Page 83 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

Herself.

“She has your eyes,” Arthur said. “Pale grey. A little scared, a little trapped.”

Regan was the prisoner, trapped by bands of iron and gold in a luxurious prison. Those links on the manacles on her wrist looked flimsy as paperclips. The woman in the painting had only to pull her hands apart and they would snap off. And once she did that, she would be free. She was already free. She just didn’t know it yet.

Regan glanced around the penthouse of The Pearl, a hotel girded with iron and steel and decorated with dazzling gilt and gold.

She turned to Arthur and kissed him. A soft kiss. A tender kiss. A goodbye kiss.

“Do me a favor,” she said.

“Anything.”

“When you start your tour of duty, don’t get yourself killed, please.”

He stared at her, eyes narrowed in confusion. “Wasn’t planning to. Why?”

She smiled, but didn’t answer. “I need to get to work,” she said. “I’ll…I’ll see you later.”

“Later tonight?”

“I have to do a few things first.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Soon,” she said. She touched his face and kissed him one more time. His handsome face, those eyes so dark there was no telling the pupil from the iris. Her lover. Her protector. Her family.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I will be.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, or whenever you’re ready.”

He took his coat off the back of the chaise, went to the door. There he stopped and turned back.

“I know you can’t make me any promises,” he said, “but I can make youthispromise. I will love you forever, and you can’t stop me so don’t bother trying. I’ll love you and I’ll wait for you, but if you run from me, I’ll find you.”

“Just…let me find myself first, can you?”

“Remember when you said I belong to you?”

“I remember,” she said.

“I don’t know if you meant it, but you have to know I believed it. I’m always going to belong to you. No matter where you are, wherever you go, I’m always yours.”

She smiled. “Mine.”

“All right. What are you going to do?”

“What I should have done ten years ago.”

“Don’t be long,” he said. “I love you.”

He turned to go and Regan whispered to his back, “I love you, too, Brat.”

The door closed behind him and she was alone. Alone again. She wanted him back so badly she almost ran after him. But she would only be leaving one gilded cage to put Arthur in another.

She went out onto the terrace and found Gloom waiting for his lunch. She fed him raw fish by hand and stroked the silky feathers along the back of his elegant head.

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