Page 30 of Forbidden Forget-Me-Not

Kaylani walking out hadn’t ended the game. The stakes had just gone up.

Chapter

Ten

KAYLANI

The rage didn’t cool once we left the house. It intensified.

With every mile between my father and me, it burned hotter, brighter, until it felt like it had nowhere left to go. I wanted to put my fist through a wall. I wanted to call him out for what he really was.

He hit me. My father hit me.

In front of all those men, like that didn’t tell them exactly what I meant to him and how they were allowed to treat me.

I thought Goran was taking me to Nathaniel’s house, but we passed the driveway and pulled onto an unmarked road. The ground was unpaved, and the trees were so thick I couldn’t see where we were headed.

We pulled up to a cozy home nestled beside its own private cove.

“Where are we,” I asked, leaning forward in my seat.

The moonlight reflected off the water, the shape rippling across the surface.

Goran turned and looked at me.

“This is my place.”

“This is yours?”

He chuckled. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

“It’s just…okay, this is going to sound dumb now that I’m about to say it out loud, but I thought you lived with Nathaniel.”

My cheeks warmed with embarrassment. I had married him and never asked where he lived.

What the hell was wrong with me?

“Well, in a way I do. It’s attached to his property.” Goran shrugged.

He got out, opened my door, and held out his hand. I wobbled a little on the rocky ground and squealed when he swept me up into his arms. His boots crunched over the rough stone, but even when he could have set me down, he didn’t. Instead, he unlocked the door and paused.

“I didn’t get to do this in Vegas, considering I was a little incapacitated.”

“Please. You still wouldn’t have. I never would’ve gotten you down the aisle,” I teased.

“That’s probably true.”

Goran stepped across the threshold into his home, and the simple act wiped away the bitterness that had been sitting on my chest.

The door closed behind us with a soft click, and for the first time all night, I could breathe. This wasn’t a palace, but it wasn’t a cage either.

With a little smile playing across his lips, he set me gently on my feet. His knuckles grazed the side of my cheek where my father had hit me.

“I’ll get you something cold for that.”

He flicked on the light, took my hand, and guided me to the kitchen. Everything was new, clean, and neat as a pin. Not a single dirty cup in the sink or piece of paper out of place.

Instead of sitting, I drifted to the window overlooking a steep drop where the water lapped into the inlet.