Page 183 of Never Fall for an Angel

“Yes, but I know your affinity for hiding things. I’d like to spare the poor souls who have to clean this place if possible.”

“Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to start this marriage?” I ask, my throat threatening to close. “Oh, right, how could I forget? We’ve been married for almost two years, and you just forgot to mention it to me. It’s pathetic.”

“Funnily enough, the happiest this marriage has been is when you didn’t know about it.”

“Fuck you, Christian,” I growl, showing at his chest.

“In case you forgot, I’ve been there, and it’s not that impressive.”

I come to a stop, my heart cracking in my chest at the weight of his words. I finally look up at him, and I’m met with nothing but gray, cloudy indifference. Nothing of the man I loved.

I think it would hurt less if he’d slapped me in the face. Anger seeps through me, and tears gather at the corners of my eyes. I want to hurt him as badly as he hurt me.

“I wish I could forget you,” I breathe, and his nostrils flare, his eyes darkening to midnight.

Turning, I hurry off the dance floor and out of the ballroom, my legs carrying me not to the bathroom like I had originally intended but straight towards the back door to pack my things.

I won’t stay where I’m not wanted . . . no matter how much I don’t want to go.

I suck in a breath in the night air on the short walk to the family’s quarters, but it’s painful, my throat closing up like all the air was sucked out of the room.

I won’t chase you.

This is good, I tell myself.Better now than later when he decides he doesn’t want you.

He tricked me into marrying him. Kidnapped me and brought me to a deserted island. Disappeared—again—and lied about why he’d been hunting me.

He has no one to blame but himself.

Then why does it feel like I ripped my own heart out of my chest and shoved it through a meat grinder?

I don’tneedChristian to survive. I made it on my own for months. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably still be out there, traveling the States.

Starving yourself.

“Fuck off,” I growl at the voice in my head.

He gave you your freedom. What are you still doing here?

—I don’t want to leave.

He may be rude. He may have tricked me. He may have broken my heart.

—He also pieced it back together again after I was shattered. He bathed me when I couldn’t do it myself. He made me feel like a human being for the first time in a year instead of a defective replication.

He’s fucked up . . . but so have I.

I have spent the last three months fighting these feelings every step of the way. For what? To end up desperately in love with him anyway?

I storm through the front door and head straight towards the stairs, ignoring the aching sorrow building in my chest.

“Mila.”

The hair on the back of my neck rises at the volatile presence behind me, but I don’t stop, hurrying up the stairs as fast as my heels will allow me.

“I’m going, Christian. You’re getting what you want; why are you still following me?”

“We have unfinished business.”

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