Page 81 of Break Her Heart
She shrugged. “I’m bored.”
I almost denied her, but I felt a ripple of something sharp and electric coming off Winnie. Not dread. Not unease. Excitement.
Did she like the dinners? Did she enjoy watching my family claw at each other with veiled words and fake smiles? Or maybe she liked the tension. The danger of it. The chance to show she didn’t flinch.
How twisted was that?
“Fine,” I said through my teeth. If Winnie wanted dinner, she’d get dinner.
25
Bronwen
Dinner with the siblings hadn’t happened in nearly two months, yet somehow it felt like no time had passed at all.
They slipped back into their roles with practiced ease. Lavina and Simon launched into the latest court gossip with theatrical flair, their voices weaving around each other like twin performers on a stage. Benedict sat in his usual place, silently focused on his plate, only glancing up to murmur a dry remark here and there when it suited him. Corwin’s seat was empty, considering he was a pile of ashes in our hearth.
And then there was August.
He didn’t say much. He rarely did in these settings unless provoked, but tonight he was… attentive. Watchful. His eyes—dark, piercing, and heavy with something I couldn’t name—barely left me.
I tried not to squirm under his gaze, tried not to let the heat pooling in my stomach rise to my cheeks. But it was impossibleto ignore. The way he watched me eat—like every movement of my hand, every bite of food, every flick of my tongue against my bottom lip, was something he wanted to memorize. Or devour.
My fork slowed halfway to my mouth. The memory of getting dressed together earlier flickered behind my eyes like a match being struck.
His hands had been on my hips the second my dress fell to the ground. And when his shirt came off, I lost my train of thought entirely. He’d backed me into the dressing table with a hunger that made my knees weak, the edge of the mirror digging into my spine as our mouths collided. It was reckless, frenzied—and if my stomach hadn’t growled loud enough to almost embarrass me, we wouldn’t have made it out of the room.
I’d whispered a promise against his throat—one I still fully intended to keep. I would make it up to him when we returned to our chambers tonight.
I caught the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He knew exactly what I was remembering. I turned back to my plate, ignoring the burn in my cheeks.
“I am beginning to worry about Corwin.”
Lavina’s voice sliced through the clinking of silverware and low laughter like a blade. My head snapped up, more at the absurdity of her words than anything else. Worry? About Corwin?Now?
I glanced at August, trying to turn my expression into something neutral.
He set down his glass with an almost lazy grace and gave Lavina a look as dry as dust. “No, you aren’t. You care for nothing but yourself, Lavina.”
She held his gaze for a moment before shrugging and turning back to Simon. “Do you remember Odin Draymoor?”
“The one who proposed to you decades ago, and when you turned him down, he left?”
She nodded. “He’s back. With someone else.”
Simon leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs as he took a long sip from his goblet. “What’s the problem? You didn’t want him.”
“No, but I want him to want me.”
“You don’t want that.”
Lavina’s eyes snapped to me. I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.
“What do you know about this? You married the one obsessed with you.”
August let out a quiet laugh, dark and amused, like he found the idea more flattering than offensive.
I met Lavina’s stare. “I was proposed to once too. And his obsession got him killed. By August.”
