Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 27474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
“I don’t believe you.” The denial launches from me with a heart-wrenching hiccup. “You wouldn’t risk my safety like that.”
“I can keep you safe without watching you marry another man.”
I jerk my head back and forth in denial. “You wouldn’t do this.”
“I warned you not to believe in the good you thought you saw in me.” His expression hardens, though I spy sorrow through the crack in his shell. “Turns out I’m just a selfish man who loves you desperately, and I want your first time to be with me.”
“Then maybe you can understand how desperately I can’t give you this.”
“But you can, Novalee.”
“It’ll break his heart!”
“I understand that kind of pain more than anyone, which is why he never has to know.”
My eyes go wide as Sebastian’s confession all those months ago floats through my mind.
When I take your virginity, every member of the Brotherhood will be present.
“That isn’t something you can hide. Everyone will find out when I don’t bleed on my wedding night.”
“Blood can be fabricated.” Liam takes a step toward me, and I shrink back on the bed, but that only gives him the opportunity to cage me in, hands planted on the mattress. “Though your pleasure will be real, honest, impossible to ignore. I’ll claim you to your soul, Novalee, and he’ll never rid you of me.”
“Liam, please!” I shake my head, helpless to do anything else. “I can’t do this.”
“You will, just like you’ll bleed for me, and you’ll enjoy every second.”
“N-no.” Even as the protest leaves my lips, I crash into his determined gaze. My heart pumps out a laborious, broken beat as his spicy scent envelopes me. “Keeping something like this from him…”
The guilt will rip me apart.
“It’ll be our secret, my sweet girl. He gets you for the rest of his life—your smile every morning, your beautiful soul, your irresistible body in his bed every night, and I get this.” The furrow between his brows deepens. “Thanks to your brother’s puppeteering, Sebastian is getting the better part of the deal.”
His words shoot trembling dread through my limbs, and I can hold back my tears no more. Because I’m pinned under his intense stare, terrified of the truth pooling between my thighs.
Even though my heart belongs to another man, part of me still wants Liam Castle.
“Don’t make me do this.”
A humorless smile shapes his lips. “The last time I held back from being the bad guy, down in that dungeon, I ended up becoming the bad guy anyway. I wish I’d taken what I wanted on that island. I wish for it every damn day.”
“Please, Liam.”
He brushes a thumb under my eye, disrupting the tears in mid-transit down my face. “That’s my non-negotiable condition.”
“No.”
Wiping the moisture from my other cheek, he gives me another hint of a smile. “Yes.”
“I won’t do it.”
“You’ll lose your title.”
“You selfish ass!” I shove him hard, pissed off enough to make him stumble as he rises to his feet.
“We’ve established my selfishness.” His full height hovers over me. “Now tell me I can go out there and vote yes.”
“No.” I glare at him. “Like I said the first two times.”
A tick goes off in his jaw, and I know he’s not about to reconsider. His words confirm it. “Last chance, my sweet girl, before I tell them the truth.” He crosses the room, and his hand settles on the doorknob.
Panic tears through me. “Wait,” I say, my tone a level below shrieking. “I-I…”
I try to envision a future without returning to my homeland, but I can’t. The future just doesn’t exist without inhaling the memory of my mother in the abundant plumeria, or tilting my face up for the warm rains that always make me think of the time my father gave me a piggyback ride in the middle of a spring downpour.
Home is the only place on earth where I can feel those memories, hold them close, grab the keepsake of my innocence.
“Novalee?”
And this man, who claims to love me, is determined to take it away if I don’t give in to his demand. I study his expression, hoping to find a hint of hesitancy, a sign of subterfuge.
A modicum of mercy.
But…no. Deep down in my gut, where sickness roils, I know he’s not bluffing.
Because he loves me—with so much desperate fierceness that he’s willing to cross lines to possess what little of me he can steal.
I grit my teeth. “What if I’m willing to give up my past for the future I want with Sebastian?” Before I can think it through, the words leave my mouth, and I’m not one-hundred percent certain I meant them.
Well, I meant them, but it was a gut-reaction thing to say—an idea I didn’t give myself time to analyze before I threw down the gauntlet.
“You’re willing to give up your title for him?”