Page 188 of Theirs to Possess: The Marriage Claim
Then I take another step, my body being the ultimate traitor.
My feet are bare against the cheap flooring.
Then I reach the entryway, and my hands shake in a way I despise. I flatten my palm against the door, like I can feel him through it, like some part of him will seep into me if I give it a surface.
With a deep sigh, I close my eyes.
I see him anyway. The precise mouth I have memorized and refused to acknowledge. The way he watches, his attention more like ownership. The way he didn’t let himself love me because if he did it would undo him—and undoing is not what men like him survive.
The knob is cool and indifferent beneath my hand. Turn it or don’t.
I can’t.
I shouldn’t let him know I’m here. But who am I trying to fool? He knows I’m inside. My car is in the parking lot, and his minions tell him everything. “Why are you here?” The words emerge against my best intentions.
“Because I fucked up.” Then there’s a moment of silence. “Hard. You deserve better than the way I treated you.”
I’m trembling too hard to respond.
“There are truths that you deserve to hear. I respect the fact that I don’t deserve even five minutes of your time. But I’m here to…” His voice cracks. “To beg for the opportunity.”
My stomach drops at the pain in his words.
He could have said a thousand different things, but he chose the one most emotionally laden. Beg. Something Dorian Vale doesn’t do.
The doorknob warms beneath my touch.
Don’t do it.
“What truth?” My voice is thinner than I want. I clear my throat and try again. “What truth, Dorian?”
I picture him sliding a hand into his pocket. I hate that I know him well enough to predict it.
Closing my eyes, I turn the knob just enough to ease the door open to the length of the security chain.
He’s standing there, close, the chain drawing a silver line that protects me from him.
As always, he’s in a black suit. But today his jacket is open, and he’s not wearing a tie.
His eyes are steady but not guarded—like he came here without his armor, and it’s costing him.
The afternoon light shows the sharp angles of his jaw. He smells like clean soap and dark heat, the private scent that lives in the back of my throat. My body betrays me again. My shoulders loosen, my pulse stutters, skin goes hot where there’s only air. I ache, stupidly, for his touch.
Calypso slides between my ankles with a happy purr. And when he crouches—damn him—she pushes her head into his knuckles through the gap.
With a soft “Hello, Calypso,” he rubs a spot on the top of her head.
This man… He’s terrible. Awful. Tender.
A belated self-preservation instinct kicks in and I try to move Calypso aside so I can close the door.
“I should’ve told you the truth about Lena,” he says quickly, as if realizing he only has seconds left. “And our relationship. All of it. You deserved that, and I kept it from you.”
“So why did you?”
“Because…” He plows a hand into his hair, tousling it. “I wanted to protect you.”
“I’m tired of your version of protection.” I remember the confusion and hurt when the reporter confronted me. “It wasn’t your decision to make.”
