Page 99 of Vicious Addictions

Chicago is my home. Where I belong.

The only thing that it doesn’t have is… Mina.

Mina.

How could I possibly give her up now?

Especially when her father all but gave us his blessing?

It doesn’t matter.

His offer came with too many unfavorable variables to it.

Because by naming me his heir, I’d be stealing Mina’s birthright right from under her.

What good would it do me to marry the only woman I will ever love, if she’ll end up hating me in the end?

Maybe I’m more like my father than I care to admit. He’s made more than one decision solely based on love.

My mind is still trying to make heads or tails of the clusterfuck I find myself in when I finally step out of Victor’s office, only to come face to face with a heartbroken Mina.

“Mina,” I utter, rushing towards her, but she steps back, brushing away a stray tear from her cheek.

“Why did you tell him no?” she asks accusingly.

“I didn’t,” I quickly defend, hating that she overheard every word of what was supposed to be a private conversation between her father and me.

“You didn’t say yes, either.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I hate that word. You say it every time you refuse to be honest with me. I don’t understand what’s so complicated about it. Am I not enough? Is the dowry my father just promised you not enough?” she spits out the last part angrily.

“You know it’s not about that.”

“Yes, it is. If you leave… if you go back to Chicago… then it is.”

“Mina,” I try to defend again, but the heartbreaking look of betrayal stitched to her beautiful face is too much for me to bear.

“I’ve been trying to understand why, every time you brought up the subject of you going home to see your family, you would shut me down. At first, I thought it was just your pride getting in the way. But then, when we…after we…” She sobs softly. “It doesn’t matter. I finally realized the truth. You didn’t want to go home because you knew you’d never come back. I’m right, aren’t I?” she asks, searching my eyes for any glimpse of hope that she might be wrong. “Don’t go,” she begs before I can get a word in.

“I have to.”

“No. You don’t. You can stay here… with me.”

My chest feels like someone is driving a stake through it with the way her eyes water with a river of unshed tears. I quickly bridge the gap between us, and before she can pull away, I cup her cheeks in my palms.

“I have to do this, Mina. I have to see this through. You’ve always known my plans. I never hid them from you.”

“Plans change.”

“Not mine.”

“No. Not yours,” she murmurs, pulling away from my touch.

“Mina,” I plead, trying to touch her again, but she’s having none of it.

“If you leave… don’t come back,” she says with conviction, her gray eyes mirroring the same deadly intensity as her father’s.

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