Page 34 of Captive Bride

She looks at me like I must be kidding.

“Listen, we may have shared a kiss, but that gives you no right to do this. Do you even know who I am? Who my father is? And how’d you find my apartment anyway?”

“Go pack a bag. Now,” I say as I look around the hallway making sure all’s clear.

She stands up to me and says, “You can’t be serious. I only just met you tonight. I don’t even know your name.”

My heart flickers with momentary hesitation as I think how she’ll soon turn away from me in hatred when she finds out who I am.

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. She’s about to find out the truth.

Gone are the last vestiges of trust she may have put into me. I am her sworn enemy.

“You want a name? How about Tristan Montague?”

She backs away from me in suspicion. The little princess finally understands who it was that kissed her tonight.

I’m her biggest fear realized. I’m the man who she was taught to despise—Dark Lord, crime boss, and murderer.

“You can’t be…Tristan,” she says almost inaudibly.

“I am. Now go pack a bag. We don’t have much time,” I say, feeling impatient because any moment now the guards could realize what happened.

Merc and Benny won’t be able to keep this quiet forever.

“You were lying to me! Y-you kissed me, and you knew all along that this would happen. How could you?” she asks incredulously.

For a moment, I’m taken aback by her pure innocence. She looks at me like I’ve committed the biggest act of betrayal in the world.

What can I say? It’s fucking endearing.

“None of that matters now. I said pack a bag,” I say, fully expecting her to obey me.

“I’m not going anywhere with you. You led me on. You lied about who you were.”

“I didn’t exactly lie. You shouldn’t have found yourself in a darkened corner with a stranger, Isobel,” I say to her, feeling possessive as ever.

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she says. “So that kiss, all of it was just an act?”

My heart beats in my chest a little harder. Now is not the time to tell her the truth. She can’t know that she has any kind of hold over me.

She can’t know that I already feel like I’m in love.

“Maybe. Now quit questioning me. Go pack a bag. I won’t say it again.”

She looks around the room like maybe there’s something she can do.

There’s nothing. Her father left her with no bodyguards. It’s his own downfall.

And it’s her fault for trusting me so quickly.

I know I’m being an asshole. But right now, business is business, and I need this Capulet princess to come with me.

I grab her arm and walk her to the closet. She has a nice little place. But it pales in comparison to where I’m going to bring her.

I pull the blanket from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

There she is—my angel, wearing only lingerie and diamonds. What a fucking sight.

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