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“I’m a man who owns his decisions.”
“That’s a lie. You were ready to pretend that there was no way these children could be yours.”
“I assumed,” he said. “That you had been in my brother’s bed for months. I assumed that the likelihood that it was his seed that had taken root inside of your womb was much higher than the reality of my own doing the same.”
“Well. Now you know. Now you know the truth of it.”
“You were going to sleep with Alex that night,” he said.
She nodded. “I was ready. I trusted him.”
And something inside of him broke. Because he had not known how vulnerable a place Morgan was in when she had come to his bed. He had thought that he had been looking at an entirely different situation than the one he was.
She had been a virgin. Heartbroken because her instincts had been so very wrong.
“He must’ve loved you, though,” he said. “To not sleep with you. To want you in his life anyway.”
“That’s a terrible thing,” Morgan said. “I think he did. But in the end of it all, I don’t think I loved him. I think I didn’t know what love was. He was handsome, and he turned my head. And he was kind to me. And no, I wasn’t interested in his money in the beginning, but I really appreciated how much easier my life was with it. I was tired. I was tired of the person I had the strongest connection to—my mother—resenting me. I was tired of working so hard. And suddenly, I had Alex. And he was fun and wonderful. He made me laugh. He made me feel like I wasn’t a burden. He gave gifts to me happily. And I... If that’s what being a gold digger is, I suppose I actually am one. Because I met you, Constantine, and I knew that it wasn’t really Alex’s bed I wanted to be in. I wanted to want him. And he was easy to feel an attraction to. But it wasn’t the same. It never was.”
She was so brave in this moment it shamed him.
It made him want to be more for her.
He stepped down to where she sat and gripping her chin, tilted her face up at his. “Tell me more about how you want me.”
She was pregnant with his children. And there were serious things to deal with. There was outrage, and a fair amount of recrimination for the universe. But... It would wait. It would wait until this was through. It would wait until he was finished with her.
“Your intensity. I... The moment I saw you...”
“You know why I hated you so, Morgan?”
She shook her head.
“Because the only time I have ever wanted anything in the universe that I could not have was when a person died. When they were taken from me by forces much more powerful than I could ever be. But you... You were there. Flesh and blood in the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And you were his. Alex is my younger brother, and he is... He was... So full of life, and I... I pledged to care for him. To look out for him. And I coveted his woman beyond all else. And I despised you for it. Because from the moment I first saw you I wanted you beyond all else.”
“Why?” There was something hungry in the question. Greedy. And his body responded to it. He wanted to satiate it. That question. That raw need in her eyes.
“Maybe your beauty. Perhaps your innocence.”
“You knew I was innocent.”
“No. And I did not properly get to enjoy it. Tell me, had you ever seen a naked man?”
“No,” she whispered. “Only you.”
The monster within him gloried in that answer.
“Have you ever taken a man into your mouth?”
She shook her head. “No.”
And all these months he had been tortured by the image of her pleasuring his brother, his brother having the thing that he could not, and in fact, she had never given herself to Alex. Only to Constantine. And the guilt that came along with the triumph of it all stunned him.
The water around them was clear, glimmering bright in the sun. And he had the desperate urge to see her body, bare beneath the sky. With no secrets. No lies.
He took her hand and had her stand, then reached around and pulled the zipper tab on her dress, drawing it down her body. It fell slack, revealing her pale, glimmering curves. She had on a pair of white panties beneath the dress, no bra. His need for her was a beast. Those curves—always so tempting to him—enhanced now by her pregnancy.
His children.
