Page 184 of Feed Your Fiends

I’m speechless. It’s not just for me but for his brother. I love this man and… I’m still terrified of him because he’ll do anything for who he loves. “I don’t think I want to know how you’re going to pry it from Silas.”

“Let me worry about that. We’re there, in that fairytale estate, close by Beaulieu. Or Ennox Prep or Bradley for Boys, in case tech or blue-blooded bastards, are more our little darlings’ speeds.”

“Little darlings?”

His fingers drift to my hip bones. “Remember those compliments Madame gave you? You said one day.”

I nod, my heart skipping a beat. “I meant that.”

One day, I would be a person worthy enough to protect someone else’s life. I’d always choose them like Bart and Jaime never chose us. I’ll always love them. No matter the cost.

“So one day. And they’ll be our little princes and princesses. And you’ll look into their black eyes and at their black hair when they’re placed into your arms, and you’ll love them from the start because you love me.”

My eyes sting because… because it hadn’t occurred to me until now how important that is for Gant too. To be loved from the very beginning unconditionally.

“Who says they’ll be Gant clones?” I ask, trying to stop my voice from cracking as I chuckle to lighten the mood. We had to be on stage in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t dance with tears in my eyes.

“That’s what happens when you have recessive genes. You lose. I cannot help my domination.”

“Your mother had green eyes,” I counter. “Even if you can’t see them, they’re still somewhere in you, in your code.”

“But if they never make a reappearance?” The questions so damn quiet, a vulnerability I don’t think I’ve ever heard from him.

“Gant, I fell into your abyss the moment I looked at you, and nothing will pry me out of them or out of any other abysses I hold in my arms. That darkness you’re worried about is my heaven. I don’t need blue oceans or auric hair to think otherwise.”

“Because I am your heaven?”

I fuckingcrack.“Untraditional, but my heaven nonetheless.”

“Does it sound like heaven? All of it?”

I lean up to kiss him, soft but sure. “It does. Like paradise.”

“So say yes to paradise.” He pulls something from his pocket, and I freeze at the sight of the marques ring the Beaumonts had reset as a part of Marisol’s dream collection.

The last time I saw it, it was on the penthouse floor through a haze of tears as I injected Gant. Stassi had tackled Delphine into a display case that tumbled and shattered and as if it sought me, the ring had bounced against my knee as I crumpled over Gant’s bluing body.

“Say yes to me.”

“You…you bought it back from the Beaumonts.” My eyes burn, as does my throat. “I didn’t know it was Marisol’s. I—”

“It was never sold. Stassi gave you the money and slipped it into the jewels Bart had dropped off. I wanted it recreated in the setting my mother had drawn.”

There’s a difference between shattering and crumpling because my heart crumples at the mere thought of what I’d selfishly done when I gave that ring away.

He tips my chin. “I would’ve had to take it back anyway, dove. It wasn’t beautiful enough for you.”

How does he always know what I’m thinking?

“But when I put it on your finger and I asked you to be mine forever in the last play, I wasn’t playing. I wasn’t pretending inside that little bubble you put us in. You said that bubble would burst, but I told you those barriers didn’t apply to me in the first place.”

My breath hitches. “Because I didn’t see a way out of it. How could I have known you’d… eliminate the walls surrounding us?”

“You didn’t take me seriously. I told you I’d do anything to have you. To keep you.”

“That’s terrifying,” I say, my voice barely a whisper even as pure warmth spreads through me.

“Not if you’re with me.” His fingers trace the back of my neck, and I shiver. “Not if we’re hopelessly intertwined. Me in you and you in me.”

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