6

“That’s not romantic,” she snapped. “That’s fucking insane!”

Lucas lowered his gaze slightly and no longer clenched his jaw as before. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

Lilith laughed, but it wasn’t amusement. It was pure fear. “You took my picture when I was a child. When I was a teenager, even at my father's funeral." Her voice cracked.

“You weren't there...” Her voice was a little shaky this time.

Lucas's eyes darkened. “I was there.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, you weren't. I would remember if I had ever met you before.”

“You don't remember much about me, Lilith.” Something in the way he said it made her chest feel tighter.

She shook her head hard. “Stop it.”

“You came back to me,” Lucas continued in a low voice. “Again and again and again.”

“Stop it.” Lilith kept shaking her head, refusing to listen.

“You always do it, Lilith.” Lucas walked toward Lilith, who was backing away.

“JUST STOP IT!!” Lilith's voice echoed sharply throughout the room filled with antiques. Even the old wall clock ticked louder after that.

“You’re trying to rewrite my life,” she said, breathing unevenly. “You bought me, locked me in this house, filled this room with portraits and paintings of me, and now you’re saying that I knew you in another life?!”

Lucas’s gaze softened for a moment. “You do know me.”

Lilith’s hands trembled, filled with a myriad of emotions. “You need help,” she whispered. “Not a virgin prostitute to keep you company on your lonely nights.”

Something changed in Lucas's face, not anger, but something more dangerous. Hurt. “I never wanted you as my prostitute, Lilith. It never even crossed my mind to think of you that way,” he said softly and gently.

“Then what am I? A cure? An experiment? Some obsession you couldn't let go of?”

Silence. And that silence told her everything. Her stomach dropped. “Oh God,” she sighed. “You're obsessed with me. You just want to have me as your toy.”

Lucas moved so fast that Lilith barely noticed his movement. One second Lucas was standing just inches away from Lilith, and the next second, Lucas was inches from her face. Her back hit the edge of the table. The antique glass rattled.

“I never thought of making you my toy, Lilith,” Lucas said in a voice lower than Lilith had ever heard before.

His eyes weren't just dark now. There was something beneath them. Something ancient and predatory. Lilith's heartbeat quickened, and he reacted to it. She saw it very clearly. His pupils narrowed. Lucas's breathing deepened, and his jaw clenched so hard that she heard a faint grinding of teeth.

“Then explain it!” Lilith demanded, though there was fear creeping into her voice. “Explain why me, why my portrait is on the walls of this room wearing clothes from a century ago!”

Lucas inhaled sharply. As if her scent was suddenly too strong for him to handle. “You don't want the truth like this.”

“Try me.” Lilith lifted her chin and looked straight ahead, challenging Lucas openly.

“If I tell you, you'll never see me the same way again,” Lucas said slowly.

“Maybe I already don't. You're the man who bought me last night, and now I've found something that makes me wonder why you would buy a foreign girl for seventy billion dollars,” Lilith quipped.

That did it. For a split second. His control fractured. Lucas's eyes flashed, revealing a deep red color inside them. A color that could even be seen glinting in the dim light of the room. Then it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. But Lilith saw it clearly, so clearly that her breath caught in her throat.

Her breath caught. “What? What is that?” Lilith felt like she might be going crazy.

Lucas turned suddenly, gripping the edge of the wooden table there, and immediately cracking the wood under his fingers, then splitting it. Lilith's heart stopped. That was not normal human strength.

“Lucas...” She whispered, almost unable to believe the power of the man in front of her.

His back rose and fell slowly and regularly. “Go back to your room now, Lilith,” he said in a tense voice.

“What are you, really?”

The question hung between them. Lucas seemed uninterested in answering Lilith's whispered question. Instead, Lucas looked at Lilith once more, this time with eyes that appeared normal. Dark, controlled, and cold.

“Lilith...” He exhaled slowly.

“Why did you buy me then?” She asked once again, straight to the point.

“If it wasn't for desire, then what? You gave me that room and now this room is filled with me too. You must really want something from me.”

Lilith's breath caught as a tear fell and wet her face. The fear was clearly visible on Lilith's face now.

“If you don't want to touch me, if you don't want to sleep with me, then why did you spend seventy billion dollars on me?” Her voice cracked at the end.

Lucas closed his eyes for a moment, moving his hands away from the badly damaged wooden table in front of him. Slowly, Lucas moved closer to Lilith, who was silent. This time, his fingers hovered just above her throat. Still not touching her. Just feeling the heat radiating from her skin. Her pulse beat wildly beneath it. Lucas' jaw tightened again as he looked into Lilith's tear-filled eyes.

“You think I bought you for my desire?” He murmured. His voice had gone deeper.

“Isn't that exactly what it is?” Lilith said sarcastically. “You are a man who spent seventy billion dollars to buy me for one night. If it wasn't for desire, then what else would a man with power like yours do to me?”

“Lilith...” Lucas' gaze softened slightly, but not his hands, which began to clench tightly at his sides. “This isn't about desire.”

Lucas' words still didn't fully answer Lilith's question. “You think I haven't noticed? You look at me like you're starving,” Lilith continued, her voice trembling.

The word hit something deep inside him. Starving. If only she knew... Lucas sighed in his mind. He moved suddenly past Lilith, who was still waiting for a definite answer from him, and turned around. Lucas's gaze fell on the 1920 painting on the wall as he raised his hand to it. Lucas pressed against the wall until it cracked. Lucas's body trembled, and Lilith noticed it very clearly.

“You're afraid of yourself,” Lilith whispered, almost unable to believe the effect she had on Lucas, who was clearly holding himself back again. Lilith didn't understand anything.

Lucas didn't deny it. “But why? What are you afraid to do to me?”

“If I touch you now without control, then I won't stop.”

Her heart pounded violently. “And I refuse to do that to you, Lilith.”

Lucas sighed heavily and walked back toward the door. “I refuse to take anything from you until you truly understand who you are to me, Lilith.”

Lucas’s words froze Lilith. “Then what am I? Why not just answer my question directly?” Lilith muttered, pleadingly.

“Later. You deserve the truth, but not like this.” He added quietly and then he left.

Lilith sighed heavily. The weight she had been feeling in her chest was suffocating her. Lilith fell to the carpet in the room and cried. She didn't understand why Lucas had kept all those pictures of her there.