Page 90 of Feed Your Fiends

“That was before you met me.” Before you had someone competent in your life rather than two imbeciles who knew how to fuck raw, and that was enough to make them parents.

Her lips part as I shift her onto my lap so that we’re so close our noses are brushing.

“Whatever you want, I’ll make it come true. All you have to do is say yes to me.”

“But it’s not just you. You aren’t an island like I am. You’re an Auclair. What don’t you get? Your family willneveraccept me.”

“Delphine seemed to love you.”

Didn’t she, baby?

No sound comes out of her parted lips for a long time before she shakes her head. “Delphine is a Parrish. I’m talking about the Auclairs.”

“You haven’t met my father.”

“Why would I want to?” she asks incredulously, jerking away from me to fall against the couch cushions. “You told me that he wants to kill someone, your ownbrother. He doesn’t want his wife’s blood to inheritanything, even things he didn’t work for, like her dance studio. Do you think he’d be happy when you tried to bring home the girl that leaked your mother’s sex tape?”

A minor detail.

“Do you think he’d be happy that a red-haired council house cunt was carrying the next Auclair heir?”

She’s thought of having my heir?!But even that warm revelation can’t override the other.Red-haired council house cunt?Where did she get that? Not from herself. That’s something Bart would say.

Something that someone who cared about the ‘pureness’ of bloodlines and social standing would say.

My blood crystallises as I watch a sheen of sheer agony and hurt glaze her eyes as she glares at me. A hurt over a supposed truth she’s been hammering into her brain since she fell in love with me.

“Who said that to you?” I hiss, but she only looks up at the ceiling to keep those tears from falling. The tears I told her not to worry about because I’d drink them all.

“Look,you got your wish. I’m here. For now. Can’t you just enjoy what’s in front of you?” She gestures around the penthouse. “Isn’t this enough?”

“No, it isn’t. That’s the thing about being spoiled.”

“But not invincible. You know Bart Auclair better than I ever could.”

“Exactly. So, let me worry about Bart Auclair. Let me worry about our love.”

“I don’t love—”

I grip her neck and pull her toward me, cutting off her words with a kiss. She fights for half a second before she melts into the cushions and my arms.

“You can say anything to me,” I tell her seriously after raking her lower lip between my teeth. “You can even say that you hate me, but not that. Never that. If out of everyone, just you loves me, I can bear it.”

“Bear what?”

“Everything else.”

She shakes her head slowly, and the static of the cushions creates a fuzzy orange halo around her. One I always knew was there, just invisible above my angel. “That doesn’t even make sense. How can I hate you but still love you?”

“The opposite of hate isn’t love. It’s indifference. You hate me right now for what I did to your feet, but I know you still love me.”

“You don’t know.”

“You're here in my arms.”

“Because—”

“Never mind the circumstances. They’re only excuses. You could be anywhere tonight. With Jaime and Jarett. With Stassi. At Libellule. But you’re here with me.”

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