Page 23 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“I survived it. So perhaps it is of no consequence. I survived it, so perhaps it does not matter much if it was terrible. It made me wise. It is why I work so hard to protect you. I trust no one, because I know that every single person on this planet has an end to their altruism. A point at which they must see to their own needs, their own success. I do not judge them for it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow it.”

“That’s what you’re doing with me. You think that what you want, your own success when it comes to your concept of seeing me through to adulthood is more important than what I want.”

“Yes,” he said. “I do. Mostly because I think you want the exact same thing when you are able to understand.”

“You really don’t give me a lot of credit, do you?”

“Again, I have no reason to. You’ve been through some difficult things. But that doesn’t mean you truly understand the ways of the world. As I said to you before. The world is not kind to women. Your father knew that. It is one of the things that he and I were both very aware of. The seedy underbelly of things. He had concerns for you. And the reason he made me your guardian was that he thought I was... Realistic. That he thought I would be able to protect you in a very particular kind of way. Because of what I had seen. Because of what I knew.”

“What did my father know about anything outside of his privileged existence?”

“Do you know anything about your mother’s family? Surely you must realize that if things were functional in your family there would’ve been a network of relatives to take you in rather than your father’s billionaire friend in his thirties.”

“What are you saying?”

“The circumstances your parents came from are perhaps different than you were led to believe. And that is why your father prized my protection of you so much. Your mother and I endured similar things.”

“And you’re still not going to tell me what that is.”

“No.”

“Thank God you’re not actually my husband.”

“I am actually your husband,” he said. “It was made legal only a few hours ago.”

At that moment, the limousine pulled up to his house. Fury was like a living thing inside of her. He was doing nothing to shed light on anything in the situation, and she felt as if everything had been turned upside down, while he was intent on acting like it was all the same. It wasn’t. How could it be? The man she had been in love with for so much of her life had married her today.

And all of her truths converging into one sharp point inside of her. The emotions so big it made her feel like the child she desperately didn’t want him to see her as.

The realization her own father had put her in this situation was so painful she couldn’t breathe around it. The horrible truth she’d let all this go on for too long because of her own impossible feelings.

Oh, no, she really was going to cry. The car pulled up and she fiddled with her seat belt, frustrated that it wasn’t simply coming undone.

Shewas coming undone.

She hated this.

She hated him.

Maybe as much as she had ever loved him. Except one feeling hadn’t shifted the other to the side like she had thought it would. No. It was all just painful.

Because for her this was the twisted perversion of a dream she had never even allowed herself to have, and for him, this was all just a victory. Proof that he was supreme. Proof that he was in control. Emotionally, it didn’t touch him. The only thing that had ever come close was when she had challenged him sexually. That he had responded to. That had sent him to Scotland. That was when she had realized she had power.

So perhaps there was something to think about in Mariana’s words. But she stood by what she had said. It might be too costly for her. And that was what scared her. Because right now she felt as if she had been skinned and rolled in salt. Right now, she felt like all of the most vulnerable things about her had been brought dangerously close to the surface, and a slight breeze would create a ripple large enough to reveal all.

So, she escaped the car, went inside, and went straight to her room. Where she wrenched her wedding dress off through sobs.

She was married. She was married to Apollo Agassi. And yet wanting that to mean something was as impossible as wishing her father had been there to walk her down the aisle. Because her father was dead. And Apollo’s emotions were just as remote, hidden beyond the veil that she could never reach. And neither could he. It was why she had sought to free herself from all of this. But by God, how she had failed. Spectacularly.

And then she stopped suddenly. Her dress was a pool of liquid silk around her feet, and the only thing she still had left on was the white lace underwear she had put beneath the dress. They were so thin they were barely there. The fabric for the gown was so delicate that barely anything could sit under it without being visible. The underwear had been astronomically expensive. Delicate like a web. Her nipples were visible through the cups, and the shadow of curls between her thighs evident. She examined herself in the mirror. She was acting exactly like her father and Apollo would expect her to act. She was acting like a child. When Apollo took control from her she allowed him to do it. It was not her. She was better than that. Stronger than that. If she wanted to be treated as an adult then she had to seize everything she wanted. What would Apollo do, after all? What would her father have done?

They would have taken everything. Not a portion of what they wanted. She was so worried about her own emotions, rather than taking charge and committing to handling them herself. Apollo had taken control today when he had stepped into Rocco’s place. But who would take the control now?

She slipped her high heels back on. And she examined herself in the full-length mirror. She didn’t look like herself. She looked like a siren. Her legs were impossibly long with the help of the heels, the way they elevated her posture making her breasts look even more prominent. She was soft. She preferred a lazy day of reading to an afternoon at the gym, but she enjoyed taking walks around the city. And she felt the balance gave her a more pleasing figure than she had previously given herself credit for. But then, she had never truly looked at her body while considering showing it to a man.

What would he see when he looked at her? She had seen need in his eyes when he’d looked at her before. Remembering it now made her heart race.

She might ruin everything. But wasn’t everything already ruined? A smashed snow globe. A mockery of her past fantasies.

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