“I would rather you sit. I will fix something for you.”
“Don’t be silly. I feel like I just shot a pot of espresso. I need to move.” She proved she was fine when she skipped over to the refrigerator in the silver nightgown he’d put her in earlier.
He watched her root around as he walked to the far wall to turn on the rest of the lights.
He watched her as he came back to the island.
He watched her as he sat and tried to deny what this was.
And as he realized he couldn’t, he watched her.
Because it would be the last time he would have the pleasure.
♦ ♦ ♦
As Yasmeen took bread, eggs, and milk out of the fridge and whipped up some French toast, she felt Lucian’s observation. Already she was trying to deny the pain inching in. And she wasn’t referring to the stinging ring she could feel around her neck. Every time she swallowed, it felt as if glass shards were mixed in with her saliva.
He almost killed you.
She ignored the anxious voice she hadn’t heard since she’d woken in the limo that first day here.
It was an accident. Just one of those things
, she defended.
He didn’t mean it.
With that settled, she chattered while she worked. “I know you’re used to something fancier, but Miranda loves my French toast. Says she doesn’t get how something so simple can be so good. She’s a nightmare in the kitchen; Eric is not. He’s a chef at Pour Moi. Have you ever been there? Miranda’s so proud of him. She stands back and allows him to rule his domain when it comes to their kitchen. Me and Kristen—remember, my other roommate from college? When we all lived together, Kris and I did the cooking. Miranda did the eating and cleaning up. I doubt you ever met Kristen. I know you and her stepbrother are friends, but she’s been in Paris for a while now. How friendly are you and Vex? Or are you just associates? Do you do business with him? What’s he like? The way Kristen talks about him, you’d think he was a god.”
She grabbed a couple of forks and carried two plates over to the table. She ducked her head and smiled when she saw Lucian’s focus go to her throat.
“Hey, up here. We’re good. It’s just a scratch.” She placed his breakfast in front of him. “Let’s eat, okay? It’s nothing. Do you want coffee or juice?”
He shook his head and took her wrist to bring her over and settle her in his lap. She put her plate down next to his and curled against him, trying to memorize the way he felt.
“Let me.”
She nodded, not about to argue when he took a fork and cut a piece of the toast. He dipped it in syrup, waited for a drip to fall to the plate, then brought it to her mouth. She took it, then did things her way by picking up a triangle with her fingers. Breaking a piece off, she prepared it and offered it to him. She kept a small smile on her face, refusing to allow it to leave even though darkness was invading her like a disease. This was familiar.
“It is not nothing.”
She fed him another piece and shifted so she was straddling him. She snugged up closer, holding him between her legs as she watched him chew. “Talk to me about the horses you keep here. I met the one but haven’t seen the other yet. Can you give me a lesson tomorrow? I’ve never ridden.”
“The lesson will have to wait.”
“Why? I’m good, Lucian. Honest. Don’t put it off for nothing. Let’s do something…normal. Please.”
He placed the fork down on the table. “I almost killed you, Yasmeen.”
“No.” She dropped the toast on the plate and grabbed his face. “You didn’t. You wouldn’t have.”
“I would have choked the life out of you if Markus had not stopped me.”
That made her pause. “What?”
“Markus came to me. He stopped me from crushing your windpipe.”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have. You would have woken up first. I know it.” She swatted his hand away when he feathered the tips of his fingers down her throat. She needed to distract him. “Did you, uh, take advantage and visit with him? Did you tell him how much you miss him? Did he tell you not to let his death do this to you? Did he? Did you talk to him, Lucian? He would have told you. If he loved you, he would have told you not to hurt yourself by sending me away.” She wanted to cover his face. “You are, aren’t you? I can see that look in your eyes. Don’t send me away. Please. I don’t want to leave you.” She didn’t. Not ever. “I thought I did, but I don’t.”
She shoved off him and stumbled to her feet, her body starting to shake.
“Please, don’t. You don’t know how many times I’ve seen that look in my lifetime. I hate it. I
hate
it. What did I do to have it aimed at
me
so often?” She coughed the lump out of her throat. “I don’t want to see it in your beautiful eyes.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself as she spun away when it didn’t leave those amber depths she wanted to look into every day for the rest of her life. “Don’t send me back, Lucian. I love you, and I know I can help you. Please let me. Please,” she begged roughly, her throat aching with the need to cry.
She allowed him a full minute, finding encouragement in his silence.
“I love you,” she repeated in a stronger tone, finding it easier to say the second time. “What happened is something we’ll get past. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you through this. If you’ll let me.”
Aside from Miranda, she’d never said those three words to a single soul. She turned to see what Lucian’s reaction was to them.
She was alone.
A few hours later, Lucian stood in the open doorway of the castle, cold air pouring in from outside. He watched Sorin bring Yasmeen down the last few steps and across the foyer, and nodded sharply when Sorin said he’d wait in the car.
Yasmeen didn’t say anything. She just stood there and looked up at him with an expression that never should have entered her eyes, but must have so many times in her short life. The evidence of his violence against her was covered by a silky black scarf that perfectly matched her black outfit of boots, leggings, sweater, and wrap. She appeared to be in mourning. Weren’t they all?
He bent and pressed his lips to her forehead, taking only a small portion of her scent in because his breathing was oddly labored. “I wish you a beautiful life, Yasmeen.” When he dropped his hand, the collar he’d locked around her neck was in it, a small key fitted into the hidden lock.
Her tears fell. “Lucian,” she whispered as she came up on her toes and nearly strangled him with a hug that was almost childish in its desperation. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because there is no help for me,
draga
.”
“Yes, there is. I know there is.” She stroked his cheeks, and he felt an odd sense of wonder as he studied her distress. Because it wasn’t for her. She was feeling this for him. “I’m sorry I told you how I feel. Please forgive me and let me stay with you.”
He put her away from him and took her hands off his face. Hearing her utter the words that had sent him fleeing from the kitchen earlier had felt as if someone had driven a spike right through the center of his body. The impact had sent cracks spider-webbing outward, and his protective shell had been crumbling away faster than ever.
“You are forgiven. But, no. It is time for you to go. I have realized, as others have before me…” It was time to end this once and for all. He looked right into her exquisite face and delivered a cruelty even he hadn’t thought himself capable of, but one he was only now realizing was necessary. He discharged the weapon she’d herself had given him. “You are just not what I am looking for, Yasmeen.”
It was as if her beautiful body turned to glass and he could see streams of pain shoot out from every emotional scar she’d ever received. Her lashes came down in a prolonged blink. When they swept up again, it was to reveal a stark pain created from a lifetime of rejection.
“Go,” he forced out. He nudged her out of the way and reached for the door handle so he could pull it closed. “Sorin will make sure you get home.”
She nodded, looking disoriented as she dropped her head and turned away.
Lucian, what are you doing? Let her in. Accept what she is offering you. Please.
Like a blow to the head, Markus’s tortured voice came to him as surely as if his baby brother was standing next to him. Moisture filled his eyes as loss devoured him.
If this is what I fear it is, I do not want another installment of what people consider happiness, my brother. I will not survive it when it ends either by my hand or someone else’s. So I am saving myself from something far worse than what I feel when I sit alone at night and miss you.
He closed the door and left his pet alone in the darkness on the front stoop of his castle. He crossed the foyer, aiming for his office, fearing he may have just committed his most grievous sin yet.
♦ ♦ ♦
As Yasmeen walked around small groups of laughing and smiling friends and relatives happily greeting their loved ones, she spotted a tall, willowy blonde pushing through the crowd toward her. Kristin Sheppard. The expression on her former roommate’s face said she’d already gotten a clear view of Yasmeen’s.
“Come here, baby girl.”
Yasmeen was pulled into a tight, loving embrace.
“Oh, no, no. You cannot let him do this to you. Don’t you dare let him do this to you,” Kris whispered. “He is not worth it,
ma belle fille
.”
It was then Yasmeen accepted it was over. Before it even began. For a few short teasing moments, she’d known what it felt like to find the one place she truly belonged. In the darkness with her madman.
But, now, returning to her reality, where life once more sat back after cruelly proving she was one of those people who would never be lucky enough to find the acceptance she so craved, she was in agony. Even as a pet, she wasn’t worth keeping.
She remembered his smile the night she’d told him she’d seen a mouse, and thought about how the sun had come out when his eyes had crinkled at the sides, its golden glow warming her shadowed world for a few short moments. The damaging effects of those rays would linger, she knew. They would last forever because he’d burned her. He’d invited her in. Forced her to accept him. Then he’d burned her at the stake.
And she’d let him because she was that desperate to be loved. Not wanted, as she’d initially thought. But loved.
“Come on. We’ll take care of introductions later. Let’s get her out of here. Do you have a bag, Yas?”
Her head throbbed when she shook it. Kristen said something in French that was too fast for her to track, and then Yasmeen was being led through Charles de Gaulle behind two guys with hipster beards and trendy clothes. She couldn’t get out one word as they got into a cab and zoomed through the streets of Paris.
♦ ♦ ♦
At the sound of a throat clearing, Lucian looked down and to the side but not all the way back. He’d expected Sorin to interrupt his quiet time sooner.
“Yes?”
“She wanted you to have something. I followed her instructions and left it in your room.”
“Spencer is with her?”
“Yes. He and his team will remain in the shadows until you give him direct orders to stand down.”
Lucian nodded. Invasion of privacy or not; there was no way he would ever leave one of his on their own again.
“You, er, should go see what she left for you.”
He fully turned at Sorin’s uncharacteristic stammer to find the doorway already empty. Returning to what he’d been doing, he walked around the cross and ran his hand down the cold wood. He braced himself before allowing in the memory of how she’d sounded when she’d called out to him. He’d been doing this for an hour now, and every time he relived the sound of her need, more pressure released through the cracks in his shell.
He stepped back, pictured the look in her eyes when she’d seen him in the doorway, and opened his mind to the sound of her screaming his name. His heart slipped that much lower into his naval cavity.
Can’t you see I’m trying to forgive you for what you’re doing? I’m defending these decisions you’re making, excusing your behavior. But I’m scared I won’t be able to do that for much longer.
Yet she had. She’d forgiven every last thing he’d done to her.
Almost afraid to linger, he left the lower level and made his way upstairs. What looked to be a milk crate sat in the center of the bed. He frowned and slowed his approach. He couldn’t imagine what Yasmeen might want to gift him with. A few options drifted through his mind; a gun with a single bullet, a bottle of cyanide, a map to the nearest cliff.
The crate moved, and what he saw when he peered over its edge couldn’t have been more unexpected.
A kitten.
He stepped closer and the tiny dark brown creature looked up. They stared at one another for a long moment. It held Lucian’s gaze with unwavering hazel eyes that naturally had to remind him of Markus.
Cats come around when they want to come around. Any interaction you have with them is done on their terms. Even when it comes to affection, they’ll accept your efforts only when it suits them. You remind me of a cat.