Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(54)

“Clearly not no one.”

“His name is Trevis Powell.”

“Who is he to you?”

A muscle rippled the skin of his jaw and that dark look came back into his eyes. “He touched you with much familiarity,” he added in a thick voice.

“He’s no one to me,” she insisted. “Let us just leave it at that.”

“How do you come to know him? What was he doing here? He was looking for you specifically.”

“After my father passed on, I stayed on as his gamekeeper. He came here to convince me to go back with him.”

Sev’s lion eyes narrowed. “And why would he want you to do that?”

“Because he thought I would want to,” she hedged, looking down at her lap where their fingers clung to each other. Sev’s fingers tightened the slightest amount around hers, clearly dissatisfied with her vague response.

“Grier,” he prompted.

She sighed and continued, relenting to the embarrassing truth. “He learned that I’m an heiress now. He wants my money—or rather Jack’s. The same as every other man that pays me the slightest heed.” She snorted. “Well, except you. To the rest I’m simply a fat banknote.”

“He proposed to you then?”

She nodded. “Only he’s lacking the required title to meet Jack’s criteria . . . oh, and there’s the fact that I can’t stomach the sight of him. That, too. Those factors make it hard to accept an offer of marriage from such a man.”

“I sense bitterness in you. Why do you dislike him so much? Did he do . . . something to you?”

She inhaled a bracing breath. “He promised to marry me for years.”

His fingers almost hurt where they wrapped around hers. “Are you in love with him?”

“No! God, no! He’s a wretch. I was just inexperienced. It took me a while to realize what he truly was. When I did I left Wales. I couldn’t stay on.”

“What happened?”

“For years he kept me dangling on a hook with the promise of marriage.” She winced, thinking how foolish she’d been to ever believe him. To ever even want him. “Finally he admitted he could never marry me. He confessed to my face that I was beneath him and that he must marry someone respectable. Someone with a dowry.” She laughed lightly. “But he didn’t want me to be totally disappointed. He kindly offered to keep me on as his game master, so long as I agreed to be his mistress. A role he thought me aptly suited for.” She lifted one shoulder. “And that’s when I decided I would leave Wales. Jack’s summons came not a moment too soon.”

Sev growled beneath his breath. “Bastard.”

She looked him steadily in the face. “And why would you say that? He’s not so unlike you. You’ve offered me nothing but a place in your bed.” Even as she uttered the words, she regretted them, knew them to be untrue. He was nothing like Trevis. He possessed responsibilities too great to let himself take her for a wife. She knew he cared for her, that he would consider her for a wife if he could.

Sev blinked, his hand loosening around hers. “If that’s how you see me, why are you even talking to me? Why even let me touch you?”

Because I love you. The realization stunned her, knocked the wind loose from her chest and filled her with raw panic. It only confirmed in her mind what she had to do. She blinked, fighting back the burn in her eyes. She couldn’t break down and weep now. She had to end this before they became any more entangled. Before it became impossible to walk away.

“Good question,” she replied through numb lips. As much as it hurt to say the words, they needed to be said. “This can’t continue. We can’t.”

Every moment with him pushed her closer to ruin. To say nothing of the danger to her heart. As much as severing with him hurt, if she delayed any longer she might not be able to extricate herself at all. She’d be lost to him. And she didn’t want to make this any harder for him either. He had a duty to perform. It impacted thousands of people, an entire country. She couldn’t be so selfish as to put her own desires first.

As if burned from the touch of her, he dropped his hand completely from hers and rose to his full looming height. Her gaze drifted up to his face, drinking in the sight of him as if it were her last. And essentially it was. The next time she saw him, there would be nothing between them.

He stared down at her so impassively, the old prince, austere and unfeeling again.

She licked her lips. “Good-bye, Sevastian.”

He didn’t move for the longest moment. She held her breath, willing him to leave. Willing him to stay.

Finally, without a word, he turned on his heels and departed the room with solid steps.

She released the breath she had been holding and remained in her chair, as still as stone for several moments, the ticking clock on the mantel timing the seconds it took her heart to break.

A sob broke from her lips and she collapsed, dropping her head into her shuddering lap. It didn’t take long at all.





Chapter Twenty

Sev strode toward the front door of the inn, ignoring his cousin calling to him from a table to let him know their dinner waited.

He welcomed the hard bite of winter on his cheeks as he stepped out into the windswept yard, relishing any discomfort the cold brought, hoping it helped mask the uncomfortable knotting in his gut. Perhaps anyone who looked at him would fail to notice that he’d been struck a blow.