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“It’s not a choice if I only have two options to begin with,” I reply, still covering myself up.
He steps closer, forcing me to step back. “Would you have preferred to be in another man’s arms right now?” He walks up to me until I bump into the big mirror and he’s trapped me. “Do you think he would’ve treated you nicely? That he would’ve been gentle at the ceremony?”
He grabs a strand of my hair and curls it around his finger. “Who would it have been? The carpenter’s boy? The baker? A guard?”
Tears well up in my eyes at the thought of that ceremony, and how things could’ve gone if I had chosen to deny him and gone back up to the showers … and toward a fate worse than death.
He cocks his head, still holding a strand of my hair between his fingers. “Do you think you would’ve been happier with one of them?”
Swallowing away the lump in my throat, I don’t dare answer that question. The implications are too big.
Noah leans in and whispers into my ear, “Do you regret choosing me over them?”
I don’t know why, but my head slowly shakes. Just two times, but it’s enough for him to lean back and give me that same, wicked grin I’ve seen before. The one that makes goose bumps scatter on my skin.
“Good. I wouldn’t want you to feel bad when you’re in my home,” he muses, releasing my hair from his entangled grip. His eyes slide down my body, toward the scar, and my immediate thought is to cover it up again, but he grabs my hand before I can even try.
“Don’t. Don’t hide from me,” he says. “Please.”
That last word undoes me. Not because of the way he says it, but because of the sincere, pure gentleness in his eyes. That look bores a hole into my soul, forcing old wounds to reopen.
He cocks his head. “When is this from?”
I turn my head away. “A long time ago …” I don’t intend to tell him about my history. My history is a part of my soul, it’s what makes me me, and I’m not about to willingly hand it to him on a silver platter.
He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. “Did someone hurt you?”
My brows furrow. “No.”
His eyes twitch. “Are you sure?”
“Why do you even care?”
A tepid smile forms on his lips. “I’ve always cared about you, Natalie.”
“Tsk.” I jerk free again. “More lies.”
He sighs. “If only you knew.”
He grabs my shoulders and turns me around, taking a few steps back with me as a prop until we’re both far enough away from the mirror to see us both. My entire naked body on display as though I’m a puppet and he holds all the strings.
“Look at yourself. You’re beautiful. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met.”
“Then you haven’t met a lot of girls,” I retort.
He laughs. “And witty too.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re going to be a patriarch’s wife now. It’s a position of great power.”
“Why should I care?”
He stares at me through the mirror with that penetrative gaze again, that same one that could set my body ablaze. His fingers clutch my shoulders, digging into my skin. A memory of us in that Jacuzzi flashes by, and I clamp my legs together to stop myself from thinking and feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling for a man like him.
“Because … you will rule this place with me,” he says, and he wraps his arms around my body as though he owns me. His hands slide down to where my scar sits. “Look at yourself in the mirror.”
I look at him and then myself, at my body, my scar, and all that it entails.
“You’re beautiful.”
“I’m scarred, and you know that, so stop saying that,” I reply.
“It’s the truth. Scars do not make us any less beautiful. They don’t define us.”
“Stop acting like it’s not a big deal,” I say, trying to jerk free, but he won’t let me.
“Stop,” he says, his voice calm but assertive, like a command whispered into my ear. “Stop fighting. You made this choice.”
“I chose the easiest way out,” I hiss.
“No, you chose me, despite the fact that you knew you had a secret to hide. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
My eyes widen.
“Did you think you could keep your body hidden from me forever?” His hand rests on top of my vulva now, and it’s hard, so hard to stop my heart from beating faster and faster. “Did you think I would let this slide? You attempted to use it as a weapon.”
“I thought you people only cared about virgins,” I retort.
He snorts. “Them. Not me.”
“Oh, so you’re different than them now?” I jest.
“Vastly … in every way, shape, and form,” he whispers into my ear. “They don’t know how far I’m willing to go … what I’m willing to give … to use … to get what I want.” His hand dives between my legs, nudging them apart as he toys with me, and I struggle to breathe. “And I want you, Natalie. I want you to be mine … completely.”
