Page 109 of Unlawful Seduction

“I couldn’t tell you what I had planned, Mallory. The bastards sent to kill me would have figured out what I’d done. The assassins were highly trained, their methods brutal.”

His voice was gravelly, full of angst. “Even years later when the danger dissipated, you couldn’t tell me?”

“By then, I knew it was too late. You deserved better than the shit I’d doled out.”

I rolled over, planting my folded arms on his chest. He had one of his behind his head, using the other to swirl the second glass of whiskey.

“You underestimate what I’m capable of handling, Beckett. I’m stronger than you think.”

He turned his head, offering a slight smile. “You’re the strongest woman I know. But my life wasn’t and likely isn’t fair to you.”

“I don’t need fair. I just need honesty.”

“Which you deserve. My life turned upside down when I went to work for Lucian. I thought I was capable of controlling it, but when I was required to kill the first man, only a small portion of my conscience was left. Isn’t that disturbing as fuck?”

“We all have secrets and have done things we’re not proud of,” I admitted.

He chuckled and rubbed my arm. “What could you have possibly done in your life that wasn’t perfect?”

I raised up, reaching over him to grab my glass of wine. “I killed my boyfriend.”

It took a few seconds for him to react. He narrowed his eyes, cocking his handsome head. “What?”

The wine tasted amazing, but I was still shivering from just saying the words. “It’s true.”

He adjusted his body on the pillows, taking my wine and placing both glasses on the nightstand. When he took my hand into his, my instinct was to pull it away. I didn’t deserve any comfort. The guilt was too great.

“Talk to me. What happened?” He wasn’t asking. He was commanding.

“My relationship with Damen was complicated. I met him when he brought his dog into the veterinary clinic where I was working. I calmed him down and we hit it off. He asked me out for coffee and we became inseparable. We were blissfully happy for months, even talking marriage. But I sensed something was off about him. He never talked about his family and when I asked, he shut down the conversation very quickly. After a few weeks of silence, I couldn’t take it any longer and started trying to learn more on my own. He didn’t like that.”

Beckett narrowed his eyes, saying nothing while he rubbed his thumb back and forth across my palm.

“When he found out, he was pissed, but dropped a few breadcrumbs hoping I would leave it alone. I just couldn’t. We were arguing by that point. Actually, a lot. We’d talked about spending the rest of our lives together and suddenly, he never had time for me. I found out he was seeing someone else, a woman much better suited for his family’s requirements. I was incensed, repulsed, and demanded answers. One day in the car, I blew up. I couldn’t take his lies. The argument was vicious and he wasn’t paying attention to the road.”

I realized I wasn’t choking up like I normally did. How strange. How sad. Maybe I’d finally moved on.

“He wrecked the car,” he said casually.

“Yes. It was a horrible accident, but I only received bruises and scratches. He was killed instantly when his side of the vehicle slammed into a tree. If I hadn’t been arguing with him, he’d still be alive.”

He brought my hand to his mouth, rolling his lips across my knuckles. “You didn’t kill him, Doc. He was driving. You weren’t.”

“But don’t you see, if I hadn’t been so nasty to him, he would have paid attention. The road was curvy, and it was dark. There was some ice on the roads. It’s my fault.”

“You’ve been carrying this guilt for years. You need to let it go. You can’t bring him back and sometimes karma has a way of deciding about a person’s life as to whether they live or die and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Then why were you determined to save my life?”

He smirked. “I never said I followed the rules of the universe.”

“Well, you certainly don’t follow any man’s rules, so where does that leave you?”

Beckett rolled me over, pressing the full weight of his body against mine. I placed my hand on his shoulder, drinking in his masculine scent. It felt natural being with him, knowing we had all night. Several nights. And days. Weeks. If we wanted.

And if he was telling me the truth.

That still remained to be seen.

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