Page 11 of Judgment Day

I picked myself up from where he’d knocked me onto my ass on the floor. The girl scurried out of the room. My eyes locked with Winston’s as I brushed by him, then went to my room.

My heart was heavy with shame and regret.

This is your solution?

Why wouldn’t it have been? It was the onlysolutionI’d known for years.

My father was a member of parliament. My mother was a Lady. Since birth, my life had been carefully laid out for me according to specific sets of rules. I broke those rules when I was with Grey. Expensive silks and lace became tangled piles of fabric on the floor. Refined speech turned into moans and filthy words. He made me feel alive.

Then he disappeared, andtheymade me wish I was dead.

It wasn’t until after my first attempt at escape that I’d discovered Grey had been sent to prison. He got the easy way out. I’d been sent to hell.

After my second escape attempt, I was locked in a cottage somewhere on the palace grounds, strapped to a bed and beaten, pissed on, ejaculated on—my body degraded and mind broken.

“Act like a queen, and I’ll give you the keys to the kingdom. Act like a child, and you’ll be punished like one.” Winston gripped my chin between his fingers and squeezed as he spat his words in my face. “Try to leave me again, and I’ll kill him while you watch.”

That was when I realized that it wasn’t just me I was fighting for anymore. It washim, too. To buy his freedom, I had to surrender mine. And I did it. Because my heart no longer belonged to me. It now fully, and irrevocably, belonged to someone else. I’d sold Winston my soul. All that was left was my body.

Eventually, I let them have that, too.

SIX

I’d givenup on self-pity a long time ago. Winston’s rejection didn’t sting. It liberated. It meant while he was drowning his pain in scotch, temper tantrums, and classical music, I was free.

The first thing I wanted was a hot bath. Then maybe I would go down to the library and get lost in a world of fiction.

Winston had his bedroom. I had mine. It was better this way. I knew about the kinds of things he did in that room, but this way, I didn’t have to watch.

I kicked off my heels when I walked into my room. They landed on the carpet with a softthud, then flipped onto their sides. I pushed the door closed with my foot as my hand slid to the side of my dress, fingers searching for the zipper. The fabric pooled into a puddle of vicuña wool on the floor. The cool air felt good against my skin as I pulled my stockings off, but I knew the hot water would feel better.

The moment I spun to toss the stockings onto my bed, my heart froze.

Grey was sitting in my reading chair in the corner. It was a simple chair covered in white upholstery, but he made it look like a throne. He was still in the same black suit he’d worn to the funeral. His ankle was propped up on his knee. He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair as he ran his fingertips back and forth across his lips.

As a boy, Grey was handsome. As a man, he was beautiful, breathtakingly so. Like a rare, exotic thing. His strong jawline was covered in well-manicured scruff. He was tall and lean, but he filled out his custom-fit suits in a way that screamed power and strength. His eyes sparked like blue flames against his olive skin. But it wasn’t just his looks that made him remarkable. It was his presence. It captivated, swallowed up all the air in the room. It promised filthy words and hard fucks. It made you want to give up every good and holy thing and stay right there—in his darkness.

His eyes lifted to mine. “Keep going. I was enjoying the view.”

I glanced at the door, halfway waiting for someone to barge in and escort him out, knowing they wouldn’t. This was Grey Van Doren. No one made him do anything.

“You can’t—” I couldn’t think. “You shouldn’t.”

He stood up and closed the distance between us until I was standing with the back of my knees against the foot of my bed. “I shouldn’t what? Take back what’s mine?”

A part of Grey had always been there, simmering beneath the surface, a part that needed control, thrived on it. His tone declared that he dared anyone to challenge it. Like the rest of him, that part had blossomed and matured and was now as much of who he was as his piercing blue eyes. My heart sped up as his gaze seared into me.

“Are you mine, Sadie?” His eyes fell to the thin strip of lace covering my pussy. His fingertips danced over the fabric, making my body tense at his touch. “Is this still mine?” It was both a question and a groan, like he was on the precipice, battling demons no one saw but him.

Grey had always walked the line of teasing without touching, of claiming without taking. Like a man struggling with desire but controlling it in the end. We’d had conversations in the past, mostly about our mutual love of horseback riding, what we were reading—it was almost alwaysThe Count of Monte Cristo—or current events. He’d whispered words like,soonandmine, butsoonalways seemed so far away. I wanted so badly to ask him why.Why didn’t you take me back? Why didn’t you fight for me? Why did you choose her?But I was terrified of the answers, so I kept my distance. I never let him get too close. I never made myself this vulnerable. I couldn’t afford to. Someone, somewhere, was always watching, and I had too much to lose. Grey never pushed. He’d never been this bold, this brazen. Never cornered me in my bedroom or touched me likethis. Maybe it was the funeral. Death had a way of making people fear time. It challenged us not to waste it.

I shouldn’t have wanted this…him. But God, I did. And I hated myself for what I had to do. If Winston found out, he would take everything from me.

He stood there, looking down at me, blue eyes dark and full of all the shadows warring in his mind. My heart broke. For him. For me. For what we once were.

He pulled his hand away, and the war in his eyes ended in pain. “Answer me.”

Any pieces of my heart that were still left cracked and shattered on the floor. With a finality that echoed deep in my chest, I whispered, “I’m sorry, Grey. You’re too late.”

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