Page 24 of Inconvenient Marriage
Because that’s what I’m doing. Taking the weight off of Alex’s shoulders, getting married to an Offering—former or not, I don’t give a shit—so that he doesn’t have to. To protect Annaliese, I’ll have to play along with Order politics, something I swore I would never do… until she fought back her obvious surprise at seeing me approach her before boldly asking if I would marry her, and if that’s what the price of having her is, I’ll pay it.
“Fuck, no, I haven’t changed my mind. You?”
Annaliese goes still. She swallows, and with my gaze locked on her, I watch the motion of her throat.
It’sintoxicating—and so is she.
SEVEN
WHATEVER IT TAKES
SEBASTIEN
“Sebastien.”
It’s the first time she’s used my name. She already had my complete attention, but now I’m letting her see a hint of the real me through my easy-going grin, and I think it’s making her more than a little nervous.
Okay, then. “Yes?”
“I need you to take this seriously. To understand. This isn’t about love. This isn’t romance. In Harmony Heights, a wedding band is akin to protection. This is survival. For me… for Miranda. I’m doing this so they don’t steal my sister’s future because I stupidly ruined mine.”
Annaliese says it so matter-of-factly, I know that she must’ve spent ages coming to this conclusion. Whatever she did to get booted from her class of Offerings, she’s sure it’s so bad that her sister will be tossed to the Court instead of getting the chance to be Claimed.
And I get that. The Order is so fucked up with its rules and its bylaws and its expectations. Annaliese could make a mistake that leads to her family’s standings tanking with her. JackCollins would’ve delighted in punishing the entire Crawford family if one of the precious Offerings stepped out of line.
But Jack isn’t the King anymore. Dallas is. I know my buddy. My bro. He might not be able to save Annaliese from her fate, but he wouldn’t go after Miranda the same way his vindictive father would’ve.
Hell, if I ask Dallas to erase whatever black mark is next to Annaliese’s name, he would, no questions asked. Of course, then she wouldn’t feel compelled to marry me, and… yeah.
Before that night in the Last Prayer, I would’ve helped her, would’ve let her walk away. But now? Hey. Turnabout is fair play. She walked away once. No fucking way I’ll let that happen again.
She has a point, though. This contract spells out everything for this fake marriage she’s insisting on… including a section on living arrangements.
“I see you added a part about us keeping separate residences. I get that you might want to hang on to your place, but when an Owed takes an Offering for a wife, she has to spend at least one night in his bed a week. No getting around that.”
Not when I’m dying to have Annaliese inmine…
Her body jerks. It’s a quick shudder, but I saw it.
I arch an eyebrow.
“I know, but that doesn’t apply to this marriage.” She exhales softly. “Because I’m not an Offering. Not really.”
Ah. There it is. Confirmation. “I thought you were.”
Beneath her renewed icy composure, I can tell she’s wagering whether or not she wants to answer me. For a moment, I think she’s going to brush past it, but she surprises me by tilting her head up just enough to come across as defiant as she admits, “I was. I’m not anymore.”
Fuck, she’s so damn sexy. “Why’s that?”
“Why do you think? You keep reminding me of that night… if you Claim me, no one ever has to know that I was meant to be demoted to one of the Used during the next ceremony.”
More Order fuckery that I can’t stand. It happened to Loni Dougherty when we were in high school. She slept with Adrian and got caught when Desmond St. James started running his mouth, and what happened? She got kicked out of being an Offering, too. Even if Adrian wasn’t related to the former King, nothing would’ve happened to him. Nope. It’s the women in the Order who need to be held to some ridiculous standard.
The second she had penetrative sex for the first time, she lost any worth she had as an Offering. I don’t agree with it, but it’s how the Order is. If I’d known she was an Offering, I never would’ve followed her into that bathroom. She sure as hell wasn’t acting like an unpracticed virgin that night, but?—
My tongue darts out, moistening the corner of my suddenly dry mouth. “Real quick. I wasn’t the one who”—shit… how did she put it?—“ruined you, was I?”
I don’t want to be. It wouldn’t change a damn thing if I was since I have every intention of keeping Annaliese, but when she slowly shakes her head and my gut feels like someone kicked it, I realize something: I hate the idea that someone else got to her first more than that I could be responsible for her being desperate enough to marry a man like me.
