Page 165 of Sinful Desires
“French people don’t parade their royalty or aristocracy. They guillotine them. Probably best I kept the legacy quiet,chérie. It’s not exactly a flex in this country.”
Her eyes narrowed, mouth twitching.
I didn’t tell her how deep the bloodline ran.
How our name had once echoed through marble halls and oil fields. How my great-great-grandfather had built an empire in petroleum, and my grandfather had turned it into something even fucking bigger.
But legacies didn’t mean shit when your hands are stained with blood.
Her eyes swept over the castle and its overgrown garden.
“It’s like a little private island,” she said, slipping off her flip-flops and leaving them by the rocks.
Then she stepped barefoot onto the stone, toes brushing over rough edges until she reached the weathered deck. She moved toward the castle slowly, carefully, like the place might wake if she got too close.
I didn’t follow. Not right away.
I just watched her.
Fuck, she looked unreal in that light—hair burning like fire, skin kissed gold by the sun. The mimosas had bloomed wild along the stone, yellow petals scattering in her path like even the earth couldn’t help but make room for her.
She looked fucking holy. Like something divine set loose in hell.
She didn’t belong here. Not with me.
Not with ghosts and salt and blood still drying on my hands.
But she walked anyway. Toward the graveyard of everything I’d buried.
Mon étoile filante.My shooting star.
She sat down on the stone steps, elbows on her knees. The sea wind tangled her hair, but she didn’t push it away.
I stepped closer.
“Why did you bring me here, Théo?”
Her voice was quieter now.
“You asked me what else I’ve lied about,” I said, my hands curling at my sides. “There’s something I never told you.”
Her brows pulled together, and she hugged her legs to her chest.
“The first man I ever killed,” I said, my breath sharp in my throat, “wasn’t some faceless terrorist.”
I paused, long enough for the silence to start chewing at both of us.
“It was my father. Right here. On this island. Fourteen years ago.”
Chapter
Forty-One
“It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.”
? Friedrich von Schiller
Théo
