16. Hector Hein #3
“Stop what?”
“Acting as though I’m as heartless as you are.”
She pulled ice over the wounds his words lashed into her. “If you had a heart—at the very least one for me, even as the friend as you claimed I was—you might’ve defended me to your father. Maybe you would’ve told him the truth about the knife instead of making me lie to him—”
“I told you when I gave you that knife—”
“I know what you told me!” she said, fighting to keep her voice down. “But you still made me into a villain when I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. He stuck me with you because of it, and now you take every opportunity to remind me how much you can’t stand me.”
She gasped as tears threatened to rise, then spun toward her door before they could appear.
She was strong. Strong enough to face Jack and hate him. Strong enough to force the distance to grow and splinter because there was no future with a man like him. There never would be.
“Cecily.”
She fussed with the key in the lock, cursing when the damn thing refused to turn.
He held out two more coins. “Truce. One minute.”
“No,” she snapped, her eyes blurring. “There is no truce between us. I won’t bow to your gold or your blades.”
“You really hate me so much?”
His voice had turned gentle, quiet, and Cecily thought of her little house where she could someday have the life she wanted with a husband who loved her—a good man who would give her children and a place where she was safe and happy.
Jack was not the way to that life. He broke every rule she wanted to live by. He could only give her piracy and all that came with it.
Jack Copson was not meant for her, and she was not meant to be his.
And yet…
She peered at him with the eye that didn’t have a tear rolling from it. “Yes, Jack.”
His hands moved to his pockets. “Have you always, or was it the conversation you overheard?”
She faced forward, focused on breathing evenly as she gripped the key that still refused to budge.
“Was it our argument yesterday after we left the Fortuna?”
“What does it matter?” she asked. “We are at odds, and I don’t care for it to be any other way.”
His chin hovered by her head, his breath caressing her braid. “We weren’t at odds,” he said. “For a whole week.”
“Because you gave me a sword to make me compliant.”
“That’s what I told the captain,” he said, unperturbed. “Why don’t you ask me why I gave you that sword? Why not ask what that sword is?”
She stared the key. If she looked at him, she’d crumble. If she saw any bit of sincerity, if he offered her answers, she’d be hopeless.
She closed her eyes and saw her little home. Jack didn’t belong in a house like that.
“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked softly, his words edged with the slightest taunt.
She shook her head.
“I heard you crying last night,” he said. “I thought about coming to apologize for being horrible yesterday, but I didn’t. I wasn’t really so drunk when we left the beach, but I drank the rest of that bottle before you stopped.”
“I was only relieved to find a bit of soap. My tears had nothing to do with you.” Another lie. With a forceful twist on the key, the lock finally gave way.
Jack stopped her with a hand on her waist, his touch so light she barely felt it. Still, warmth spread over her skin, and she paused.
“Tell me the truth for once,” he said. “Tell me what you want to know. If I must apologize, if I must explain, I will. And if you truly hate me as much as you claim, tell me and I’ll leave you be.”
As though he was the only one using words like weapons. If she were to tell him anything true, she’d have to beg for forgiveness for everything she’d said, and she didn’t want to fall on her sword before him.
“Do you think I want to fight with you?” he asked as her silence stretched. “I don’t. It’d be so much easier if we didn’t.”
Meeting his eyes, she said, “Then leave me alone and we can stop fighting.”
With a quiet sigh, his hand slid away from her waist, brushing over her hip before falling back to his side. “Alright,” he whispered. The gold coins appeared again. “But may I make one request?”
She didn’t reach for the money but nodded anyway.
“I won’t take your knife. I won’t bother you.
I only ask that you don’t go off alone—because it’s Tortuga, and it’s an easy place to get murdered or robbed.
We keep each other safe here, so stay with Maria and Fay or Hester.
Stay with my friends. Or if I’m your only option for company, I’ll bear it silently as you wish. ”
“Will your father approve?” she sniped.
“He cared nothing for your absence when I saw him today. Besides, he’s not here, so I hardly think his opinion matters.”
She pursed her lips and swung the door out of her way, welcoming her to darkness and silence.
“I am sorry,” he whispered before she could go in. “For what it’s worth.”
In spite of herself, she smirked, the threat of tears long gone to leave only numbness in its wake. When she looked back at him, his eyes held steady on hers. “You’re a pirate prince, and I’m young, hateful, and ruined. I don’t think anything either of us says is worth much at all.”
She stepped inside and closed the door.