Page 229 of Bound By Her

Bryson steeled himself, saying the truth, “I manipulated them.”

“I manipulated you. Does that make you hate me?” she asked.

“No.”

It made me love you.

Bryson was thankful he was able to keep at least one thought to himself. Adria was so close to him, their hands resting on the couch, their fingers almost touching.

“I didn’t leave yesterday because of how little I feel,” he said, moving his pinky to graze hers. “You bring out a side of me I forgot about a long time ago. It hits me so hard, sometimes I can’t breathe.”

The sun crested the horizon, pouring morning light into the room around them. The rays warming all the broken places in Bryson. All the secrets he had once held, laid down at her feet.

“Before you, I didn’t want my father’s empire. I dreaded the day of my ascension. Not because of the responsibility, but because of how he was. I didn’t want tobe that. Didn’t want to be him. But I couldn’t see a way out.”

Bryson lifted his hand and placed it on top of Adria’s. He hoped she didn’t notice the sweat on his palm.

“Whatever the future holds, I want it to include you,” he said into her storm-swept eyes.

He shut up then. He had said what he needed to, and then some.

When he had chased Kaydon down and stepped out of the shadows, trashing those guys with his words had been easy.

Approaching Kaydon had been the hard part.

Every part of his body screamed to run, and that was exactly how he felt in this moment.

It was the most vulnerable he had been in years, and he hoped she could find a way to believe him.

“Why do you have to make everything so complicated?” she asked, removing her hand from under his.

She stood. “You wait until now to tell me this.” Voice raising as she continued, “Auction day.”

“Things were fine the way they were before,” she said. “When we hated each other.”

Bryson shook his head. “I think we could make a good team.”

Adria’s body was shaking. “I don’t need a team.”

“You’re scared,” Bryson said, understanding.

Only he and Adria could understand the depths of how scary this was. Connections were dangerous within the Nine, and interconnections between the families were worse. But Bryson was confident they could navigate the situation.

But, only if they did it together.

Bryson continued, “We still want you to sell us to Vega.”

He moved towards her, but she backed away.

“After our time there, we—I—want to see you again. Just see how it goes. That’s all.”

But it wasn’t all, not even close.

She stood in the warm sunlight, T-shirt clinging lightly to her skin, bare feet on the cold tile. There was a rawness to her, as if she had been stripped of her traditional protections.

His arms itched to have her in them. To feel the softness of her skin against his fingertips, to bury his face in her hair.

He reached for her, but she whispered, her voice barely audible, “I can’t do this.”

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