Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
The car travels to familiar territory as I mull over a viable response. My petite lady has darkened her corner of the Phantom. She'd already been through enough. In the beginning, I desired to transform Luxury. Her mother's death compelled me to wipe every tear from her eyes. Yet Luxury’s arms wrap around her abdomen. My Little One places herself into my role—comforting herself.
Sometime later, the vehicle stops in front of the building that houses Jonah’s apartment. I motion for the chauffeur to stay put, quickly exit, and open the door for Luxury.
“I can’t owe you, Vic. Not now. So please don’t follow me up,” she murmurs before stepping onto the sidewalk.
“I must.” I cease the rise of a commanding royal whose very custom is to take, demand, with no regard for another.
“No, really, don’t. If I die on my way upstairs, that would be just my luck.” Luxury gives a wry smile as her honey eyes continue to flee, never meeting mine. “See, last October, that would’ve been funny. Now, my morbid sense of humor is . . . is . . .”
My arms wrap around Luxury’s tiny waist as she stutters on oxygen. And though I don’t know all that my woman has gone through, I bloody hate myself for how cautiously I must hold her. I enfold her in my arms like fine, fragile China.
13
Luxury
Like the chords of a tightly wound violin, I slip from my love’s arms. The second I let go, those coiled strings fray into a thousand tattered pieces.
We’re so friggen broken. A rage radiates in Victor’s eyes. Anger he directs at himself. Earlier, the malicious glimmer tormenting his gaze affixed on Silas, who had met us with Al Rafi. I wanted to hate Victor’s father for calling a truce, yet the bastard paid for our lives.
On the long jet ride home, my mind returned to the moments I was allowed to shower and change. Blood had rained down a marble shower drain, taking our child’s essence with it.
I’d forever have that last image in my thoughts. The bits of my child consumed me all the while I stood at the closed bathroom door and listened to Silas. Victor had murdered so many men at the bunker where I met Noor. I wanted more. The massacre wasn’t enough. Yet, I can understand Silas’s motives. England has shown me just a fraction of how a royal must think. Those fucks believe they’re gods. Fortunately for her, Princess Noor’s guard whisked her away as Victor arrived. No vengeance.
Hell, no.
Twenty of Noor’s men was hardly revenge. The bitch lived. And while it appears Silas saved us, we are the only ones who paid. There was no tit for tat. In the end, we’re the only ones left broken.
“Victor, I’m twenty-three. Young. The thought of running away and never seeing your face sounds developmentally appropriate to me right now. Shit, that term makes me sound like my dad. But I could . . .” I gasp. “I see myself walking away and not looking back. That makes me sound like a bitch because you went to hell to find me.”
Clouds have blotted out the moon, and with the flickering streetlight, I search out his response. But darkness claims sharp features for its own.
“When I was taken, I prayed you’d be my hero.”
A silent moment passes between us.
A nostalgic moment.
A moment where two broken souls could come together and save each other.
A moment like we shared at Hotel Delacroix.
But I fracture that moment in the same time it took for my baby to die. “I have to be this ungrateful bitch because . . . because you arrived too late.”
“Lux—”
“I can’t find that spunky girl who first laid eyes on you; moreover, I don’t want to. So, if you thought you had to fight for me before—and I do mean the last few weeks because I’ll be damned if you ever truly fought for me in the past—”
“I will fight to the end of the—”
“You will have to fight for me now. You will have to make me remember why I was batshit crazy over you. Why I let you break my heart days after we met and proceed with the same selfish antics over and over again, Victor.”
“I will fight for you! I love you. I am in love with you.” A tender hand reaches for me. Captivated by the passion roiling off him in waves, I listen as Victor declares, “I’ve not had the chance to say those words to your lovely face. I botched it for us all this time. Fuck, I said I love you to my fucking duchy. To the bloody door of the loo. Too many variables have stood in our way. Now you—”
“Yes, me.” My chin rises. “Now, I’m standing in our way. Oh, and your engagement to-to that bitch.”