Page 187 of Theirs to Possess: The Marriage Claim
The knock is quiet, but the presence behind it is not. It’s weight. It’s intent. It’s him.
My heart thumps wildly.
After all this time, I wasn’t expecting him.
Maybe I should have been, but foolishly I wasn’t.
I know I don’t matter to him, that he doesn’t love me.
But still, I’m his wife. He married me to help save his tarnished reputation, and that reason is still valid, despite what a shit my father has turned out to be.
Dorian Vale is running for Senate, and he will still have expectations of the woman he married.
Yesterday, finally, I managed a few hours of sleep. At some point, exhaustion cures insomnia, I suppose. And the truth is, I’m not sure I have any more tears to shed.
I’ve taken my love for Dorian and Brennan and shoved it deep inside, locking it away where I hope against hope that it can’t hurt me anymore.
At the second knock, I twist the dish towel in my hands.
My apartment is too clean, too staged, like I can scrub my brain into order. The truth is, I haven’t been able to straighten out my thoughts since Brennan stopped by.
He made me remember everything that was good about what we shared, and the realities I can’t deny… The way his tone warms when he says my name. The way his hands know how to find the small of my back like they were made for it.
HisI love youhas been looping in my head ever since, stubborn as a song I can’t shake.
I haven’t been sleeping, haven’t been able to think about anyone but them.
And now Dorian’s in the hallway, and my world suddenly narrows to the door and the distance between my heartbeat and my throat.
I don’t move, don’t respond.
There’s a third knock. The exact same cadence. Controlled. I wait for the fourth, because of course there will be one—he’s a metronome who learned patience as a weapon.
It doesn’t come.
Is he giving me a choice?
The dish towel slides from my hand and flutters to the counter, a white flag I’m not offering. I stand there and breathe like I’ve forgotten how.
My body remembers him before my mind allows the thought. Heat builds where there’s only air. My palms tingle. I press them flat to the cool of the counter and try to drag myself back into my own skin.
Don’t respond, Isla.
I look around like the room can decide for me. Plant. Sofa. The cup I didn’t drink from. The shadow that my lamp casts against the wall. The yoga mat that’s in the corner like a scroll of good intentions.
Everything in me goes loud and small at once. I was fine earlier.
Before Brennan showed up, I was fine. Well, not fine-fine, but functional.
But now Dorian’s arrival has tilted the earth completely off kilter, and suddenly there’s no oxygen left in the apartment that I’ve finally settled into.
My phone pulses on the counter. I don’t check it. I already know who it would be if I did. There’s a second kind of knowing, the kind that sits under my sternum and whispers his name.
I take one step toward the door.Stop.
Don’t do it.
He doesn’t get to walk in and unmake me.
