Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
She hasn’t noticed that I’m awake—I’m capturing a look at her when she believes she’s unobserved.
I see her sadness.
She rose restless, unhappy. Maybe she doesn’t even remember last night.
As I sit up, she startles and turns toward me.
“Good morning,” she says.
The formality of the greeting is a far cry from what she moaned in my ear as she came all over my cock.
Already I feel my face stiffening, the shutters inside me slamming shut. I’ve never been vulnerable to hurt before—everything within me revolts against it.
“I can almost see my parents’ house from this window.”
“I know.”
My voice comes out colder than I intended.
“I wondered…” she hesitates.
I already know what she’s about to say, but I remain silent, playing out the rope. Something perverse inside of me wants to watch her hang herself.
“You want evidence on your case,” Clare says. Her voice is soft but direct, her eyes fixed on my face. “I know my father’s password to the computer in his office. I could look through his files. Then we’d both learn the truth.”
“You want to go home,” I say, flatly.
Clare flinches.
“I don’t want—it’s not like that. It’s just… I have to know, Constantine. I have to know for certain.”
“I’ve told you for certain.”
“That’s not the same!” Her cheeks are turning pink, her eyes glinting. Still, she’s fighting for control, fighting to be understood.
I cannot understand her. Because I can’t accept this.
“What about last night?” I bark. “When you belonged to me.”
I twist the words in the ugliest way. Clare’s chest rises and falls rapidly beneath my shirt. I know I’m upsetting her, but I can’t seem to stop.
“Constantine… I… I care about you, about what happens to you—”
“Of course you do,” I sneer. “You’re a crusader. You wanted to save me from the moment we met. Before we even met. Me and every other lost soul.”
“No! That’s not what I—”
“I don’t need your fucking pity,” I snarl. “I don’t need you at all. I can find the evidence with or without your help.”
“But I want to—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want.”
Clare recoils like I slapped her.
I would never slap her face.
But I would do this… I would push her away. Roughly and painfully.
Because Clare is bound to betray me. The moment she’s back inside that house, safe with her parents, ensconced in her life of privilege and security, this thing between us will evaporate like dew on hot pavement.
I sucked her into this insane affair. This was never what she wanted for herself—a criminal. A killer.
She lost her mind for a moment and clung to me in the madness.
But she doesn’t love me, how could she?
She wants to go home. Her old life calls to her.
Perhaps mine does, too.
It was much less complicated when I only had to worry about myself. When I could slash and beat and burn anyone in my path without a shred of remorse.
“You’re right, Clare,” I say, rising from the bed, naked and cold as solid stone. “It’s time for you to go home.”
Chapter 18
Clare
I stare out the window of the bedroom and force myself to push past the sick, twisted feeling of nausea in my belly. The cool prickling sensation down the back of my neck that tells me something’s terribly wrong.
I don’t like the cold look in Constantine’s eyes when they meet mine. Telling me to go home feels like the coldest of rejections. Like bone revealed with the deepest cut of a blade, it feels as if painful truth is revealed; we come from two different worlds and could never be together.
I reject this truth, though. I reject it with everything in me because I know it isn’t true. I’ve seen the look in his eyes when he isn’t guarded. I fit with Constantine like I was carved into him, and our being together completes the both of us. His brutal, fiery passion fuels me, and my steadiness calms his fire.
I know this. I’m not sure he does. I can’t think of that now, though. If I do, the pressing weight of our future together might splinter me. The thought of never being with him again might shatter me.
So I hold it together.
I let his eyes shutter to black.
I bear the pain of the coldness in his gaze.
And I make a vow to myself. I will vindicate Constantine Rogov. Because he deserves the truth. And I love him.
So I go along with the ruse. I allow him to push me away from him. I have to… for now. Until I shed light on the truth, that needs to happen.
I gather up the few belongings I have while he talks on the phone in Russian, no doubt orchestrating the plans that will set me free, and for the hundredth time, I wish I spoke his native tongue. I can tell by the clenching of his fist and the tight, heated tone of his voice that he’s angry.