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My heart squeezes tight and I can barely breathe as I push into the duke’s office, expecting to see, I don’t know, my father there, maybe—
“Eva, as if I’ve died,” he breathes.
Him.
That man.
Thatmonster.
He stands in the middle of Mason’s office, looking no worse for wear than when I ran away from Paris.
Benedict and Noah stand behind him. Mason is seated at his desk, but gets to his feet at the sight of me.
I can’t move an inch. My feet are stuck to the ground, my mouth sewn shut. My body trembles, for all the wrong reasons, as I see the very last person on the whole planet that I ever wanted to see again.
Archduke Frederick Montroy of France. He’s still handsome, his eyes watery blue, his hair blond and going to silver at his temples.
And he looks at me like he did then, like he wants to devour me.
“I’ve searched for you across all the continents, and finally, found you here.” He crosses the floor toward me, and I wish it would fall out from under me. Let there be a trap beneath my feet. Let the earth open up and swallow me whole, so I don’t have to be here. Revisiting everything he ever did to me. Everyperverse demand. Every abuse. The slap of his hand against my face, my thigh. Nothing and no one compares to him in the list of people who have hurt me in my life.
And now he’s here, speaking to me like I still belong to him.
“You… you’re...” Mason isn’t quite able to get the words out, and behind Frederick, I see Benedict exchange looks. Their faces are matched expressions of confused fury.
The archduke stops right in front of me and falls to one knee.
Bile rises in my throat.
“I left her. For you. I am a free man.”
“What in the hell—“ Benedict sputters.
“Who is this asshole?” Noah says, taking over him.
And Mason only stares at me, confusion, betrayal, warring on his face.
The archduke reaches for my hand. I’m frozen still, solid, and he takes it.
“I can be here for you now, fully, and completely. Eva, will you be my wife and grand duchess?”
Behind me Mrs. Harris inhales like a teakettle.
In front of me the one person I thought taught me everything about love, but only really took from me all that was good and innocent, looks at me with earnest eyes. I would have died for this, almost a year ago. I begged on my knees for him to love me the way he said he did.
And now?
“I—“
“Absurd,” Noah says, storming toward us, and pushes me back, inserting himself between us. “Get off the ground. She won’t marry you. She can’t.”
Benedict makes a growling sound.
“She’s just a servant,” Mrs. Harris says weakly in the background, but everyone ignores her.
“I can’t see any reason for her to say no,” Montroy says, sounding infuriated at being stymied.
“I wonder how you survived the terrors,” Benedict comments drily, before looking back at me.
