, maybe.”

I grit my teeth, knowing that once there was a girl inside me who believed that one day she’d marry him. But the only girl left now is the angry one, the one he hurt, and she grits out, “You’ll never have me again.”

“Your lips say one thing but the rest of you screams the opposite.”

We stare for another moment, and I hate that I’m breathing hard, and somehow do feel flustered, flushed, my breasts aching, something throbbing between my legs, before I strain out, “Who cares?”

“You do,” he says. “And I do.” He stands again, comes over, and leans forward. “You hate it, but right now—knowing how much you fucking hate the way you want me—it’s making me high.”

He surveys my chin, lips, cheekbones, forehead, as if thirsty to see something in my face he fails to see. Then he whispers, “You make me hard too, but that’s about the only thing you do for me,” and loosens his hold.

“Fuck you.”

He flashes me a smile. “Oh, it’s such a pleasurable experience, I will.”

I feel strangely bereft of all fight as he puts some distance between us and settles back in the seat, lips still curled as he watches me in silence.

My insides tremble with a combination of anger and lust that I don’t want. God, he’s a narcissistic pig. So in love with himself he probably even smiles like that for his own sake in the mirror. His smile is one of the things everybody in the world can’t stop talking about. It’s one of those manly smiles that makes him look even sexier. It softens the silver in his eyes, at the same time melting your insides. Now the fact that he has a beautiful smile makes my insides boil while still attracting me.

GOD!

I want to say something painful that will hurt him. But no. He wants to punish me because I ruined his concert? I’m going to ruin. His fucking. Life.

FOUR

WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD

Pandora

A little over six years ago

“First we will get a small apartment. A loft!”

“That’s right,” a low voice answers over the top of my head.

“And all we’d need is a bed in it,” I add.

“And you,” the husky voice murmurs, and I turn into the arms holding me. Silver eyes meet mine—silver like a wolf’s, heavy-lidded, both tender and eerily sharp. His lips are curled into this adorable smile, and I know right then and there that my boyfriend loves that I suggested a bed, of course.

“We can even get a dog,” I add cheekily.

“And a fish.”

He lifts one arm to point at the desiccated swordfish on the wall of the yacht we’ve stolen into. It’s not ours, but this is one of our hiding places. One of the many places where we meet and spend as much time together as we can.

It’s almost dawn now, and though we haven’t slept and could easily stay here forever, he grudgingly gets up and shoves his long, muscular legs into his jeans.

“Gorgeous,” he calls as he shoves a hand into his jeans pocket.