Page 75 of Sinfully His

“Oh no.” I slap my hand on the side of my face. “Does that mean no more sleepovers where we braid each other’s hair?”

“No, it means no more favors.” I could feel Declan’s glare staring a hole into the side of my head.

“I understand. I’ll make sure my father does as well.”

“Then we are done here.” He stood from the bar and grabbed the bag, turning to leave.

“Wait,” I called, turning around and grabbing his arm. He looked down at me and then at the place where my hand was gripping his shirt.

“When are you going to do it?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

It didn’t. I knew everything was already set in motion and it was too late for me to stop it. Rose would never forgive me for what was going to happen and there was no coming back from it. For a moment my mind raced with ideas, ways that I could stop this from happening if only so Rose wouldn’t hate me forever.

“Just tell me,” I said when I realized I had already crossed that bridge.

Rose would never forgive me, and if I didn’t help this happen, if I didn’t make sure it happened, I would never forgive myself.

I told myself that this was for me, that it had to happen for me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it had to happen for her. She deserved to be free, even if she hated me for it.

“Two hours. Everything’s set.”

I nodded, still not letting Declan’s arm go as I stared down at my drink.

“I want to be there.”

“That sounds like a favor,” he said, pulling his arm out of my grasp. “I believe we’ve already determined that our friendship is over. I’m not in the habit of doing favors for people I’m not friendly with.”

“Consider it a final token.”

Declan stared at me for a moment, and I finally turned to look at him directly.

“I need to be there,” I said. “You know what she did… I need to be there.”

He must have seen something in my face or realized exactly how much of a favor destroying those photos was. Fuck, maybe he was planning on using my presence there as the beginning of brand-new blackmail.

It didn’t matter. I had to see this through.

“Don’t be late. We won’t wait for you.”

CHAPTER 31

ROSE

Istood in front of the doorway to the home I had grown up in for several minutes. Just staring at the dark grain of the solid wood door, with the antique brass knocker in the shape of a snarling lion’s head. When I was a child, I was afraid of that lion’s head. Afraid that it would come to life and eat my hand, if I dared to grasp the ring that hung from its teeth. My nanny had tried to scare me by telling me that hitting that knocker would summon the monsters.

At least she was just trying to scare me. Now that I thought about her warning as an adult, I wondered if she wasn’t right.

As an adult, I saw the knocker and her stories for what they were. Warnings. Behind that door was a den of lions, controlled by one lioness with a fierce bite and a cold, dead heart.

An icy breeze lifted my hair from my shoulders, but I barely felt its frozen touch. My skin was hot, my anger had bubbled up in my gut and boiled my blood. I had told Thomas that I had felt the rage he spoke of.

That was a lie.

His anger may have been correctly focused on my mother, but no matter what she did to him, his fire couldn’t touch mine. His anger was the kind that would let him seethe, the kindthat would stay at a low simmer for years while he plotted his revenge.

Mine didn’t simmer. My rage was an inferno, betrayal feeding it. He thought he knew what it was like to have his life destroyed, and maybe he did, but to have your life destroyed by the person who should be biologically predisposed to love you, to support you, was at another level.

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