Page 61 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

I let my husband carry me into our bedroom where I show him just how persuasive I can be.

Chapter 21

Phoenix

I’m halfway to the treehouse before I realize that’s where I’m headed. I’m lost in thought, processing everything that's gone down and not paying attention to where my feet are taking me.

I’ll go along with this for as long as it takes me to get my affairs in order, but then I’m gone. This is the final straw for my relationship with my parents. I won’t be forced into marrying her, even though I once wished for this very thing while blowing out eleven candles.

That was another life, another Phoenix, and both are long gone.

I’m assaulted by visions of Six in white, standing in front of me at the altar, of pulling back her veil and revealing her beautiful face as she peers expectantly back at me.

Weird things move in my chest at those images. She’s being offered to me for the taking. She could be mine if I wanted–

No.

She’ll never be mine.

I know this.

I wish I could lobotomize her out of my brain once and for all. If I could take a cauterizing pen to my grey matter and burn off the parts that think of her and only of her, it’d be less painful than living with the thoughts full time and never being able to do anything about them.

Disgust roils with desire in my stomach. I need to have better control of these thoughts. I shake my head as if I can physically banish them from my mind and look up, noticing that I’m approaching the treehouse.

That realization is only secondary, because the first thing I see is Six standing in front of the tree I once spent an entire day carving all three of our names into.

Her hand is extended as her finger traces over our names, her index lingering on Astor’s name.

I walk on a branch and it snaps loudly, making her jerk around at the noise. Her green eyes widen briefly before turning wary.

“What do you want?”

“I’m not here for you,” I tell her, but I’m also not sure what I am here for. What did I think I’d find at the treehouse if not for her? Astor’s grave is five minutes away, but I’d had to walk past it to get here.

She scoffs. “Don’t worry, I’d never make the mistake of thinking you would ever come looking for me.”

I wonder what she’d think if she knew I once flew to Hong Kong just so I could spend fifteen minutes watching her order lunch from afar.

I can’t resist needling her. “That’s about to change though, isn’t itwife?”

The word rolls dangerously well off the tongue, like I’ve always been destined to say it to her. There’s a sense of ownership in the way it leaves my lips that I have no right to have but that makes the monster inside of me purr.

She rounds on me and marches up to where I’m standing, her hair flying around her as she stomps towards me. She puts her hand on her hips before giving me an unimpressed look.

“Yeah, I’m super thrilled to be engaged to someone whose only reason for marrying me is keeping access to his precious fortune. What a win that is for me.”

I smirk. “Then why are you doing it?”

I’m genuinely curious. Did her parents threaten her like my father did with me? Was she promised something in return? Does she have an ulterior motive like I do? I don’t understand why she’d agree to this.

“You know I would do anything for my family,” she replies simply, her shoulder lifting in a shrug.

Ah, of course. She’s always the good girl, always doing what’ll make everyone else happy instead of prioritizing what she wants.

I snort, giving her a condescending glare that I know will rile her up. “You’re pathetic. Agreeing to marry someone just because it’ll make your psycho daddy happy. Guess it doesn’t take much, just you on your back, spreading your legs for me.”

I don’t expect her reaction so I’m not ready for it when she shoves me, the force of her push sending me backwards. I trip over a branch at my feet and fall flat on my back with a pained groan.

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