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“Vivian is worried.” He steps into the garden, onto a plant, to stand right in front of me.
“You should go.”
Alexander will be here soon. He has to be.
Aaron reaches out his hand, touches the end of my hair. “I really wish you’d grow this out. Color it, maybe. The black against your fair complexion, it makes you look so… porcelain.” He drops his hand and squishes his lips together like he’s thinking. “Once we’re married, you’ll have a new stylist. I know Vivian didn’t give you very much; she was always so jealous of you, but you’ll have better now.”
“No.” I try to step back, but my foot hits the wooden frame of the garden behind me. “I’m not marrying you. I’m not going back.”
He sighs. “You need to think here, Seraphina. With our marriage, our families become allies. We’ll have everything.” He grabs my elbow.
“I don’t care about any of that.” I pull out of his grasp. Alexander is taking his sweet-ass time.
Aaron puts his hands in his pockets, shaking his head at me. He looks like a disappointed father trying to figure out what to do with his errant child.
I’m not his kid.
I’m not his fiancée. I’m not his anything.
“You can’t think it’s that easy, do you?” He tilts his head. “You think you can just walk away? You’re the heir to a huge fortune and an entire empire. Your father left it all to you. You are the sole heir. He left Vivian an allowance, and stocks and cash, but she has no legal rights to the companies that all money flows through.”
I quickly think back to the lawyers, the dozens of them, sitting around my father’s desk telling me about the legalities of his will. I’d been so full of grief, and anger at losing him, I barely understood what was happening. I don’t remember any of the details. I didn’t care then. And I don’t now. “So I’ll sign it all over to her.”
Aaron shakes his head with a chuckle. “Such a naive girl.” He cups my chin, rubs his thumb over my bottom lip, like he’s applying a lip gloss or something. I yank away from his touch.
“It’s safer to marry me, I think.” He winks, steps back and puts his hand back into his pocket.
“You’re insane.” My mind whirls, like I’ve just been spun around the merry go round too many times. “I won’t…” I wince at the rolling nausea making its way through my stomach.
“Feeling all right?” The levity in his voice hits a nerve.
I touch my head.
“What did you do?” I wipe my fingers over my bottom lip. I can’t feel anything there, but something’s wrong. Very wrong.
“Saved you from yourself.” His voice sounds fuzzy and far away.
I fall to the ground.
He sighs. “I guess I’ll have to carry you now.”
My limbs are too heavy to lift. My eyelids shut.
A shot rings out.
Another.
Everything’s going dull.
There’s a thud, but I can’t tell how far away.
I can’t open my eyes.
And then there’s nothing at all.
CHAPTER 17
Seraphina
