Eleanor’s Reviews > The Sicilian's Defiant Mistress > Status Update

And he laughed again, even more grimly than before. "I'd stop talking if I were you because you'll be eating every word before long, and some of those words won't go down so easy the second time.”

“The problem, Maximos, was that the less you gave, the less I asked for. I kept thinking you'd realize how great I was. How goddamn accommodating."
She laughed without humour, laughed at the pain inside her, the pain that had been there for so many years (...). "I thought you'd appreciate my independence, value my strength. But you didn't. You just kept taking. Taking. Taking.”

“You know what bothers me most," she said, her voice strained as she broke the heavy silence. "I deliberately never asked anything of you, never demanded anything of you. I was always careful not to be a burden, not to make trouble." (...) "I should have made trouble," she whispered recklessly, furiously. "I should have made trouble from the beginning. It would have saved us two years of wasted time and energy.”

Would she have loved him so intensely if he'd been more available? (...)
For that matter, had she ever fallen in love with someone available?
Had she ever fallen in love with someone who actually loved her?
No.
It had always been one-sided. It had always been unrequited, as if love had to be sharp and love had to cut. Love, the ruthless, Love the critic, Love the judge.

Maximos was one of those men who for whatever reason couldn't commit. One of those men who loved but was afraid to risk, afraid of being hurt. He was the kind of man who'd always find a reason why things couldn't work out.

She didn't want that, didn't need that.

The truth was, at work she was aggressive, she knew what she wanted, she went after what she wanted, but at home...it was something else entirely. At home she wasn't sure about the rules. How did one get more?
How did a woman get what she needed?
Was she to ask? Demand? Was it overstepping her boundaries to express what she needed?

(...) Love stopped being simple, direct, uncomplicated. Love became difficult.
Dangerous. Complex. Love became something one could lose, something elusive and negotiable.
It became about behaviour.
It became a reward.
It even became a punishment.

As a child love had seemed so very simple. Emotion had been simple.
You loved, you laughed, you hoped, you feared. Emotion had just been that―emotion. And you made your decisions based on honest emotion.
Then you learned.
You grew up.
You changed.
(...)

She could take the brutality from anyone but him. She'd been his...how could he hurt her like this? How could he continue to be so cold, so hard, so removed?
What she needed most was tenderness. Now. Right now. She needed his arms around her, holding her, needed his lips against her neck, her cheek, her mouth, warming her, soothing her. Loving her.

Her voice broke and she dipped her head, hiding her face and Maximos knew she was trying not to cry.
If she were really his, he'd pull her to him and comfort her.
But she wasn't his. Couldn't be his.