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“No, really, don’t. If I die on my way upstairs, that would be just my luck.” Luxury gives a wry smile as her honey eyes continue to flee, never meeting mine.“See, last October, that would’ve been funny. Now, my morbid sense of humor is . . . is . . .”
My arms wrap around Luxury’s tiny waist as she stutters on oxygen. And though I don’t know all that my woman has gone through, I bloody hate myself for howcautiouslyI must hold her. I enfold her in my arms like fine, fragile China.
13
Luxury
Like the chords of a tightly wound violin, I slip from my love’s arms. The second I let go, those coiled strings fray into a thousand tattered pieces.
We’re so friggen broken. A rage radiates in Victor’s eyes. Anger he directs at himself. Earlier, the malicious glimmer tormenting his gaze affixed on Silas, who had met us with Al Rafi. I wanted to hate Victor’s father for calling a truce, yet the bastard paid for our lives.
On the long jet ride home, my mind returned to the moments I was allowed to shower and change. Blood had rained down a marble shower drain, taking our child’s essence with it.
I’d forever have that last image in my thoughts. The bits of my child consumed me all the while I stood at the closed bathroom door and listened to Silas. Victor had murdered so many men at the bunker where I met Noor. I wanted more. The massacre wasn’t enough. Yet, I can understand Silas’s motives. England has shown me just a fraction of how a royal must think. Those fucks believe they’re gods. Fortunately for her, Princess Noor’s guard whisked her away as Victor arrived. No vengeance.
Hell, no.
Twenty of Noor’s men was hardly revenge. The bitch lived. And while it appears Silas saved us, we are the only ones who paid. There was no tit for tat. In the end, we’re the only ones left broken.
“Victor, I’m twenty-three. Young. The thought of running away and never seeing your face sounds developmentally appropriate to me right now. Shit, that term makes me sound like my dad. But I could . . .” I gasp. “I see myself walking away and not looking back. That makes me sound like a bitch because you went to hell to find me.”
Clouds have blotted out the moon, and with the flickering streetlight, I search out his response. But darkness claims sharp features for its own.
“When I was taken, I prayed you’d be my hero.”
A silent moment passes between us.
A nostalgic moment.
A moment where two broken soulscouldcome together and save each other.
A moment like we shared at Hotel Delacroix.
But I fracture that moment in the same time it took for my baby to die. “I have to be this ungrateful bitch because . . . because you arrived too late.”
“Lux—”
“I can’t find that spunky girl who first laid eyes on you; moreover, I don’t want to. So, if you thought you had to fight for me before—and I do mean the last few weeks because I’ll be damned if you ever truly fought for me in the past—”
“I will fight to the end of the—”
“You will have to fight for me now. You will have to make me remember why I was batshit crazy over you. Why I let you break my heartdaysafter we met and proceed with the same selfish antics over and over again, Victor.”
“I will fight for you! I love you. I aminlovewith you.” A tender hand reaches for me. Captivated by the passion roiling off him in waves, I listen as Victor declares, “I’ve not had the chance to say those words to your lovely face. I botched it for us all this time. Fuck, I said I love you to my fucking duchy. To the bloody door of theloo. Too many variables have stood in our way. Now you—”
“Yes, me.” My chin rises. “Now, I’m standing in our way. Oh, and your engagement to-to thatbitch.”
Firm hands claim my shoulders. “Of all the cock-ups I’ve made, I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”
“Ijust had a crash course on how to live without you, Vic,” I cut in, barely capable of holding back my impulse to love him unconditionally.
Through tragedy.
Through the friggen apocalypse.
Through anything but the death of our child.
A mirage of Victor’s stone-carved face appears before my tear-stained eyes, and I glance toward his feet. “I had said I would stay. Even after you slapped around Graham. Victor, you beat your brother.”
