I rub her shoulder. Don’t think about that prick. Focus on yourwife. “Breathe. Can you do that? Just breathe.”
Annaliese stops. Once again, she glances up at me. “You threatened to kill Eric.”
“Oh, no. I don’t make threats, love.” I drop a kiss to the top of her hair. “I don’t bluff, either. You say the word, I’ll gut him like a fish. No one would ever stop me. Hell, Dallas and Connor would each hold an arm while Adrian advised me on the best spot to cut him with my knife.” I chuckle. I can’t help it. This is serious, but… they’re my brothers. They would do it… “I’ll do it, too. The blood oath means that I reserve the right to protect you from any harm. If he hurt you?—”
She cuts me off with a stroke to my chest, though when I look down into her face, her expression is hard to read all of a sudden. “Sebastien… you did it? You really did it? You signed a blood oath? For a fake marriage?”
I grit my teeth. Maybe if we’d had this discussion at a different time, and not right after Eric Ward put the thought of my Annaliese fucking him into my head… but he did, and I’m struggling not to lose it, and now she’s trying to pull the same ol’ ‘marriage of convenience’ crap.
I cup her jaw, leaning over her. It’s important to me that she sees the absolute honesty in my eyes as I say, “Oh, love… when will you finally get it through your pretty head? It’sneverbeen fake.”
Like clockwork, my wife—mywife—starts to argue, but I… I just can’t do it anymore.
I step away from her. That shuts her up, and she only gets more confused when I start to remove my leather jacket. Inevertake it off. She’s never seen me without it except for when we’re lying in bed together, and I’ve been careful to wear long-sleeve shirts at night.
It’s finally time she understands why.
I didn’t mean for it to be a secret. In the long line of ways I’ve screwed-up, getting an impulsive tattoo—the only one I have—doesn’t rank anywhere near the top. It’s just… I was playing for keeps. Playing for forever. If she knew that I considered her mine from the start, she would’ve kept her distance. She told me she wasn’t interested in love… and what did I do?
I show her my arm. I show her the four letters tattooed on the edge of my left forearm, done up on a simple script that means everything to me.
Beneath the outdoor lamp in the parking lot, Annaliese squints and reads, “‘Love’?” She glances up at me. “Is that why you call me that? Did you call…” She swallows the question, shaking her head. “How many other women have been your love, Sebastien?”
I know what she meant to ask. I also think I know why she changed it at the last minute. It doesn’t matter.
“Only you,” I swear. “Sure, I have a habit of using pet names with people… you’re proof of that. The night we met, I nicknamed you ‘love’, and I’ve used it ever since. Andthatis why I got this tat. Because you’re the only one I’ve ever called ‘love’. You’re the only one who’ll ever be my wife.”
Annaliese swallows. “It’s… it’s temporary. Right?”
Fury flashes through me. I work to tamp it down. “Temporary? Fuck, no. And you know why? Becausenothingabout us haseverbeen temporary.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip. My cock twitches. “I don’t understand…”
I need her to. Five minutes ago, it wasn’t that important, but now? Ineedher to understand.
I reach into my back pocket, pull out my phone. While she watches, I open it, then find my photos. Scroll… scroll… scroll…there.
Turning the phone around, I show her a picture. It’s my freshly inked tat, the clear saniderm wrap stretched over the letters. There’s no denying it’s real. You can see the red skin beneath it, plus the ink is so much darker than the healed-over tattoo.
“It’sreal.”
“Look at the date,” I tell her.
Annaliese gasps. “You got it the morning after we had our wedding?”
“Like I told you. I never thought I’d get married. I wanted to commemorate it.”
“But that’spermanent.”
I use the tip of my pointer finger to tilt her head up. “Yeah, love. And so are we.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE MOUNTAIN CABIN
ANNALIESE
Idon’t want to return to the party. If I had my choice, I’d just go home. Walk, Uber, drive… whatever it took, I’d be gone. But this was my debut as Sebastien’s wife. It was my fault that it didn’t occur to me that Eric would show up at Alexandre’s party. In my brain, Eric was my past, Sebastien my present, and safety my future. They weren’t supposed to interact.
