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"Something’s up," she replied. "Tell me. What’s happening? Has Gregor …?"
"It’s nothing to do with Gregor," I assured her as I took a step towards her, closing the distance between us.
"So, what?" she asked, her jaw tightening as she looked up at me, as though daring me to say something else.
"I’m worried about you," I told her. "You’ve been … on edge since you got here."
She raised her eyebrows at me, incredulous.
"You kidnapped me," she reminded me, her voice cold. "What did you think was going to happen?"
"I know," I sighed. "But I … I need to know I’ve done the right thing, Morgan. I need to know this is better for you than what was going on with Gregor. Otherwise …"
I didn’t need to fill out the rest of what was on my mind. I was worried that I had just made myself the same kind of villain Gregory was, choosing her path for her, giving her no choice but to go along with what I wanted, whether she liked it or not.
She tipped her head to the side slowly, considering what I had just said.
"Otherwise you’re just as bad as him," she finished up for me.
"Something like that," I muttered in agreement.
"What do you want me to tell you?" she asked. "I mean, you took me from him. You made that choice for me. I told you I didn’t want to leave, and you decided you knew better than me."
"You told me he was going to force you to carry his child!” I protested. "What was I meant to do?"
"You could have let me control the situation," she snapped back at me. "I knew what I was doing there. This, here … I don’t know. Not with you calling the shots."
"I’m not trying to control you, Morgan," I promised her. "I was trying to help you, that’s all."
She glanced up at me, her eyes unreadable.
"Yeah, well," she muttered. "I’m not sure you have."
"What will it take to get you to see that I want to make this right?" I asked her. I needed to know what was on her mind, what was holding her back from seeing this the way I needed her to see it. I knew it couldn’t have been easy for her, but I needed something, some assurance that she wasn’t as miserable here as she had been with Gregor.
"For me to actually have a say in the way any of this goes," she shot back at me, voice terse, but there was something in the way she spoke that was clearly a test, clearly pushing to see just how far she could go. She had been locked down for so long, forced to contain herself for the sake of her husband, of her family, but here … here, there was something else. Something wilder, and something that I wanted to see more of.
I moved towards her, tentative, expecting her to pull away before I could get any closer. But she just met my gaze steadily, not breaking eye contact for a moment.
"You think you can handle that?" I asked her, voice dropping slightly. She shrugged.
"I’ve never had a chance to find out," she pointed out. "I don’t know if I can or not."
I closed the distance between us, standing over her. But I knew I needed to bring us down to the same level. I had to show her that I was willing to defer to her, if only for a moment—to show her I wasn’t trying to dominate her the way Gregor clearly had been.
Slowly, and without breaking her gaze, I sank down to my knees in front of her. She stared at me, as though she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what I was doing.
"You’re in charge here, Morgan," I murmured to her. "You understand me? You’re the one calling the shots. You want to go, you can go. If you want to stay …"
I trailed off. The way she was looking at me right now, those blue eyes shining in the firelight, it was rousing something in me I had been trying to ignore since she had gotten here. Because I’d had to tell myself, had to try and convince myself, that the reason I had brought her here had nothing to do with my desire for her. Nothing to do with the beautiful woman she had grown into.
She moved her hand from her book, reaching out for me. Her fingers grazed across my cheek, and I could see a thousand ideas dancing through her mind. Her touch seemed to burn into my skin, lighting up something deep inside of me, something I knew I should have been trying to contain.
"I’ve never … been in charge before," she confessed to me, all the defensiveness falling from her voice. Her finger moved down to my lip, brushing across it lightly, as though testing me. My lips parted on instinct, and I could feel the warmth of her skin so close to me, tantalizing, promising me more …
But then, footsteps outside the doorway drew our attention. She snatched her hand back from me at once, and I could see her cheeks burning red.
She rose to her feet at once, and I turned to see one of the staff making their way past the door. They hadn’t even glanced inside to see us together, but still, the air felt heavy, as though we had been caught in the act somehow.
