Page 70 of Captured Solace

Pure rage swept through me and I lost the scrap of control I had left. “I don’t want this, Viktor. Any of it. Has that occurred to you? Maybe I don’t want this fucking ring, or this marriage, or any of it.”

His mouth thinned and something that looked like hurt crossed his face. “Fine, I’m letting you go.”

The anger drained from me and shock replaced it. “What?”

He shrugged. “You want an out, here it is.”

“You’re—divorcing me?”

He shook his head, his hands on his hips. “No, I can’t divorce you because the alliance rests on our marriage. But you and I are done. I’ll support you, let you live in this house, and in return I want you to have a son for me. Other than that, feel free to do who and what you want. That’s all.”

I gaped at him. “Is that what you want?”

“That’s what you did to us, Sienna,” he spat.

He surged forward, pressing me against the back of the couch with his hard body. “You married me thinking I was something I’m not and when your delusions came crashing down, you betrayed me.”

“You betrayed me too,” I whispered.

“No, I didn’t match up to the idea you had of me in your head,” he said. “You know what I do, what I am, what our son will be. You knew and you were fine with it. You were fine with fucking me, with sleeping in my bed, with letting me spend my money on you. My God, you were fine with letting me fuck you without protection, knowing in the back of your mind what I am. So don’t pull the sanctimonious shit with me.”

“No,” I said slowly. “I believed it. All of it, how good you were to me. I believed you were a good man.”

“No, you mistook something else for goodness.”

“What else? What do you mean?”

He bent over me, his mouth trembling a minute amount. His pale blue gaze was tortured. I could see every line in his beautiful face, every crease around his eyes and his mouth, and the short pale lashes on his lids.

“You made me love you and you mistook that love for goodness,” he said, his voice fragile like glass.

The world stopped spinning and everything on it stilled until there was nothing but him. Nothing but the beautiful, cruel man before me.

“You…you love me?” I whispered, my voice breaking.

His eyes were wet, searching mine. “Fuck…I do.”

I swallowed, tears clinging to my lashes. “So what happens now?”

“Nothing,” he said. “This doesn’t change anything.”

“So you’re going to tell me you love me and then just leave? I don’t understand, how can you do that? I know there’s a good man inside you, I’ve seen him. I know because I slept with him and I felt it, I felt who you are.”

His eyes disconnected slowly, like a plug had been pulled. “Don’t. Just don’t try to fix me, Sienna.”

“I’m not trying to fix you. I’m telling you that you can fix yourself. From all of this, from this world that you don’t even want to be involved in.”

He stepped back. “It’s not that simple.”

“Is that because if you give up your father’s legacy, then you’ll have to face that you didn’t cut him out like you should have when he killed Yulia? That it was all for nothing?”

As soon as the words were out, I regretted them. It wasn’t my place to talk about Yulia or his father, especially not after what I’d done. But it was too late, they were already spoken.

He moved close again and this time his hand came up to my throat, gripping it gently. He turned my chin up, holding me steady, and his burning gaze settled on mine.

“Watch what you say to me,” he said.

“Tell me I’m wrong then.”

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