Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“My dress? But--”
“Is that one of your questions?” he asks.
I glare, bracing myself for what I know I’m going to do. It feels even more wrong now. Even though I’ve never given Prince Titus reason to think I have any feelings for him or that I was planning to go through with this wedding, he seems to think otherwise. But he must know I’m being forced into this. He hasn’t even talked to me in days I’ve been here--not really. He has talked at me, and all of that has been about himself. He has told me story upon story about how accomplished of a dueler he is or of how many men he has bested at fielding.
Every word from Prince Titus’ mouth has only further convinced me that he’s the last man on this Earth I’d want to marry.
Yet, I still feel a paralyzing guilt that keeps me from lifting my dress up. It would be wrong, wouldn’t it? Not only am I to marry another, but if I do this there will be consequences that could end in bloodshed.
“I can’t,” I say finally, letting my hands fall lifelessly to my side. “He’s your brother. And he believes we will marry. This--what we’re doing--it’s wrong.”
Roark takes a step closer until we’re nearly nose to nose as he looks down to me. “My brother will ruin you. He will use you up and discard what’s left. You’re a tool to him, just a pathway to the throne. Will you really remain loyal to a man like that?”
“Loyal to him? No. But I have my own standards. I need to be able to live with myself every day. I have to look at myself in the mirror, and I’d like to be able to do that with a clear conscience.”
“What would you do then?” asks Roark through gritted teeth. “You’ll just walk the path everyone has laid out for you without your consent? You’ll march down the aisle, let him stick his tongue down your throat, fuck you and put one of his twisted offspring inside your--”
My palm stings. I just slapped him, didn’t I? I didn’t decide to or plan on it, but my hand whipped out. I just had to make him stop. I raised my hand against a Prince, the heir to the kingdom, and I’m alone with him in a dungeon where no one knows to look for me. I look down in confusion at my own hand. I know I shouldn’t have hit him, but I’m not sorry.
“Don’t talk to me that way,” I say, chest heaving.
He watches me through dark eyes for a long time, not bringing a hand to the reddening spot on his cheek, not even moving at all. “I’m within my rights to talk to you any way I like, Princess,” he says. His voice dangerous. It’s low and full of violence, but a stubbornness borne out of years of mistreatment rises up in me.
“No one has a right to make assumptions about me. You barely know me. You have no right to guess at my future like that.” My eyes are watering. My stupid, traitorous eyes are watering and my voice is breaking. “You have no right,” I say quietly.
He wraps his strong arms around me. One moment we were apart, and then he’s surrounding me like a warm mist, filling my senses and refusing to let me go. I fight at first, pounding my fists against his chest and struggling to be free of him, but he’s too strong. “You say I don’t know you?” he asks, breath tickling my ear. “Show me who you are, then. Show me I’m wrong.”
He lets me go suddenly, pushing me back a fraction so that I can see his full frame. So I can see as his hands move to the buttons of his jacket and then his shirt, peeling away his clothes so that nothing is between my eyes and his chiseled body. The air around us turns electric. My gaze skates over his broad chest and shoulders, down the tapered muscles leading to his waist. I take in the way every jagged line is carved into his sculpted torso leading my eye inevitably and irresistibly down, down to the bulge in his pants that my instincts are clawing to reach for.
Show me I’m wrong.
The woman he thinks I am would let this work. She would get on her knees and do exactly what he wanted right now, and she’d say to hell with her honor. But I’ve lived my whole life letting others write their own version of me and stamp it on my forehead like it was gospel. I’ve lived with the consequences of that for as long as I can remember. Well, I said I wanted to start a new life after my eighteenth birthday, didn’t I?