Page 59 of Keeper

“You can’t. She can’t stay here,” he argues. “She needs to come with me and act like she’s my fiancé for a little bit unless you want this to end even sooner.”

Draven growls in frustration. “Then cover your eyes.”

I pull his attention to me and kiss him slowly. “He’s right, baby. We have to be really careful until this is over. I should go.”

Fingers curl into my skin as he nods. “I’ll come to you tonight, little keeper. Wait for me?”

He’s started saying that to me the last few weeks as he passes me in the halls, and like all of those times it makes me smile.

“Always.”

I kiss him again, then drag myself out of the bed and follow Alex to the door.

We walk in a tense silence for a few minutes before he’s grabbing my elbow and tucking me aside.

To anyone walking by we’d look like two love birds making out in a dark corner, but in reality we couldn’t be anything further. “You need to stop seeing him. You got the baby we needed already, so why keep it up?”

I wrench my elbow from his grasp, having half a mind to slap him. “You have a lot of nerve, Alex. Are you going to stop seeing Morella? How dare you insinuate that your happiness is more important than mine. You might have the privilege of being a man, but I’m a woman. I could ruin your life in the blink of an eye.”

True fear flashes in his brown eyes. “No. No, that’s not what I meant.” The audible gulp he takes would make me laugh under any other circumstances. “I’m just saying. Father knows about Morella already unfortunately, but we can’t have him know about you two.”

“You made your choice and forced me to deal with it. I’ll marry you, I’ll play along. But you will not tell me who I can and can’t be with on the side when you’re going to continue to do whatever you want. So if someone finds out, you will lie. You will cover for us. You will say whatever you have to. Do you understand?”

I can tell he wants to argue further, but he ultimately nods. “Yeah, I understand. Just be careful, okay? When he breaks your heart, you can’t blow this all out in the open out of anger, alright?”

“You let me worry about my own heart,” I mutter. ”I can handle this.”

I don’t have much of one left anyway.

Twenty-One

My nerves are friedas I head down the stairs with Maddy to wait for Ephraim and Alex. Dray says he has this handled, but so far, I’ve seen no evidence of that. My appointment hasn’t been rescheduled, Maddy didn’t say anything about Ephraim staying behind, and the pit in my stomach reminds me that we’re still utterly and completely fucked.

I’ve had a few days to think about plan C and what I’ll do if Ephraim discovers the truth before the wedding. Each idea I come up with is worse than the last. I won’t be able to run. Staying almost certainly won’t be an option. Lying in the face of irrefutable evidence is a good way to get myself killed, and bargaining won’t do me any good either.

Pretty and pristine, and at the end of my rope.

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