Page 39 of The Beast's Broken Beauty

Maybe it is. But fate's been my enemy since the day I was born, and I've never been one to back down from a fight.

I'm alone in the office, night pressing against the windows as the ocean roars its fury below. The sound matches the chaos in my head, thoughts colliding like waves against jagged rocks.

"Fuck it," I growl, driving my fingers through my hair, feeling the familiar pull of scar tissue as my face tightens. I yank open the first drawer, my hand betraying me with a slight tremor. Under my mother's picture are letters I've written over the years – confessions, rage, questions that still haunt me. Letters never sent because there's no one left to receive them.

And tucked beneath them, there's another picture. One I stole from her father's office after a beating that left me pissing blood for a week. Isabella and her mother, both laughing, heads together like they're sharing the world's best secret. It should be hers. One of the few pieces of her mother that bastard didn't destroy.

I straighten my spine, adjust my cuffs, armor myself against whatever's waiting for me in that dining room. Whatever this dangerous softening is that keeps threatening to crack the Beast's façade.

The moment I enter, my breath catches somewhere between my lungs and my throat. Isabella sits like a queen in exile – spine straight, chin raised, eyes holding a challenge even as exhaustion paints shadows beneath them. The chandelier catches her curls, turning them to fire, and my gaze drops to the scars peeking above her shirt collar – wounds I once traced with my tongue, that I worshipped with my mouth on our wedding night.

The need to touch her again hits like a physical blow, my cock hardening despite every warning bell clanging in my head. Her scent is everywhere – that damn honeysuckle that's become both my torment and my craving.

"I'm ready for the dinner lesson," she says, her voice steady but cold, gaze unflinching as it locks with mine.

The sadness in those eyes – eyes that once looked at me like I hung the fucking moon – cuts deeper than any blade. A splinter of doubt works its way under my skin, the first crack in the foundation of rage I've built my revenge upon. What if I've been wrong? What if she's been telling the truth? What if this whole time, I've been burning down what could have been redemption?

I swallow hard, battling back the weakness. There's no room for doubt in this world. Not in our world. But even as I steel myself, pressing that doubt into submission, the question lingers like smoke after a fire:

What if Isabella isn't my enemy after all? What if she's been another victim in her father's twisted game? What if I've become exactly the monster he wanted me to be?

And that realization – the possibility that I've spent years playing my part in her father's grand design, that my revenge hasbeen nothing but another move in his game – that terrifies me more than death ever could.

Because it would mean I've lost before I ever began.

Chapter twenty-one

Isabella

Notonmybingocard or list of things I dreamed about when I was lying in that hospital bed, hooked to machines counting down my heartbeats?

This dinner practice.

It's like I've time-traveled to some twisted romance novel, one where the princess is kept captive by the scarred prince who used to play her music. This dining room could have been ripped straight from those dark romances Naomi smuggled to me during chemo, all imposing stone and candlelight, complete with creepy chandeliers and faded wall hangings telling stories of battles I can't even begin to figure out. Honestly, I feel like I'm about to dine with ghosts. With my luck, they'll be angry ones who'd prefer to haunt me.

And let's not forget the main attraction: Antonio, my jailer, my husband, my former stepbrother, sitting across from me like he's the king of this broken kingdom. Which, I guess he is.

I can't help but notice the way his shirt stretches across those shoulders, the same ones I dug my nails into that night, leaving marks I hoped would last. His muscular forearms flex as he reaches for the San Pellegrino, and my mouth goes desert-dry. It's infuriating how even his simplest movements radiate that raw, masculine power that used to make my pulse stutter before treatments, before betrayal, before he locked me away.

I hate that I'm still so aware of him, so attuned to his every breath. My body's the ultimate traitor, remembering his touch like muscle memory from a dance I've tried to forget.

This isn't some happily-ever-after fairy tale. I'm stuck somewhere between Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast, but Disney never prepared me for the part where Beauty wakes up hating how much she still wants the Beast who broke her.

At least there's food. A plate of delicious-looking appetizers sits between us like a neutral zone in this war: prosciutto, various cheeses, olives, different sorts of bread. My stomach growls, a reminder that I'm still human, still here, still fighting.

"We need to have a few rules," he says after silence stretched tight as a bowstring between us.

I roll my eyes before I can stop myself, and his head tilts in that predatory way that used to make my heart race for entirely different reasons.

"Like you probably shouldn't roll your eyes every single time I say something," he rasps out, voice roughened by whatever darkness has been eating him alive since that morning he shattered everything.

I roll my eyes again, deliberately this time. "Not rolling my eyes? Fine. I won't tomorrow evening, but it's just practice, right?" My voice comes out sharper than the chef's knives, exactly as intended.

"Fine," Antonio growls, and I swear, he stabs that poor prosciutto like it personally orchestrated his mother'sdisappearance. I can't help but raise an eyebrow at his little display of aggression, watching him with the same clinical detachment I developed during endless medical exams.

I bite into a piece of cheese, nice and slow, holding his gaze like a challenge. Two can play at this game of control. The flavor explodes on my tongue, rich, salty, complex, reminding me I've been surviving on Signora Martha's basic meals for three months.

When the door opens, Antonio moves his chair toward me with predator's grace, like he's preparing to shield me from whatever threat might enter. My pulse skitters dangerously, not from desire but from sudden fear. What is he so afraid of? I thought we were safe-ish here. Or at least as safe as I can be in this fortress of stone and secrets.

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