Page 85 of Fearless Sinner

“I’ll take care of it.”

“But it?—"

“No, Chloe. We’re not going to talk about that stuff during our time away. We’re going to play a different game where we leave that all behind us here and this will just be about you and me. Can we do that?”

There’s nothing to think about. I can definitely do that. I used to play that leave-it-all-behind-me game a lot when I was healing after Nathan. I can do it now for a happier reason so I can spend this precious week with my husband.

“We can.”

“Good. C’mere.”

He pulls me in for a kiss that I savor, and I fall for him just a little more.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chloe

I twist and turn against the silky sheets. My eyes are closed, and I’m still in that languid space between asleep and awake. The scent of raw, masculine power fills me and I think of him.

Cillian—my husband.

We’ve been married for two days and now we’re in Saint Tropez on our honeymoon.

I had a wild day and night with him yesterday. I want that again.

As my awareness returns and the fog covering my mind lifts, I reach across the sheet, feeling for him. But he’s not there.

I roll onto my side and open my eyes, then I’m met with the sparkling turquoise waters of the surrounding sea.

Just like when I first got here, I fall in love with the exotic scenery and take in my surroundings.

We’re staying in an old fifteenth century mansion on the beach on a secluded part of the coast where it’s just us. It’s almost like we have an island to ourselves.

The room has a Baroque design, satin wallpaper, and handcrafted wooden furniture with ornate carvings in the fixtures. The wrought-iron chandelier hanging over my head with its pewter-toned candlesticks transports me to the medieval era, and I feel like I’m Cinderella living her happily ever after.

Everything that has happened since I met Cillian has felt like a fairytale dream to me, and it’s only gotten better and better and better.

He’s almost made me believe the last three years were some alternate reality where the horror I suffered with Nate never happened.

That really couldn’t have been me.

A year ago, as I sat on the floor by my bed, chained at my ankle to the wall with only a pot to piss in and a plate of bread to eat, I thought my end was near.

Nate had punished me for dropping a fork. That was all I did. He was high on shit and to him, that was the worst thing I could have ever done. Drop a fucking fork.

Now I’m here with a man who treats me like a queen. My husband.

I need to look for him now. I don’t want to waste another second thinking of the past.

I slide off the bed, step onto the cool stone floor, and wrap the sheet around me to cover my nakedness. I haven’t unpacked. Cillian and I were mostly naked yesterday. All I have is the clothes I wore here, and I can’t see them anywhere, not even my panties.

It’s possible they could be downstairs somewhere.

I head out of the room onto the landing and gaze through the wide stone archway that shows off a screensaver view of soft waves rolling across the surface of the sea.

Wide stone steps greet me at the end of the landing and I walk down them into a spacious living room with the same Baroque-style furniture.

I look around for Cillian, eager to be near him.

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