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“Are you okay? I tried to call you.” His voice shifts into a warmer one.
“I don’t have that phone with me.”
“I figured that out.”
“I wish I could have gone with you from the start. Now it’s too late.”
“I’m coming for you. And this time, no one is going to stop me.”
Kieran would never allow that. And my uncle can’t come before I marry.
“I have to go.” I hang up and delete his number.
When I step inside, I give Kieran the phone. “Thank you.”
He takes it and scrolls through it. I’m attacked with a trace of guilt. But it disappears, turning into anger. I’m sure he’s checking the numbers I called. There’s zero trust, and that’s a hurdle I doubt we’ll ever overcome.
He hops off the bed and goes into the bathroom. “Wanna join me?”
“No, I’m good.”
I witness the flash of disappointment, but it’s replaced with stiff acceptance.
As I head downstairs, the thought that I’m getting married tomorrow unsettles me. I wanted to marry for love, and not because I have to. But there is a part of me—lust and childish infatuation mostly—that thinks I’m getting a good bargain. My freedom for an orgasm. It has to be the worst compromise in history.
I find myself in the garden, picking up flowers to create an arrangement. When I get inside the kitchen, I put them in a vase.
“They look beautiful.” Tamara approaches me and hugs me. “Trust me, you’re going to be more than fine. Everything will be great.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I see how you two are when you’re together.”
Kieran comes into the kitchen, and we eat in silence.
“I have to take care of something, but when I come back, we could watch a movie.”
He’s such a conundrum, but I am inexplicably drawn to him.
“I’d love that,” I say in a breathy whisper, and I go to the library, picking up my book.
The night blankets the sky and when he returns, he finds me in the theater room, a bag of popcorn resting on my thighs.
“What are we watching?”
I press play, and he bursts into laughter. It’s a kidnapping movie. Engrossed in the screen, I squeeze his hand. I thought I would one-up him with my choice, but all I did was make my stomach turn.
The film is disgusting and nothing like my life. Kieran hasn’t forced himself on me. He didn’t make me trust him, only to break that trust and give me to others. I turn my face to him, tears streaming down my face. He lifts me onto his lap and strokes my back.
“I would die to protect you.”
I believe him. Maybe I am crazy, but I know he’s a monster who would never take advantage of me.
“Do you think if Delaney got to me, I would have become like the women in the movie?” I ask, gliding my finger over his shirt buttons.
He tips my chin up, searing my skin with a stony-faced look. “I would have never let that happen.”
“But you said—”
