Page 82 of Moonlit Temptation

And it wasn’t.

Until one day, six months ago, when Mady had walked into a room and I instantly became aware of her movements. It was such an innocuous thing. She was looking for a book or a magazine or something, mumbling under her breath. I wasn’t even sure if she knew her brother and I were in the room, but I kept finding myself stealing glances at her. And each time it got harder to look away. I didn’t want to look away as this strange, wholly foreign feeling fluttered in my chest.

I still wasn’t sure what it was about that moment that changed the way I looked at her.

Only that I hadn’t been able to stop since.

But I tried. I tried really damn hard to ignore the way my skin pricked with awareness every time she was near or how my ears strained to hear even her faintest laugh.

I fought the urge to find reasons to be close to her, putting conscious distance between us instead.

I did everything I could to not see her as anything other than my best friend’s younger sister.

Until London. One night with her was all it took for the walls I had built to be torn down, and one hotel room where I gave in to the moonlit temptation for me to know I was ruined.

I wanted one good thing in my life, and all the good that surrounded me came in the form of Madelayne Novak.

My best friend’s younger sister.

A woman I was never supposed to want.

And the very person who had tormented my every breath.

She made me feel alive in a way that I forgot existed and gave me the one thing I never thought I’d get to taste.

Peace.

My little dove. My salvation.

My agony. My devastation.

I had been a fool. A complete and utter besotted fool who thought he could have it all.

Except, I didn’t want everything.

I just wanted her.

I’d give it all up. The money. My house. The power. My company.

I’d trade it all in, until I was nothing but that poor son of a convicted felon.

I’d give up everything to just have her.

My throat still burned from the words I said. My tongue felt heavy with the wreckage it left behind.

I broke her. I destroyed myself.

All for a duty I’d never asked for.

Nothing more than the monster they had made me, leaving me to feel dead inside.

I knew my words were going to break her. I picked them for that very reason.

They needed to break her. I needed to push her far away from me.

The Leader demanded it.

My fists curled until my knuckles were bleached white.

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