Page 90 of Pageant

“I’ve ruined your pageant. All the women have escaped.”

“You, crowned with that tiara. You’re all I want. You’re all I’ve ever needed.” He holds out his hand, beckoning me with his fingers like I’m an overexcited child who doesn’t want to leave the amusement park at the end of a long day.

I would rather fall into hot lava than take his hand.

He glances past me, down at the darkness below, all the while edging closer. “Do you know what it’s like to drown, Lilia? It’s pain like no other. Your body is suddenly your worst enemy. The ally you thought you could count on no matter what is desperate to turn on you. One breath. That’s all it craves. One deadly breath.”

As I continue to edge toward the cliff, the smile drains from his face.

“You’re going to die, Lilia. Don’t be stupid.”

Ever since I awoke locked in a cage in this man’s cellar, my only thought has been to escape. Nothing Konstantin could say or do could persuade me to take his hand. I’m leaving, and I’m taking his diamonds with me.

“Don’t you get it yet? If I’m going to die, then it’s going to be on my terms. Who knows? Maybe I’ll live. I’ve survived crueler men than you.”

Over his shoulder, I can see two more figures running toward us in the darkness. Someone is shouting at me to stop. Someone who sounds like Elyah, more frantic than I’ve ever heard him before.

I have mere seconds, and I cast one final look at Konstantin. “I will burn like acid in your heart every time you think of me.”

Konstantin’s face hardens to an expression of pure fury. He lunges for me, but he’s too late. I turn, raise my arms above my head with my fingertips touching together, and plunge headlong into darkness. Swan diving into the unknown.

A heartbroken shout reaches my ears and is lost on the rushing wind. My eyes are tightly closed. I’m putting my life into fate’s hands, hoping desperately that I can’t have survived this long only to be battered to death on rocks.

The past few days flash before my eyes. The huddled, frightened women. Their strength. Their defiance. Their friendship. Kirill gazing up at me with shock as I snarl at him to pull the trigger. Elyah’s mouth pressing against mine, whispering words of love as he moves inside me. Konstantin watching me with a new expression in his hungry gray eyes.

Everything rushes faster and faster until I can’t hear, can’t think, can’t breathe. All my senses scream—

I plunge into darkness, and oblivion swallows me up.

19

Konstantin

Ibarely hear the splash as she enters the water, the blood is roaring that hard in my ears. I rush to the edge of the cliff and peer down into nothingness.

She jumped.

She fuckingjumped.

I haven’t had a clear thought in my head since the moment I walked into my bedroom and saw her standing there holding my tiara. Lilia fucking Aranova, the one I was going to enjoy exploring afresh now that it seemed she wasn’t the deceitful bitch Elyah had always claimed. The woman I brought to her knees just the day before.

Or I thought I had. Now I realize what she was really after. Her goddamn passport which was laying on the desk.

As I watched her through the two-way mirror today, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted to know what kind of woman goes to her death so calmly, so magnificently, that she throws herself to her doom rather than beg to be saved.

And now she’s done it again.

Kirill and Elyah skid to a halt beside me, both of them breathing hard.

“Lilia.” Elyah calls her name at the top of his lungs, frantically pacing up and down and searching for any sign of her. He grabs my shoulders, his eyes wild. “You have to go after her. I cannot swim.I cannot fucking swim.”

Kirill scours the darkness. “That crazy bitch. There could be fucking rocks down there.”

There are no rocks. I heard her plunge into deep water. Every nerve is screaming at me to turn my back on Lilia and let her die for humiliating me like this. Her arms must be nearly useless after being strung up by her wrists last night. I warned her what it would feel like to drown. Even now, after all these years, I can feel the frantic burn of my lungs as I fight not to take that deadly breath.

Lilia is like me. She won’t stop fighting until she’s got nothing left. I tear off my shirt and kick off my shoes. Am I going to save her? Or am I going to pull her out of that water only to throttle her with my bare hands? I don’t know. I’ll make up my mind when I’m looking into those depthless sea-green eyes.

“Get the boat,” I order the other two. “Turn on the floodlights and find her.”

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