‘And since then...?’
‘There’s been no one but you,’ she confirmed, her eyes locked with his, almost daring him to comment.
But he didn’t.
‘How did it end?’
She scowled at him like it was none of his business. Yet she answered him, anyway. It was like a compulsion. He’d asked and she had to answer. Though she’d never talked about Enrico to anyone but her family.
Then again, she’d been experiencing a plethora of firsts ever since Jake had approached her at that Welcome Gala.
‘He gave me an ultimatum. Him or the sanctuary.’
‘You chose your snakes,’ he guessed.
‘I shouldn’t have had to choose.’ She frowned, willing him to understand. As though his opinion mattered to her. ‘There was no need.’
‘He cared about you. He didn’t want you to get bitten again. I can see where your ex was coming from.’
He sounded almost...angry about it. But that didn’t make sense.
‘I’ve been bitten plenty of times over the years.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s a hazard of my career.’
‘Maybe, but have you always risked a bite when there’s been no antivenom on hand?’
She watched him in silence, not sure why he sounded so accusatory.
‘It happened years ago,’ she spoke at last.
‘Sorry?’
‘The incident people talk about. It happened years ago,’ she repeated, as coolly and calmly as she could. ‘There were actually some vials of antivenom, though admittedly not enough.
‘The government had received a complaint from some high-ranking official whose condo backed onto the sanctuary’s land.’ She leaned sideways and flopped her shoulder against the concrete pillar opposite his. ‘I believe the guy wanted to build an extension, but he couldn’t build that close to his boundary so he decided the solution was to acquire sanctuary land. But the sanctuary is struggling for more land as it is, without losing any.’
‘So you risked your life over land?’
Something swirled between them—dark and tight—but she couldn’t work it out.
‘The government revoked the licence for eight months, maybe nine. But without it, Cesar and Therese only had about four vials of antivenom remaining and they couldn’t acquire any more venom.’
‘Someone told me that a nature programme presenter got bitten once and needed nineteen vials to keep him alive,’ he bit out incredulously. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes.’
‘So then, how far did you really think four vials would go?’
‘We didn’t think about it,’ she told him evenly. ‘There was no choice, so we just got on with it.’
‘You could have died.’
He doesn’t care, she reminded herself urgently. Don’t read too much into it.
‘We could have.’ She bowed her head, making no attempt to deny it. ‘But we’ve all been bitten before—we build a little immunity. And, like I said, we had no choice.’
‘You had a choice, Flávia. You all had a choice. You could have just kept yourself safe. Fought it in court and then gone back to the snakes when the government reissued the licences, or permits, or whatever.’
‘To hundreds of dead or ill snakes? We had a responsibility to them, Jake. We weren’t about to just abandon them.’