Page 40 of Paid to the Pirate

“I could read to you,” I suggested.

“I have to confess, I’m surprised a brute like you can read. I didn’t imagine a pirate captain to sail with such a wonderfully curated selection of books.”

I laughed so hard it pained my ribs where I’d suffered a blow during the battle.

“How else would I have taught wayward girls such as yourself?”

The crease in Charlotte’s brow told me something was off. Maybe I’d struck a nerve. She’d come so far from those days, perhaps she didn’t want to be reminded of them.

“I think it’s better I should read to you,” Charlotte said finally. “You can’t use your arm well enough to hold up a book.”

I snorted. “It’s fine.” But I allowed her to scurry off the bed and select a tome from my small library. She was right -- I’d selected those books carefully, but they were ever-changing. One, because I hungered for new knowledge and two, because the salt air inevitably soiled any volume kept too long at sea.

I folded one arm beneath my head and arranged myself as comfortably as I could. When Charlotte returned to the bed, her swaying necklace caught my eye.

“Why do you still wear the locket?” I asked. “Did you keep it all this time and put it on only when you saw we were coming? Or have you always worn it?” My voice trailed off in disbelief.

Charlotte paused, stroking the gold oval, then quietly confessed, “I’ve never taken it off. I always wear it.”

“Why?” I whispered, still disbelieving.

Don’t hope, don’t you dare,I cautioned.

“To remind me,” came her cryptic reply.

To remind you of your hate,I thought,and to strengthen your daily resolve for revenge.

Yet that foolish, hopeful voice in me wondered if maybe some part of Charlotte wanted to be reminded of something else.

That night.

Charlotte opened the book and began reading but I couldn’t even hear the words. Having her willingly in my bed, having her open a bit to the past, distracted me to the point that I was incapable of listening.

She’d only made it a page or two before I grabbed her hand to stop her.

“Why did you kill Maurice?” I asked, practically begging. “The truth.”

“I wouldn’t-” she protested, then stopped and lifted her chin. “He deserved it.”

I studied her face. “That wasn’t for you to decide.”

“Whose decision was it? Yours?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because you’re the captain?”

I tried to meet her eyes, but she refused.

“You know why,” I said.

Chapter 21

Charlotte

Ihadn’t wanted to sleep next to him, hadn’t wanted him to force me. That was the trauma talking.Right?

I told myself these obvious lies as I awoke in Colt’s arms. Well, his good arm, at least, was draped protectively across my torso. Thankfully, I’d faced away from him as I’d slumbered and didn’t want to turn around yet because I knew very well the condition in which most men awoke in the-

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