Scout’s POV
"He loved you, you know," Simone said.
She leaned close, her breath warm against my ear while her thumb brushed a tear from my cheek. To the guards standing twenty feet away under the stone archway, she looked like a saint comforting her broken sister. She smelled like expensive jasmine and wet earth.
"Get away from me," I choked out.
My voice caught in my throat, thick and dry. The gravel of the garden path dug into the soles of my thin shoes as I tried to step back, but her fingers locked around my wrist with surprising strength.
"If he wasn’t so blinded by power, he would have been smart enough to stay away from me," Simone whispered, her voice dropping to a sharp, low hiss that stayed strictly between us. "I cared about him too, actually. Or rather, his body. Such a to
