Page 50 of Chosen By Swift

She waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, she asked, “You what?”

“I said I didn’t want her. I didn’t want a barren mate.”

“Swift! How could you?”

He winced. “I know! It was horrible of me.”

“That was cruel and nasty! And after you had just terrified her by trying to steal her?”

“I know,” he said, his voice low with regret. “I was so ashamed after that whole mess that I asked Orion to help me become a better man.”

“How?”

“For one, I stopped having sex. I was celibate from that day until you.”

Her eyes widened at that admission. “That must have been a long time.”

“It was.” He held her gaze, and she felt her whole body prickle with excitement at the look in his eye. “But it was worth it.”

When he looked at her like that, with naked lust, she believed all the things he had said about finding her attractive and desirable. She believed he wanted her, that she wasn’t a consolation prize. He chose me.

Realizing he was waiting for her to say something, she cleared her throat. “Whatever you did to change and better yourself must have worked. Ella wouldn’t have found me and told me you were a good man if you hadn’t.”

“She was probably worried someone else would tell you what I had done.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

Swift hesitated. “There’s something else.”

“What?” she asked, uncertain she wanted to know.

“Promise me you’ll let me finish before you scold me for being a terrible lowlife,” he pleaded.

“I will,” she promised, her chest tightening with dread.

“It’s not uncommon for mated men to offer to share their mates with higher-ranking bachelors. It’s a way to access perks or credits.”

“Swift,” she admonished with growing fear.

“I know. There’s no excuse for what I believed to be normal. It was always just a nameless, faceless woman in my mind when I justified the idea of trading.”

“Is that why you wanted Ella?” The sickeningthoughttwisted her gut. “Because she’s so beautiful other men would want her?”

“It’s one of the reasons,” he admitted shamefully.

“Swift!”

He cringed. “There’s no excuse. I was an absolute asshole.”

She wasn’t comfortable using that word, but she agreed with the sentiment. Worried, she asked, “Do you intend to trade me?”

“No!” Swift abandoned the dough and placed a hand along her cheek. “No. Alys, I bought back all the future trades I had arranged. I wiped that slate clean when I went celibate. I learned and changed my way of thinking. I….”

“You?”

“Orion sat me down at the first discussion we had and asked me to think of my mother. He asked me to imagine her in the situation, and I understood what he meant. I wouldn’t want someone to treat my mother that way. What gave me the right to treat anyone else that way? What kind of man treats a woman like a pawn? Like a meal ticket?”

“A bad one,” she said, searching his face for any indication he wasn’t being truthful now.

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