Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 167819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 839(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 839(@200wpm)___ 671(@250wpm)___ 559(@300wpm)
I narrow my eyes up at him as he takes another step closer, my back now pressed against the counter. “I was fine…”
“You were overdosing!” he shouts. “Holland lied to you. Mack didn’t give you ecstasy. It was fentanyl. Gavin had to give you Narcan which led to withdrawals once it wore off. You could have died, Elli. Why did you do it?”
I can’t answer. That would show him just how weak I am.
“Tell me! Why did you take something from someone not knowing what it was?” he demands.
“Easton…” My father stands from the table. “Calm down. She—”
“No,” Sin interrupts him, eyes glaring down at me. “She wants to know what’s going on. I want to know what the fuck she was thinking.”
“Why the fuck do you care what I do anyway?” I snap, trying to deflect. “You’re marrying Amelia. I’m marrying Chance. It’s over for us. Go home to your soon-to-be wife, Sin.” Giving him my back, I go to storm out of the kitchen.
“You’re my wife, Elli.”
I stop dead in my tracks and turn to face him. I expect him to laugh. Or to say sike. That it’s another sick joke he’s playing on me. But instead, he walks over to me, his look growing heated in a way that makes me think he’s going to wrap his hand around my throat and choke me out. If my father wasn’t present, I’d beg for it.
“Till death do us part, Elli.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SIN
ICE-BLUE EYES so round stare up at me. It reminds me of how she looked at me after I caught her seeing me kill James. The shock written all over her face. Her plump lips close and her throat works, swallowing. “I … I don’t believe you,” she mumbles.
It’s the same thing she said to me when I told her I didn’t love her in the bathroom at the house of Lords when she came barging in demanding that I tell her the truth. That I wasn’t just using her. She was right. I had been lying to her. She was more to me than a fuck. She was my wife. “I’m not lying to you.”
Shaking her head, she takes a step back. Those wide eyes go over to her father, but he has no clue what I’ve done. If he did, he’d probably try and throw me out of this house. He’d have to kill me first, and by the looks of him, I’m not worried about it.
“I’m marrying Chance,” she whispers, licking her lips.
“You were going to marry Chance because I told him to. He was doing me a favor.”
Her dark brows scrunch together. “No,” she growls, getting angry. “You and I didn’t have a wedding…”
“You don’t need a wedding to marry someone,” I state, and her eyes widen once again. “All you need is a marriage license signed by two people. And an officiate to sign off on it.”
“But I didn’t—”
“You did,” I interrupt her. “I slid it into the stack for you to sign when we closed on this house. You signed it. Not even bothering to read it.”
She gasps.
“We’ve been married ever since.”
She frowns, her eyes falling to her bare feet after a long second. She then looks up at me and I bite back a smile at the angry look in her eyes. There’s my little demon. She shoves my chest, but I don’t budge. “So what about Chance? You were going to make me think I was actually married to him?”
“I needed it to look real,” I say defensively.
I knew her mother would make a big fuss about it. Hundreds of Lords were supposed to be there. A couple of them were already aware she is my wife, but the ones that mattered didn’t. It was going to be my best-kept secret.
“For your own sick pleasure?” she barks out. “Another way to make me look like an idiot?”
“No,” I snap. “To set up Linc.”
“You manipulated me! But why? Were you going to let him fuck me?”
“Fuck no!” I shout, the thought making my blood boil.
He’ll never get near her again, let alone touch her. Chance and I had a plan. He was going to bring her back to her house and have Linc meet them here. I was going to be waiting on them. And the moment he went to touch her, I was going to intervene. I had proof that he had already forced her to her knees for him in her bedroom before the engagement party, and she was already my wife. I never wanted him to touch her, but I saw that too late, otherwise I would have stopped it before that had even happened. Consequences be damned.
“The moment Linc got near you, I was going to step in. It’s a crime in the Lords’ eyes to fuck someone else’s Lady without her Lord’s permission.”