Page 9 of Until She's Mine
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Lucian says at last.
I swallow hard, my throat dry. “Pretend?”
“The act,” he clarifies. “The smiles. The pleasantries. You wear them well, Evelyn, but I see through them.”
His words cut through me like a blade, sharp and precise. I can’t speak, can’t even think, as his gaze holds me captive. There’s something dangerously intimate about the way he looks at me. His dark and fathomless eyes seem to pierce through each layer of pretense I’ve built around myself.
“What do you mean?”
Lucian sets his glass on the railing and reaches for mine, prying it from my grasp and placing it beside his. His fingers linger on mine for a heartbeat too long before he pulls away, leaving my skin tingling where he touched me. My pulse quickens.
“Don’t lie. Not to me.”
I open my mouth to protest, to deny, but the words catch in my throat. His proximity is overwhelming, a storm I can’t escape.
He sees me.
Truly sees me.
And it terrifies me.
“Why do you care?”
Lucian closes the distance between us. His hand lifts, gently brushing a loose strand of hair from my face. My breath hitches as his fingers trail along my jawline, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
“Because I see what no one else does,” he murmurs. “And because I want what no one else can have.”
“What is it?”
His hand stills against my cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over my skin as if committing the feel of it to memory. “You.”
The word hangs between us like a spark in dry tinder, threatening to ignite everything I’ve tried so hard to keep contained.
“You don’t know me.”
“Don’t I?” His other hand rises to cradle my face. “I’ve watched you for longer than you realize, Evelyn. The way you tilt your head when you’re listening, the unintentional smile that appears when you’re deep in thought, and how you keep yourself composed even when everything around you is falling apart.” His voice drops lower. “I know what it costs you to be who he wants you to be.”
Lucian’s words unravel something deep within me, a thread I didn’t even realize was holding me together. My chest tightens, and I’m dangerously close to shattering. “Lucian…”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t feel it too.”
I can’t.
The pull between us is undeniable. I’ve been fighting it since the moment we first met. But giving in is akin to jumping into a raging river with no guarantee of making it to the other side.
“This is dangerous.” My voice is barely audible over the pounding of my heart.
“You can keep running if you want to, but we both know where this will end.”
My breath catches at the certainty in his voice, at the way he speaks, as if our fate is already written in stone. And maybe it is. Maybe it has been from the moment our paths crossed.
I’m with the wrong brother, I realized when I looked into Lucian’s eyes the day Tobias introduced me to his family.
But the choice had already been made when Tobias slipped that ostentatious ring onto my finger, sealing my fate.
The metal feels cold against my skin even now, a shackle disguised as a promise.
Lucian sees the lie I live, the gilded cage Tobias has built around me, and he offers... what? A different kind of prison? One built of obsession and a darkness that mirrors something I haven’t dared acknowledge within myself?
