Page 78 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

“Let him go?” the apparition said. “He’s fucking my wife.”

“I’m not your wife anymore.”

“No? Then why do you act as if we’re still married, like my opinion still matters? He’s offered you everything and you can’t even love him. It must be because you still love me.”

“I never loved you,” she said and moaned. Tears trickled from her eyes. She was close to coming again, and she couldn’t let it happen, not with him watching her, not with the cold dead eyes of all his ancestors glaring down at her from their frames like a Greek chorus of mockery.

“Shouldn’t I kill him? The man fucking my wife in my own bed? Any good husband would.”

“If you so much as touch a hair on his head,” she spat at him, fighting the ropes, ready to tear him apart, “I will dig you up just to burn your corpse to ashes.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill him. One, Reggie. Just one.”

Reggie. He’d always called her that, like a term of endearment, a name she hated beyond words and he knew it.

He lifted a poker from the fireplace, its iron tip burning orange. “What is he to you but a whore you hired to spite me? Isn’t that all he is? You don’t care about him. You don’t even want him. You only want to hurt me by having him. You certainly don’t—”

“If you touch him I will kill myself and hunt you down in Hell. Even Satan will show you more mercy than I will.”

“Because you love him? You can’t love. You never could. You never could and you never will.”

“I couldn’t love you, but I can love him. I do love him, you bastard. I love him, and Ialwayswill.”

And with those words, the cords broke like tender vines and disappeared into dust. The specter of Sir Jack vanished as Regan cried out, her very being shaken by an orgasm so powerful everything faded to black.

* * *

When she came to,she was lying on her back with Arthur staring down at her. Her body was limp, listless, almost lifeless even as her interior muscles continued to give little gasps and shivers.

She felt wetness, Arthur’s semen dripping onto the bed. When had he come?

“Regan? Are you all right?” He stroked her face. “I think you came too hard. You passed out.”

She sat up, held him by the shoulders. “Did you see him?”

“Lord Malcolm was here?”

She didn’t answer at first. Of course it was Lord Malcolm. He’d made her see Sir Jack, made her think she was tied to Arthur, trapped against him. He’d forced her to realize that…

She loved him. She loved Arthur. She loved him and she’d said it out loud…except Arthur hadn’t heard her conversation, hadn’t seen Sir Jack.

Relief rushed through her so fast and hard she was dizzy again. She lay naked on the bed, wet and well-used. It humiliated her how glad she was Arthur hadn’t heard her say she loved him. There was no chance they could stay together. Telling him she loved him would only make the inevitable end of them all the more agonizing.

“Yes,” she said, lying to protect him. “Malcolm was here.”

“What did he say?”

Regan touched Arthur’s face. The face of the man she loved, the man she owned, and the man she couldn’t keep.

“You were right,” she said. “He wants me to paint again.”

“Told you so,” he said, smiling broadly. Arthur looked so terribly young with his raven-hair wild from the sex and his dark eyes gleaming like two priceless black pearls. “Let’s find a twenty-four-hour art store. Those are a thing, right?”

“I think I can wait until morning. Until then…let’s get out of here, please.”

When she left Ferry Hill that night, she took only one thing with her—her painting of Mars and Venus.

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