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“Who did you expect?” I tilt my head to the side unable to suppress jealousy from rearing its head. “Your absent fiancé?”
Flushing crimson, her eyes dash and she takes a step back into the safety of her room, looking like she’s about to close it but I stop her, putting my hand out.
Exhaling impatiently I rasp, “I didn’t mean it like that, dove.”
She nods. “I know. It’s just that I have a pounding headache.”
My brows rise and she cries out,
“A real one this time! I swear it.”
I blame myself for that because I shouldn’t have gotten her drunk. Clasping her arm, I pull her out of her room. “How about a quick game of pool? It might take the edge off your headache.”
I know she won’t be able to pass this up because she loves games. Any games even Jenga.
Her eyes light up a little and she toys with her lip with her teeth. “All right...let’s play.”
Nodding, I hide how pleased I am that she didn’t reject my company and we make our way down the hall. A maid comes walking, carrying a laundry basket and she throws a look at me then at the girl and turns bright red in the face.
The girl darts into the pool room so quickly that it takes me by surprise and I frown but casually follow. I find her, leaning against the wall and running her hand through her hair. Pushing my hands into my pockets, I try to figure out what that was about and she gazes up.
“Did you see the way she looked at me?” the girl asks and her voice breaks in the middle. “She looks at me like I’m doing something wrong.”
In their eyes she is. Most women don’t hang around other men when they are soon to be married but what everyone fail to realize is that I am not just a man to her. I am more. And in my eyes she isn’t doing anything wrong. In my eyes she is doing everything right.
Shrugging, I reply, “Feel free to blame this all on me. Tell anyone who questions you that I’m threatening you into this. That all you want is to be a pure, innocent bride but that all I want to do is corrupt you.”
She stares at me.
Then she averts her eyes, taking a deep breath before her mouth starts to twitch like she wants to smile but thinks she’s not allowed and she moves her body in a short stretch. “So, are we doing this or not?”
I smile, handing her the stick. “You go first.”
“I’m not that good at this,” she murmurs, “the Bryce’s aren’t very playful.”
She must have been so isolated in this house. She’s so unlike them that she must have felt like a foreigner
“I will teach you.” Moving to stand behind her, I position myself and then her and I’m tempted to skim my fingers over her wrist. Just to see if her pulse is frantic again. I can understand why everyone wants her. Her little body is perfect and feels warm and moldable next to mine. And whenever I touch her, my touch seems to melt into her, sinking past all barriers like she yearns for this. It’s as if she’s been walking around with a chafing ache all these years and is needy for someone to slake it.
Someone who knows her.
I teach her how to hold the stick and when she lets out a thrilled laugh when she starts getting the hang of it, I feel something starting to expand in my chest. It grows bigger and bigger until it feels like I can’t breathe and I turn around, forced to massage my chest to get it to calm down.
“Are you okay?” the girl asks as I keep my back toward her and I nod. The more time I spend with her the harder it is to keep her here where I have to share. I want to take her away and have it be just us two.
“Bram?” she whispers and I tense when I feel her hand sliding up my shoulder. My eyes shudder because she’s touching me voluntarily, because she wants to comfort me. I turn around and she quickly moves her hand again but I snatch it.
“Don’t take it back,” I rasp and her eyes flare, “never take anything you’ve given to me back.”
“Didn’t mean to.” Her lids flutter like she’s conflicted. “I just know I shouldn’t encourage you. After all I have to marry...”
“Who?” I ask, curbing my rage and I put her soft hand up to my cheek to calm myself. “Who is it that you in your pretty and innocent little mind think you have to marry?”
Gasping as if nobody has talked to her about options before, she takes a step back and this time I let her go. She shakes her head. “You know that I’m promised to someone else.”
“It’s a mere inconvenience. Nothing that I will allow to stand in my way.”
“But the Bryce’s will stand in your way.” She sounds frustrated and I know that she would prefer it they didn’t. “They won’t let you have me.”
