Page 45 of Midnight Secrets

Her legs gripped me and she tugged me closer, her arms ensnaring me. “Nope. Just you and me, lost in our own world, sounds good right now. The measures you took to get us here yesterday suggests this house is off the grid. Who would ever find us?”

“Your father has a tracker on you and each of your sisters,” I replied.

Her scowl said no one had ever told her. “All I ever wanted was to be normal.”

I kissed her pouty lips. “Normal is overrated.”

“Seriously, Ash. If we were normal we could be together without all this hiding. We could walk down the street, hand in hand, like normal lovers going on a date.”

“Is that what you want?” I’d never admitted it out loud, but she’d described what I yearned for since I was a teenager and realised the life that was opening before me.

She sighed and pressed her forehead to my chest. “I want you.”

“You have me.”

Lucrezia finally looked at me. “For how long? Until my father intervenes? Until Xavier and Jordan decide to be dicks?”

I rolled us onto our sides and stared down at her. “No relationship comes with guarantees.”

“Yeah, but they all start with opportunities. I feel that my life has been mapped out for me, including who I should marry and how many kids I should have.”

I released the breath that had been stuck in my chest. “I know exactly how you feel. Father has a list of eligible brides in his diary. All any of my brothers need to do is select one and it’ll be arranged.”

“I hate my life,” she whispered.

Yeah, so did I. All I could do was hold her as close as possible for the time we had together and pray for a miracle.

After breakfast, I left Lucrezia setting up her workroom since I had several meetings in my diary for the morning. She had panties on this morning with unicorns and rainbows on them. The world saw a serious woman who rarely smiled, yet I got to see the woman with unicorns covering her ass.

Several times in the meeting Xavier gave me awhat the fuck?look before Jordan discreetly kicked me in the shin. My mind definitely wasn’t on the spreadsheets on the laptop in front of me, it was back home in the land of rainbows.

“You okay?” Xavier asked when we were outside.

“Yeah, just a headache.” I loosened my tie. “I’ll maybe head home and lie down for a while.”

Jordan shot me a glare. “You’re never sick.”

“My brother has a death sentence hanging over him, my dad is acting like a dick, and my mum is driving me mad with decorating her new place. Want to swap with me and see how your head is feeling?”

Jordan had the decency to look ashamed. “Need me to drive you?”

“Nah, it’s not too far to my apartment. I’ll catch up with you both later.”

Xavier and Jordan waved me off. Instead of going home, I went to the river since it was where I always came to think. Yesterday, I stepped over a line that I couldn’t retreat over again. Bit at a time, Lucrezia had chipped away at my reserve on the phone until I needed her beside me. It was a moment of weakness that had thrown me over the edge of a precipice and now all I had in front of me was the fast-approaching ground.

She was too good for me because she was pure and I was the son of a demon with his own personal Hell where he torments people. I would taint and destroy her until she wasn’t my angel anymore.

I couldn’t do that to her.

That’s not your choice to make…a small voice whispered inside my head. If I let Lucrezia have her way, she’d be moved in before the end of the week. Lucas Black would have me murdered the week after.

The hardest part of this was the fact that now I’d experienced life with her in it, I didn’t want to let her go. In the past few weeks, I’d grown to anticipate her phone calls. Every time my phone pinged I secretly crossed my fingers that it would be Lucrezia. Then she walked physically into my life yesterday and put all my broken pieces back together again.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I tugged it out. “Angel” flashed on the screen with the image of Minnie Mouse with angel wings. Fuck my life.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Hey, are you coming home soon?” Lucrezia asked. “I need to get some supplies and I didn’t know if you were free or I should head out with Francis.”

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