Not when he’s already holding every piece of my heart.
Chapter Eighteen-Atlas
She’s mine.
Mine.
My wife.
And I’m a fucking idiot.
Because instead of joining her in the suite, touching her, tasting her, celebrating the fact that she just said I do, I walked her to the room like some gentleman, told her I had work to handle.
That was a lie.
What I’m really doing is hiding.
Out here on deck, nursing a whiskey neat—the good stuff, from that tiny distillery in Montclair I can’t seem to give up, even after years abroad and access to every luxury bottle imaginable.
But tonight, nothing burns like this fear.
Not of her. Not of the marriage.
Of myself.
Because I know what will happen if I go back to that room.
I won’t be soft.
I won’t be restrained.
I’ll be hers in a way that brands her for life. And I’ll take her in a way that leaves no doubt in her mind or mine that I am completely, irreversibly obsessed.
She deserves tenderness.
And me? I’m not tender.
I don’t want to make love to her.
I want to claim her.
I want to ruin her for anyone else.
I want to mark her in a way more permanent than a signature on a marriage license.
More than giving her my name.
It terrifies me.
Because if I let myself go—if I let myself have her the way I crave—it won’t just be about power or protection or politics anymore.
It will be about love. Possessive, obsessive, eternal love.
And I’ve never known what that word really means.
Who am I if not the vengeful heir of a ruined kingdom? The son of a disgraced legacy?
Who am I if I stop chasing retribution?
