Page 144 of Charming Deception

I’m afraid I won’t. It’s like there’s a crack through my chest and my heart is leaking out. But I force myself to be hard. “All you’re doing is reminding me why I’m doing the right thing.”

She takes the delicate gold chain from around her waist and throws it at my feet. “Take it. I was going to give it to you anyway.”

My fingers feel numb as I pick up the chain. It’s the only jewelry she managed to keep when we fled, when the caravan was attacked.

“It’s pure gold,” she says bitterly. “It’s worth a lot.”

“I can’t take it.”

“Yes, you can. Don’t you dare give it back. You ought to get paid something for your trouble.” She starts touching herself again, and the pained look in her eyes is terrible.

“Rowan…”

“Just go if you’re going to go!” Her voice hits a hysterical note, and I turn away from her distress. I don’t want to see her this way. I can’t take it.

I run downhill through the trees and I hear her calling behind me. “Wolf!” Her voice is broken now, and I know she’s crying. “Wolf! Please, come back!”

I run until I’m pretty sure she can’t see me, and duck behind a tree, gasping.

I can still see her on the rocks, the emerald-green of the ruffled bustle bright in the dusk. She’s down on her knees, pitched forward, sobbing. She keeps stroking herself until she cries out, a sound that’s racked with pain, and her body trembles and I know she’s coming. “Wolf!” She’s still crying. “Wolf, please…”

She cries a long while as the dusk grows dark.

It’s not safe for her out here.

I consider that I may have to drag her back myself, tie her to the citadel gate to make her stay.

But then she gets up and scurries back up the incline, shaking. I scramble up through the trees as fast as I can, around the edge of the rocky cliff, following her. Keeping her in my sight.

I follow her all the way back to the citadel, until I see her cross through the back gate, before I head back down to the river.

I close my tablet. In the dimmed lighting of the jet’s cabin, the woman sleeping alone in the bed looks so peaceful, her face serene.

Nothing like the tumult of emotions churning inside me.

My heart’s beating in my throat and I’m frustrated as hell. All I want to do is grab her and kiss the shit out of her.

At this point, I’m so sure there’s so much of her in Rowan—a girl who feels so completely alone in the world, so unseen for who she really is inside, by anyone but Wolf—it’s driving me mad that Wolf’s abandoning her.

I slip off my glasses and quietly go over to her, set my knees on either side of her body, and crawl over her on the bed. Hovering above her, I put my lips close to her ear. “Wolf is a dick. He doesn’t deserve Rowan.”

Megan’s already awake. She started stirring when I prowled over her, probably breathing too hard. My pulse is pounding, her scent igniting some primal sense in me that makes my dick harder than it already was.

“You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that?” she says sleepily. Her eyes are still closed, but she’s smiling.

“She’s crying in the woods, half-naked, and he’s fucking leaving. What would you call that?”

Her eyes crack open. “Chivalrous?”

I grunt. “He’s supposed to make sure she’s safe. Himself. Not pass her off to someone else. And he’s supposed to catch her when she falls. That’s what a man does.”

I stare down at her until her eyes open fully and focus on mine.

“I mean, he caught her when she jumped down off the rocks. And in the trust-fall scene, remember?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” My tone edges on a growl. “She made herself come while he left her, so she could bear the pain. He taught her how to have sex and now it’s her only connection to him, because he left.”

“He knows if her new husband sees them together, it’s a risk,” she says patiently, like maybe I missed that part. I didn’t. “By now, Wolf has heard that the man is a warlord and a notorious sadist. He’s afraid of what will happen to them both.”

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