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He’d made a mess of my life and sold me off, yes; but he also had always tried his best, even when his best ended up in catastrophe. The gambling was beyond his control in many ways.
Getting him to stop would be like asking a terrier to stop chasing a rat. Even still, I had never been deprived of anything in my life; despite our family having very little money, whatever we did have was spent on me without question.
When I received an offer of a place at Saint Theodora’s, the money was there. No doubt if I required a dowry it would have been found, though as things stood that was unnecessary: Petre Greengallow was getting something far more valuable than money; he was getting a royal title. Something for the family that has gained the very highest positions available within their own social class, but still lusts after more.
Even my father’s gambling, I knew, had so much to do with me—to secure a life for me, to give me safety and stability—as it had to do with the thrill of chance. For all that I had, I was grateful. If I left, if I let my end of this whole horrendous bargain drop, how would that make my parents feel?
Glancing out the window into the night, the imposing arches of the Sernu Viaduct bridge caught my eye. Its arches made three massive half-circles over the River Sernu, towering above this valley and the next. I could almost see my father dangling from it, strung up by Petre Greengallow himself, as a lesson to all those who reneged on their debts.
My father had already lost so much. The thin band of pride he retained after being nearly discarded by his own family for marrying my mother, a commoner. They’d allowed him his title, given him a place to call home, but cut him off in all other ways. He, too, was a prince in paper alone and thus, another reason we were in this predicament.
I buried my face in my hands. Running wasn’t an option. Absolutely not.
A noise outside in the corridor made me drop my hands to my lap. I listened, and heard a creak on the floorboards on the other side of my door.
I was sure it was Natasha returning.
It wouldn’t surprise me. Her moods and actions of late were wildly unpredictable.
Striking a match, I lit a candle that I kept at my bedside and padded to the door. A soft knock made my heart leap, but I told myself not to be so silly. Natasha was perpetually losing her keys.
“Natasha?” I whispered, but when I opened the door, it wasn’t Natasha’s gaunt face that greeted me.
Instead, there stood Vasile Greengallow himself, looking intense. And powerful. And jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
I was so utterly shocked to see him that I stepped back. He used my surprise to his advantage by stepping inside and locking the door behind him.
You idiot girl.
I’d broken the first rule of fencing and left myself open to my opponent by stepping backwards. And now here he was, in my space. Towering over me, with dark eyes glinting in the candlelight. Do not give in to those eyes, I told myself.
“What in the world are you doing here?” I whisper-hissed. I maneuvered myself around him, unlocked and opened the door again, pointing at the hallway. “Get out of here. You don’t belong here.”
With one massive hand on my arm, he moved me aside and shut the door behind me once again, this time locking it and removing the key slipping it into his jacket pocket.
I inhaled hard through my nose, both in fear and fury.
“How dare you?”
“My brother knows about us,” he said, stepping into me and pocketing the key as he crowded my space. “He might not be much, but he’s a nasty piece of work. You’re no longer safe.”
I set my teeth and scowled up at him.
“Us? There is no us to know about, Vasile. Your brother can think what he likes, but I have done nothing. So get out of my room, and get out of my business. None of this concerns you.”
“The fuck it doesn’t,” he growled. The look in his eyes was wild, aggressive. Such power. Such ferocity. “He saw the way I looked at you.” He met my gaze without a hint of shame. “And how you looked at me.”
I stared into those wild, haunting golden irises edged in dark red, and I almost lost myself. Nothing was more dangerous than a man like Vasile, restrained power wrapped up in a handsome, charming package.
In that moment, I wondered if he would take me if I let him, defile me right then and there with a hand clenched around my throat as I panted and moaned and begged for release.
But then, what good would be the use of swapping one brother for the other?
