Page 161 of Wicked Lord

It had been a week, and I still couldn’t close my eyes without seeing him fall. I couldn’t hear waves crashing without imagining the ocean swallowing his body whole.

And the worst part was the tiny, ugly truth I couldn’t say out loud. Part of me was relieved.

Brock Haversham was gone. He couldn’t touch me. He’d never be able to drag me onto a yacht or into a marriage where my body belonged to him because my father signed away my future like a business deal.

He was dead.

And I was free.

“Lore?” Axel’s voice pulled me back. I blinked and found him leaning against the driver’s side door, watching me too closely, that easy smile fading from his face.

I forced my fingers to loosen from my dress. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

His brow furrowed. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Pretending you’re fine when you’re about five seconds from crawling out of your own skin.”

A laugh slipped out of me, thin and shaky. “Wow. Love being perceived.”

He pushed off the Jeep and came toward me slowly, like any sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile composure I’d managed to scrape together. His big hands settled on my waist, warm and grounding, and he pulled me against him.

The familiar scent of his crisp button-down shirt hit me, clean citrus and completely Axel, and some of the trembling eased from my bones.

“We don’t have to do this today,” he murmured. “I can take you home.”

“No.” I shook my head and pressed my palms to his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath my hands. We were both alive and safe, and he was finally mine. “I want to go. I want normal. I want country club lunches and your mom fussing over me and your dad pretending he doesn’t already like me more than you.”

That coaxed the smallest smile from him. “He does not like you more than me.”

“Axel, please. Everyone likes me more than you.”

His mouth twitched. We all knew that was the biggest lie ever.

The warmth in his eyes made my throat tighten. I leaned into him, letting my forehead rest against his chest for one stolen second. “I just hate that I can’t get him out of my mind.”

“I know, baby.” His arms wrapped tighter around me. “I know.”

“Every time I think I’m okay, I hear him screaming again.” My voice cracked, and I hated it, hated that Brock still had any part of me at all. “And then I feel guilty because I’m glad he’s gone. I’m so glad, Ax. What kind of person does that make me?”

His hand slid up my back and tangled in my hair, holding me there. “The kind who survived him.”

The words hit hard. I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made the tears burn hotter.

Thanks to the Lords and their endless connections, Brock’s death had been neatly explained away as a suicide. There was even a note, one that claimed he’d been so humiliated after our failed engagement that he couldn’t go on.

No one would ever believe Brock Haversham ended his life because he couldn’t live without me.

But this?

Totally believable.

His body, gunshot wound and all, hadn’t been found, and I doubted it ever would be. Ax spared me most of the gory details, and for once, I was grateful to let him handle the ugly parts.

I had enough ugly living inside my head.

Axel pressed a kiss to my hair. “Brock is gone, Lore. He can never hurt you again.”