Page 145 of Violet

“Safely? Safely? For who? You?”

“For us.”

“No.” One word and it’s emphatic. “You didn’t care enough about me to let me choose my own future, to entrust my own body to me. That’s not a mating, it’s not a relationship. It’s manipulation, betrayal.”

“That’s not true. There are reasons I can’t have children.”

“Won’t have. There’s a difference between can’t and won’t.” She laughs again. “It’s why you tried not to knot, isn’t it? You probably thought someone as stupid and naïve as me wouldn’t even know the difference, but you never counted on others talking. On my own body telling me. You didn’t care about anyone except yourself and your wants.” She stops.

“She died, Violet.” My heart is breaking, and my voice cracks. “Along with the baby. I lost them both during childbirth. I don’t want you to die.” Tears sting my eyes. “It was the pills or—I can’t…I can’t lose you, too.”

“You manipulated the truth, and you lied to me,” she says. “Our relationship has been a ruse since day one. And it seems it never stopped being that. As much as I wished…” She squeezes her eyes shut as if the words pain her.

“You have to understand…” I move closer, spread my hands. The panic in me is beating hard in my throat, ripping shreds from my insides. “I did it for us, to protect you. I want you safe. You need to understand, Violet.”

She rises to her feet. “I understand everything now. Goodbye, Stephan.”

Then Violet takes her wheeled luggage bag and heads out to the helicopter without looking back.

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

Violet

It’s humiliating. Even through the bone-numbing pain, it’s humiliating.

But Penrith greets me when I land, just hugging me tight.

“It’s okay, sweet girl. It’s okay.”

“No,” I whisper, “it’s not.”

But she just takes me into her country estate where the helicopter landed, and in her cozy small drawing room, one designed for intimate conversations, for coddling and calming and comforting, she seats me and pours me a healthy drink.

Mercifully, it’s not bourbon. I don’t think I ever want to see or taste bourbon again.

“Gin with tonic,” she says. “Not very creative, but Ihave port which isn’t strong enough, and some of Stephan’s favorite, which I’m assuming you don’t want.”

“I shouldn’t be here.”

She sets her mouth in a thin line. “I’m this close to breaking a five-year silence with my sister to tell her about our nephew. But Sophine is hardline on many things, and I don’t want you or your family to get hurt by shrapnel from their beef. If that woman would learn to just soften…”

I take a gulp of the perfumed drink, not sure where to go. If I go home, then everyone will know about it,everyone. I know Mom and the family are at the townhouse right now, waiting for our return, to show solidarity or whatever you call it for a sham mating to a coward who drugs you behind your back because…

A sob breaks free. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be here.” I finish the drink and stand. “Clea said you’d fly me back, so thank you, Ms.…uh?—”

“Ashford. Neither my sister nor I mated. Not officially. Which is why seeing her as a draconian head of the Council annoys me so much. It doesn’t matter.” She smiles. “You were saying?”

“Thank you for helping me. But I need to go. I just…” I look at her helplessly. “I can’t go home…not to the family townhouse or Stephan’s beach house. And I can’t stay here.”

“You can. You can do whatever you want.”

“It’ll bring scandal down. The Season isn’t done. I just…I can’t bear being at his place. It smells like him. And…and I can’t.”

“Like here?” she says, gently. “You can still smell him here?”

“Stephan smells like oak, and it’s soaked into this place. It was his family home, right?”

---