Page 72 of You Only Love Twice
To you.
Isabella lowered her heels to the ground, her jaw clenching. "Of course. This was an arrangement from the start."
Guilt stirred through him, for he was coming to realize something that had escaped his notice until recently.
It had stopped being an arrangement in her eyes at some point, and he'd missed the warning signs.
They'd worked together for years.
Indeed, almost as long as he'd known Gemma.
Isabella had been widowed young, and at first they'd shared that. Two souls who'd lost the loves of their lives and came together to share something purely physical. He'd told her things he'd never admitted to anyone else, but the way he felt about her...
It was friendship, and nothing more.
"You're a beautiful, intelligent woman who has the entire world at her feet," he said softly. Gently. "You deserve more than I can give you."
She gave a false laugh, reeling away from him. "Oh, God. Please, stop. You are so blind, Malloryn, so blind...."
And as he watched her slam the door behind him, he felt the familiar burn of guilt.
He'd driven both of them away. No Gemma. No Isabella.
It was better this way.
Malloryn turned, surveying the map on his wall, all the recent catastrophic events picked out upon it in red string. A spider web if one knew what one was looking for. A trap, slowly closing around London, around him.
He knew patterns. He could sense the storm coming.
And there was a churning sensation in his gut as he stared at the puzzle pieces in front of him, his mind coldly putting them together.
You know what this is.
This was personal.
Someone out there was pulling strings, as if just watching and waiting for him to realize what he faced. He'd known peace for three years, but this had all the makings of an old game, finally resurrected.
It bore a certain signature he'd been trying to overlook.
It couldn't be who he suspected.
It wasn't possible.
"I buried him myself," he whispered.
But someone had reopened the game between them, and this time, Malloryn was the one with everything to lose.
* * *
A sharp rapsounded on her door.
Fresh from her bath, Gemma gave it a dull look. "Yes?"
"Are you up to company?" Ingrid called. "Ava wanted to make certain you were all right."
Gemma strode toward the door and opened it, surprised to see the two of them there.
"We bring gifts," Ingrid said, lifting a green glass bottle. Another was hidden behind her back. "I've raided Byrnes's cabinet."
