Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
One by one, I throw those keepsakes and letters into the fireplace. His gaze is no longer curious as he witnesses the action. The unreadable mask is back on his face. He says nothing, not even when I take the lighter fluid from the mantlepiece and drench the small pile in the fireplace. He doesn’t as much as wince when I put a match to them.
He only speaks when the flames are leaping up the chimney, burning away the sweetness of our history, his tone as neutral as his expression. “Those were my letters.”
“No.” Transfixed, I stare into the orange glow of the flames. “Those were your lies.”
“Burning them won’t change the fact that I meant every word I wrote on those pages.”
The fire burns out quickly, just like we did.
Slowly, I turn my face back to him. “I stopped believing you on the night you proved to me that you can’t be trusted. And burning them doesn’t only erase your words. It erases every trace of the farce that existed between us.”
Those letters are the symbol of everything that went wrong in my life. They represent every tear I shed and all the pain and humiliation I suffered. Dante crashed into my life like a wrecking ball and destroyed everything.
Before him, I was an obedient daughter. I never lied, I never slipped out in the dead of the night, and I never went against my parents’ wishes. My father had no reason to check my email or my phone. No one knew about Dante’s letters or messages.
Back then, when I was young and in love and naïve, I could live on a bowl of strawberries and Dante’s text messages. I didn’t need food or water. He was my everything, the air I breathed. We were inseparable even though we could only sneak in a few minutes to be together a couple of times a week. Time and space had no meaning to me, not when it came to Dante. I believed he was my soulmate.
I was a fool.
I stare into his golden eyes that resemble the color of the dying embers in the fireplace. The line of his jaw is set in a hard line, but his anger is as cold as the ashes soon will be.
“You can force me into marriage and take my shares, but there’s one thing you need to understand. There was a time when you meant a lot to me. Now, you’re nothing to me, and you’ll never mean anything to me again.”
With that, I walk out, leaving that part of my life behind for good.
Chapter
Sixteen
Dante
* * *
If Tatiana hated me before, she loathes me now. Taking her back to the condo was the worst idea I could’ve had. I thought seeing Emily would make Tatiana happy. She loved and trusted their housekeeper.
On the contrary, the visit only served to remind her of everything I’d taken from her, including her mother. Something snapped inside my future bride, something that made her want to cut every thread that tied us together. However, some threads, such as the child we share and the insatiable chemistry between us, can’t be severed.
Since the disastrous episode that played out in the study, we don’t speak outside of the bedroom. At night, she gives me her moans and screams, but during the day, she only gives me silence.
I don’t like it. I’m running out of time. I was hoping by now, I would’ve won back her trust or at least a portion of it, enough for her to be honest with me. After what I did, I don’t expect her forgiveness. But I thought if she understood my motivations, she’d come to understand.
Yet she’s unreachable. The warm, caring woman who once gave me every part of herself has become unobtainable. Cold and distant. Yes, I own her body. I prove it every night when I bed her. I’m about to make her my wife. That doesn’t prevent her from keeping her distance in everything else that matters.
She’s not leaving me a choice. I’ll have to confront her. Kent is bugging me about it again. The only reason he’s still breathing is because he’s right. I have to get my hands on that necklace before Teszner does.
Knowing that snake, he’s already got buyers lined up. Selling that piece of jewelry will save him from the loan sharks and bankruptcy. It’ll make him a wealthy man again, and wealthy men have the means to be powerful. They can afford weapons and armies. They can bend the law to their will.
But worse, much worse, is it will mean he wins. In our war, that makes me the loser, and I’ll be damned before I let Lee down. I’ve come too far and sacrificed too much. Of all those sacrifices, Tatiana is the biggest one I’ve made, the one I regret the most. I’ll regret what I had to give up until the day I die, but I won’t let the price I paid be for nothing. I’ll find what I’m looking for. I’ll use any means save for torture. That necklace is the only thing that stands between me and my goal. It is my goal.