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His knuckled were turning white, she noted, and glanced away, looking out the window instead of in his vague direction. "I didn't get angry at you. And the first isn't ever the last. I promise."

His hand stroked over hers and she kept it as still as she could, not wanting to make him think... "You mean the man my mother wanted. Hell, she wouldn't even settle for fat old Giovanni for me. He's not rich enough. Not smart enough." she said it with a malicious satisfaction she couldn't keep out of her tone, remembering... "And come on. Even my mother doesn't want to saddle me with a man who might last past my 22nd birthday. Besides, mother'd want..." Giovanni was handsome enough, attractive to the people who didn't know or care what he was like. And Jada had never gotten the niggling suspicion out of her head, with timing, and Szelem suddenly warming up to everything Xanis, that maybe... Eugh. But it wouldn't be Giulia and Aidan's fault if it were true.

God. He said all the right things sometimes, and it took all of her willpower to stay mad when he was giving her such puppy dog eyes. But... "You want to call me yours." there it was again, that caveman tendency that both compelled and repulsed. Frightened. "Because you love me? Or because you want to own me?"

Wanted to own her- like she owned him? She didn't want to OWN him. Love wasn't about ownership. Not real love. That scary, creepy kind of love, maybe like that bookstore clerk had felt during the short period of time between when he'd fallen for her and when Zora had killed him. She started to shake her head, and then his lips were pressing to hers.

His hands were shoving her down.

And this time, no matter how good he might normally taste, it was not the time. Part of her wanted to kiss him back, to show him that he could still find a way to salvage some of this.

What did she want from him? Was he trying too hard to give her what he thought she wanted, so she just wasn't satisfied?

And for the first time, she used her whole strength on him. It wasn't fueled by her senshi abilities, and it wasn't what she could have done once. She grabbed his hair, jerked his mouth off of hers, fingers of her other hand scrabbling for the door. "No." she told him. "That's not what I want."

The door opened, and the two of them tumbled out of the car, Jada wincing as her head struck the metal. She wound up on top when their roll stopped, and the heiress shoved her hand into Marlo's chest, trying to use him as leverage- get up. Get away.

She heard his grunt, and shoved aside her natural concern. Even shoved aside the worried 'Is he grunting because he just hit the ground, or because I am fat?' Marlo was being a jerk, (even though, a part of her niggled, she was at fault for this too,) so it didn't matter what she thought!

"I am not- what the hell do you mean by that anyway?!" He was gripping her hand to his chest and Jada tried to get loose, glad she was in jeans and wishing she had worn stiletto heels instead of these chunky fur boots. All the better to get in his ribs for leverage. "I don't <******** speak Italian, Xanis, so give me something I can understand! A certain someone never taught me anything in Italian other than that Cara is my new name whenever you're trying to pant in my ear!" She was angry. If she wasn't, she probably wouldn't be trying to hurt him. Nor would she be so crude- ladies weren't crude. Then again, ladies didn't roll around in deserted parking lots in the cold with a man, no matter their relationship- or lack thereof.

If this were a storybook, Jada would be able to get away easily. She would keep the car between them, and they would talk it out, and he would see why she could no longer give him what he seemed to want from her. He would see that things were wrong in the way they felt about each other, in the way that they treated each other. There had to be something wrong. It wasn't normal to want someone so much, or be such a yo-yo that she just couldn't escape his pull.

But it wasn't a storybook, and Jada wasn't a heroine.