Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 31800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
She looks small.
Fragile.
And guilty as hell.
“Why is he calling you?”
The question explodes from me before I can stop it, raw and demanding.
Scarlette shakes her head. “I don’t know—”
“Don’t lie to me.” The words come out as a snarl, and I watch her eyes widen in shock. Good. Let her see what she’s done to me. Let her understand the fire she’s playing with.
“I...” She swallows hard, and I can see her pulse fluttering wildly at the base of her throat. “If I have to guess, he wants to talk to me again—”
She stops mid-sentence, her face going ashen as if she’s just realized she’s said something terribly wrong.
And she has.
Ice floods my veins, followed immediately by a rage so consuming it nearly blinds me. “You were talking to him earlier.”
It’s not a question, not with the pieces falling into place with sickening clarity.
The time she took in the bathroom.
The strange look on her face when she came out. The way she’d seemed almost...liberated during our dance.
“That’s why it took you so long to come out.” My voice is low and taut, my hands clenching against the overwhelming urge to throw away the restraints of civilized living. For someone like me, who has the power of an entire kingdom at my fingertips— all it takes is a single call.
Just one call, and he’s good as dead.
“Lykan—”
“I didn’t give you permission yet to call me by my name.”
The words slice through the air between us like a blade, and I watch hurt flash across her face.
Good, I think savagely. At least we’re even now.
Her lip start to tremble, but I steel myself against it.
Damn you, Scarlette Hood.
I look at her. Really look at her. But all I can see now is my mother.
All I can see is history repeating itself, playing out in this very limousine.
My mother wanted money more than my father.
This woman wanted another man more than me.
And the thought makes my chest feel like it’s about to explode.
I can’t do this.
I can’t stay in this confined space with her one second longer, breathing in her perfume, watching her fight back tears, knowing that the other man was someone she willingly chose...while I had to blackmail my way into her life.
I reach for the internal phone and speak curtly to my driver in Sharasan, the harsh consonants of my native language providing a barrier between us. “Drop her off first.”
My gaze flicks back to her when I finish speaking, and she wraps her arms around her body as it jerks, as if already preparing herself to be attacked.
“W-What did you tell him?”
“For him to take you home.”
“Just like that?” she asks tremulously. “You won’t let me explain?”
“Shouldn’t you be glad?” I force my voice to remain cold, detached. “It wasn’t so long ago that I had to blackmail you into marrying me.”
A second passes, and then she raises her chin. “What about my grandmother’s bakery?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to it,” I say tightly. “I’ll have Legal draw up a contract. You won’t have anything to worry about.”
“And the engagement?” she goes on stiltedly. “Am I going to lose my head because you changed your mind?”
Fuck.
I can’t believe I forgot about that, and it kills me, knowing that I only have myself to blame, letting my desire for her overrule my common sense.
“Let me worry about that.”
“But—”
“I said I’ll take care of it,” I snap.
“Fine.”
“Great.”
She bites her lip hard as if to keep it from trembling, and I yank my gaze away from her because I just don’t fucking trust myself not to give in...and make a fool of myself yet again.
Enough is enough, Qahiri.
The silence that follows is deafening. It presses against us from all sides, heavy with things unsaid and chances destroyed.
You took her to a fucking ball. But all she still thought about was the other man.
I keep my gaze fixed on my phone, scrolling through meaningless emails, faking business for the first time in my life.
The writing’s on the fucking wall, and it’s time you stop acting like an idiot.
Eventually, the limo begins to slow. We’re at her building—a modest apartment complex in a quiet neighborhood that’s worlds away from the gilded cage I was born into.
My driver opens the door for her, and my chest tightens when I see her almost trip in her haste to get out of the car. To get away from me.
I can’t stop myself from looking as soon as the door closes, and the tinted windows allow me to stare without being caught.
She’s walking quickly, her head down, and my world feels like it’s about to collapse when she doesn’t look back, not even once.
And even this, dammit...
Even this was a cruel reminder of another one of my mother’s infamous scandals. Of how she had shamed the king for the very last time, with her making a drunken proclamation about only marrying him for his crown...before driving away with her twenty-five-year-old bodyguard.