Ifucked up. I fucked up so bad that I only added to my mistake by trying to prove to Lucy that she’s the only one for me by bending her over the fountain and claiming her so thoroughly that she could barely walk when I was done, let alone have the mental capacity to worry that there’s another woman in my life.
Shit. From the moment Loni called me, passing along the message that Lucy needed me, I completely forgot about Heather. And I know that makes me a prick. I agreed to marry the Offering to get the old guard off my back. I would’ve, too, but then I was given a second chance with Lucy and that was the end of that.
Only I didn’t call off the engagement. I didn’t tell Heather that I couldn’t marry her. If I’d been thinking with my head instead of my battered heart—and, fuck it, my aching cock—then I would’ve realized that she was a loose end I needed to take care of. If I had, she wouldn’t have shown up uninvited to the penthouse, putting doubts into my Dandelion’s head.
And that just goes to show how much of a bastard I am. I’m no worse than my old man in that regard. Jack treated the Usedlike garbage, fucking them and using them, then throwing them away. So I never slept with Heather. I still screwed her over without screwing her, and my immediate thought was how she nearly got between me and Lucy.
I won’t let anyone come between us again. I fucking mean it, too. I made that mistake once, and it’s one I refuse to repeat. And though I have to admit it’s not Heather’s fault, that includes my ‘fiancé’.
Still, the Offering deserves better than the way that I handled it. That thought pisses me off because it’s something I should’ve realized already, but I didn’t, and know I’mfucked.
All I want to do is lock the penthouse apartment up tight with Lucy and me inside of it. If I hadn’t been called down to the office for some bullshit about a new golf course, a couple of Used rolling some non-members who snuck into the Court, plus a building developer who scheduled a meet through Loni so that he could convince me to approve his plans to take some existing park land in Harmony Heights and throw up another condo high-rise, I would have.
What the fuck do I care about that last one? I threw all my energy into blocking some other prick’s project to bulldoze the park—including mine and Lucy’s dandelion fountain—a couple of years back. As long as he pays the Order our cut and leaves that park the fuck alone, I don’t give a shit. Not when I can be upstairs with Lucy instead of leaving her alone, allowing her to dwell on what happened yesterday.
But I’m the King. Reluctant or not, there’s work to be done, and the last thing I need is to give some of the hungrier members a reason to take me down. Not because Iwantto stay at the top. No. Being King was never my goal, but being able to protect those I care about? That was enough.
In Harmony Heights, I can make Lucy untouchable. As long as I keep her safe… keep her with me… no one can hurther again. But if she escapes the Fortress again, like she did yesterday, she’s in danger. There are too many fuckers out there who would think it a coup to go after the King’s mistress.
Because she’s not my wife. Not yet. And until I can convince her that she loves me so damn much that, when her memory returns and she realizes I’ve been lying to her, she’ll choose to be mine, I have to keep her where no one can get to her.
Thank fucking God I decided to warn every member of the Fortress’s security team to keep an eye out for my Dandelion. If she tries to leave again, I’ll be right on her ass, and I’ll keep dragging her back again and again until she realizes that there is no escape. No reason to run, either. I love her, and I’ll keep her, and that means I have to formally end my engagement to Heather.
So now I’m standing in my office at the Fortress, staring out the window at the urban stretch of Harmony Heights like it’s something I built instead of something I inherited. Because he insisted on joining my last meeting—the one with the building developer who spoke numbers with Adrian and earned his approval before mine—my cousin lounges in one of the chairs in front of my desk, watching me fist my hands at my side.
He mentioned Heather first. He probably thinks I’m turning my back on him because I don’t want to hear it, but the truth is that I’m feeling like the biggest asshole for not thinking about how Lucy’s reappearance in my life affected the Offering’s.
My long-suffering cousin sighs. “I should’ve seen this coming. That you’d save Lucy and want to keep her, even if she’s not the sort of Offering that the old guard expects the King to marry.” He pauses, then adds, “Loni did.”
Turning away from the window, I raise my eyebrows.
Adrian takes the cigarette from behind his ear, fiddling with the filter. He hasn’t lit up since he married Loni, but as though he needs to live with the constant temptation, he keeps onetucked behind his ear daily. To see him playing with it now even as he leans casually into his seat… he’s on edge.
Me, too.
“You forget that my princess can be very astute,” he continues when he sees my face. “And don’t think I’m trying to talk you into going through with the wedding at the end of the month. If there is one, it won’t be Heather Moore waiting at the end of the aisle. Besides, Lucy’s been good for you. Even my wife thinks so. She says you’re not as much of a scowly bastard these days.”
And here I thought I was doing a great job of hiding Luce…
I plop my ass down on Jack’s old chair. “She knows about her? What happened? She guess or did you snitch?”
Adrian meets my gaze head-on. “I don’t hide shit from my wife.”
I can’t believe he can say that with a straight face. “You stalked her for a decade. You had me and Bas put the screws to any guy she went on more than a couple of dates with. Shit, Adrian, you arranged for her to get her job and used it to keep tabs on her.”
He nods. “And she wasn’t my wife then. She knows all about that now.” A hint of a smug grin tugs on his lips. “She didn’t run when she found out. She let me bend her over my desk instead.”
Yeah? Well I had Lucy on her knees in front of the dandelion fountain, but unlike Adrian, I’m not about to kiss and tell.
Not when I have the sinking suspicion that that might be the last time Lucy lets me touch her for a while. I still can’t believe she let me yesterday, and I wanted so desperately to believe that she let me fuck her because she instinctively remembered our fountain. But she went right to sleep after I got her home, urged her into the shower, and helped her into another nightgown. This morning? She was awake before I was, keeping herdistance, and I was even more frustrated walking into today’s meetings because of it…
“It’s fine, Dallas,” Adrian says when I don’t rise to the bait. “You’ve got your girl, and if they’re arguing that the charter says you gotta have a wife before you turn thirty-one, you have some time to convince Lucy to marry you.”
Would be a lot easier said than done if she didn’t believe I alreadyamher husband—or that there’s some dickhead out there who technicallyismarried to her already.
I grip the edge of my desk, desperate to control my temper. “What about Fairchild? Any update on him yet?”
Adrian’s expression darkens. “That fucker crawled under a rock somewhere. Don’t you worry, though, Dal. Between me and Bas, we’ll find him.”
