AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing’s changed. Your father told you the truth before he left. I approached you, I wooed you, I asked you to marry me, all because I wanted collateral. I wanted to keep control over your father.”
“And I stayed with you anyway,” she pleaded. “Doesn’t that mean something?”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes,” she said adamantly. “Yes, I did have a choice. And I chose to stay with a man I knew didn’t love me, in the hopes that one day, hewouldlove me.”
I stood there for a long time before I summoned the courage to shake my head. “I’m sorry, Celine,” was the last thing I said to her before the walls between us built up forever. “I really am sorry that it had to happen like this.”
I left her room with her eyes on my back.
I never looked back once.
“Ilarion!”
I blink and Celine’s image dissolves into Taylor’s. The wind is still flapping around her body as though it’s trying to wrap its arms around her in an embrace.
I can’t believe I’m jealous of the fuckingwind.Touching what I can’t allow myself to touch.
“So that’s why she moved out?” Her jaw works from side to side. “And then the first assassination attempt, the one that killed Vanessa,” Taylor breathes. “Oh, God…oh, God.” She lifts her gaze to me, her mouth turned down as though she’s about to bawl her eyes out. “Is that why you eventually married her anyway? Out ofguilt?”
My mouth falls open in disbelief. Do I need to wheel out a whiteboard to draw a diagram for her? “Taylor, have you been listening to a word I said?”
Taylor’s bottom lip trembles. “Ilarion—"
“I’m going to be heading out of town for a couple of days,” I tell her abruptly. It’s for my sanity as much as it is for business. “I’ll be back in time for Celine’s charity event.”
Her eyebrows pinch together, but she nods, almost in slow motion. There’s a vacancy about her expression that breaks my goddamn heart.
So I decide to take advantage of it like the selfish bastard I am deep down. I step forward and run my fingers along her bare throat. She gasps at the unexpected contact. I watch her eyes go wide, but before she can stop me, I lean in.
My lips press hard against hers, easing them apart. I can feel her warmth, the blood coursing beneath her veins.
One thought trumps all the others.
She was fucking made for me.
When I release her, her eyes are still closed. They flutter open a second later, transfixed and wide with shock. Her lips are still parted, begging for another kiss.
But I’ve already taken too much.
So I turn and walk away from her, taking the memory of my stolen kiss with me.
46
TAYLOR
Every time I tell myself I’m not going to think about the kiss anymore, that’s all I end up thinking about. Even now, a day later, while I’m riding in a town car with Celine right next to me, I can feel him, taste him, smell him.
Every time I reach up to touch my lips, I have to remind myself that I’m not alone in my room. I don’t have the freedom to let my mind run wild.
It’s been doing a little too much of that lately.
“Aw, come on!” Celine says, patting me on the arm and making me jerk out of my reverie. She laughs when she notices my expression. “Where were you?”
“Oh, uh…nowhere.”
She crinkles her nose with amusement. “I was just trying to tell you to cheer up. It’s criminal to look so down when we’re going dress shopping!”
