Page 37 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

He might as well have said he was bribing her with sex. Honestly, both sounded good right now.

Looking at him made her ache. Even now.

Even now.

“But then,” he said, thrusting a croissant her way. “You and I both know that I don’t need to bribe you.”

“Because the blackmail is unspoken?”

“Yes.”

She thought of her own father, who didn’t even know her. Who hadn’t wanted her. He was willing to strong-arm her into marriage to keep the children close. But not because he wanted to be their father.

She couldn’t quite figure out what he thought was happening. What he thought he was doing.

But there was something haunted and tortured in his dark eyes, and she could see it even as she hesitated to take the pastry from his hands.

“All right,” she said. “We will be married.”

“In name only,” he said.

That hurt. Like a knife driven through her chest. Because she had given herself to him. Because she hadn’t been able to control herself. Because she had wanted him more than she had ever wanted anyone or anything in her entire life, and he was easily making proclamations about how it could be nothing more than a marriage on paper.

You will have freedom. You have your children, and you will be provided for.

And she waited to feel something like elation, but she still felt like she was underwater. She still felt like she was in shock.

Because the one thing that she wanted, she couldn’t give voice to. She couldn’t allow herself to think. Because the one thing that she really wanted...

“Good,” she said.

“Prepare yourself.”

“How?” She took a bite of the croissant.

“Pack whatever it is you think you’ll need.”

“I don’t have any of my own things.”

“Then I will pack for you.”

And she felt very much like this was a metaphor for her life now. Constantine was in charge. And she did not know what that made her. Did not know where that left her.

And she had never been simultaneously more excited or more terrified in her whole life.

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