Page 69 of A Beautiful Crime

Constantine is making me feel, yet again, except this time the feeling he evokes makes me loathe him the most.

The air around us is tense. And even sitting the furthest from him does nothing to lessen the tension.

I sit in silence, eyes out the window but not really seeing anything.

Because what I’m feeling makes me want to stop breathing.

Constantine told me, promised me, that I would be his Queen. And yet in those last moments in papa’s office I wasn’t treated as one. I was merely another piece on a chessboard. His pawn for papa to agree to his demands.

He used me.

He promises me the Queen on the chess board and uses me as the pawn.

And that heavy feeling that resides in my chest, the tightening of my lungs, and the sickly churning in my stomach?

It hurts.

I’m hurt.

Constantine Donati hurt me.

And the worst part of it all?

Part of me believed him to be different.

But he’s a Made Man.

They’re all the same.

Constantine shouldn’t have any affect on me yet he does. And I loathe him for it. I loathe him because this shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

But it does.

It does and I don’t know what that means for me.

CHAPTER 13

Constantine

There’s a monumental shift.

I hadn’t expected it, leaving me severely unprepared but not the slightest bit deterred.

I study her from across the other side of the back seat.

My beautiful tapestry, how I must find the workings behind the masterpiece.

I take note of every detail, no matter how minuscule, as those are the most important.

How her eyes not too long ago were sparkling with mischief and dancing willingly with sin. Those emerald eyes are anything but brilliant, they’ve dulled. Wide and unblinking staring out the tinted glass without taking in the imagery before her.

Her body was like clay against my own. Melded by my touch, formed by heat from my proximity. Whereas now she’s stone. Her back uncomfortably straight, the muscles in her lithe body taut.

She’s reverted back to the woman she believes herself to be true. The one who is dead but is very much so alive.

I’ll let her live in denial for only a little while longer.

If she thinks for one second she will be the woman her papa and brother have made her become she’ll think again.

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