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I admit, posing the question to my best friend was the hardest thing I ever had to do up to that point. But I knew giving up my child to some stranger would have been harder. Not to mention my father’sotherultimatum.
In this case, the lesser of the three evils won. Besides, Sadie and I went back a ways. We hit puberty together and consoled each other when our parents dumped us at boarding school for nine months. Crushed on boys together. Christmas and birthdays never went unnoticed. We were sisters of the heart. And still are. I lamented the day my father pulled me out of boarding school. At first, I hated him for sending me, but in time, I made friends.
And then I had it all yanked away from me. All because he thought it was time for me to learn the family business. I finished high school online by day and learned the family business by night. That is when I met Hark. And then I didn’t care about boarding school or family issues. All I homed in on was him.
Until caring for him so much landed him dead as far as I knew and me a soiled daughter to a king who’d rather see me tied to someone’s bed popping out heirs instead of on the Titan throne.
The phone continues to ring, but no one picks up. She’s just busy, I tell myself. It’s not like everyone sits by the phone waiting for a call twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.
I hit the end button and immediately dial again.
I take a deep breath and take comfort knowing my father is no longer a danger to my child. Any tears I shed for him dried up as Hark rocked me to sleep last night.
Like any mother, I was afraid someone else couldn’t care for my daughter as I would, but Sadie has proven otherwise. She fell in love with Heaven the instant she held her tiny form just as I did. I hold on to that fact. The money issue was easily resolved. A few re-routes and everyone looking at my finances thought I spent way too much on designer perfume and clothing when in reality it went for food, rent, and anything else Sadie needed.
But all this will be behind me once I strip Sean of his power. I’ll have my child in my arms and my soon-to-be-ex asshole husband will be long gone. One way or another.
I slam my eyes closed and send up a prayer. “What a cluster fuck of a mess you are, Asena.”
“There you are.”
I inhale sharply. Oh crap. Chills attack me the second that voice hits my ears.
Steel snaps into place.
I hit end on the phone call and twirl to find a stalking Dragon looking at me from the doorway like I’m his to whisk away and drop in his pile of treasures.
Fourteen
Asena
Dragon strides across the room looking every bit the monster I remember him to be.
Color has returned to his face and by every account my senses ping on, there’s not a sign anywhere on him he took a bullet to the shoulder.
Cotton clings to his muscular form and those black jeans were made for the man. Tight in all the areas that count. His cut shifts and sways as he takes one step. And then another.
Glints of light off metal catch my eye and I know he’s armed under that leather.
He’s in my space in less than four steps. He clasps me around the neck and I’m pinned against the back of a nearby couch. I used to think the best thing about a man was the way he kissed a woman. Now I’m starting to think it’s how a man makes a woman feel possessed with a simple touch.
Not of my own doing, my body pipes up and starts to agree. First, there’s the flush of warmth through my body. It starts at my core and blooms outward from there until I find it hard to breathe.
Damn him.
I raise my hands between us and drive him back. But I might as well be pushing on a two-ton hunk of metal. It would move more than this stubborn man would.
“What do you want?” I turn my gaze to a fixed point over his shoulder to play off my red cheeks as irritation.Do not fall under his spell. Do not fall under his spell.
He has other ideas. Dark eyes and a clean-shaven face fill my vision when he takes my chin and turns me back. He doesn’t talk until I finally give in and match his hard gaze with one of my own.
Hark laughs—a low timbre sound designed to make my knees weak and that might as well have my libido tied to it for how much it yo-yos.
His seeking hands wrap around my ribcage and work their way around until there is barely an inch between us. Seeking fingers find the stretchy band of my borrowed sweatpants.
Oh, shit.
I stiffen, but instead of continuing his trek around to the middle of my back where I have Avery’s phone tucked, his hands take a southern dive. Strong fingers grip my ass through the soft material and one tug has my body flush with his.
