“Since you want to play dumb this morning, let me break it down for you. We had sex last night?—”
“We’ve had sex before.”
“Not like last night,” he notes, lifting my chin when I look away. “Last night was more. We both felt it, and now you’re freaking out, and instead of facing your feelings, you’re trying to escape them by doing what you do best when you need adistraction—shop.”
“You don’t know shit,” I hiss, despite him hitting the nail on the head.
“Okay.” He steps back. “But just know that when you come home later with all the clothes and shit you bought, you’re still going to feel just as confused as you do now because you won’t have addressed your feelings like a big girl,” he mocks.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He steps toward me and cups the side of my face, forcing me to meet his whiskey eyes. “And that scares the shit out of you.”
He slides his hands down my body and clasps my ass, lifting me and carrying me over to the dresser, where he sets me down and spreads my legs, stepping between them. Our faces are so close that I can feel his cool breath mingling with mine.
“I’m not going to enable you while you run from your feelings, Princess. Now, talk to me. Tell me what’s going through your head.”
I swallow thickly, debating whether to tell him the truth. That I’m falling for the man who’s forcing me to marry him. But instead, I go with a partial truth.
“Shopping is my escape,” I admit. “But it’s not just the shopping. It’s what I buy, what it all represents. My entire life, I was the perfectly groomed Antonov princess. It was expected that I wore the most expensive brands, that my hair and makeup were done to perfection because our family had an image to uphold. Andrey Antonov owned this town, had people eating out of his dirty-ass hand. On the inside, we were living in hell, but to the outside world, we were picture-perfect. The rich looked up to him, wanting to be richer. And the poor believed that by trusting him, they could one day become just like him.”
I snort out a mirthless laugh. “We didn’t talk in my family. My father gave orders, and we obeyed them. If we stepped out of line …” I shake my head, hating to even think about my childhood. “I might’ve been dressed like the perfect Antonov daughter, but the Gucci and Chanel only hid the scars underneath.”
Kane reaches up and frames my face, and there’s just something about the way he holds me that always makes me feel heard and safe. Like I can tell him anything, no matter how bad it is, and he’ll listen.
“I understand needing to uphold a certain image,” he tells me. “My father hid us away, partly because he didn’t want us exposed to what people would say if they found out he had an entire other family with his mistress, but also because he didn’t want to taint his image. But inside these walls, we talk. We don’t hide or escape. You’re too strong for that, Brielle.”
Warmth spreads through my veins, and I nod, wanting that type of relationship with him. I’ve been lonely for years, and I don’t want to go back to taking on the world by myself. And something tells me that Kane would make a great ally.
But then the other part of what he said has me thinking …
“I don’t want to live two lives.”
He raises a brow in confusion.
“Your dad was married to one woman while he was with another. I know this marriage isn’t real, but?—”
“Fuck that,” he says. “I will never cheat on you. And if you so much as look at another man, I’ll be forced to take out the competition. So, be careful who you give your attention to. I warned you before that I don’t share, and I meant it. You’re mine, baby.”
He lifts me into his arms, and I shriek in shock.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you back to bed.” He drops me onto the mattress and hovers over me, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. “And then I’m going to eat you for breakfast.”
“What about me?” I laugh as his facial hair tickles my face. “I’m hungry too.”
He pulls back and gives me a wolfish grin. “Oh, Princess, I’ve got plenty for you to eat.”
“I haveto go visit my brother and Dani.”
I hold my breath, waiting for Kane’s reaction.
We’ve spent the past couple of hours in bed, getting lost in each other. When Nicole called to see where I was, I was in the middle of giving Kane head, so of course, he used the opportunity to text her that I was having breakfast with him and I needed a rain check.
When we’re within these walls and it’s just us, it feels safe. But the thought of leaving them, of dealing with reality, is another story. Everything about us is complicated, and then add the outside distractors, like Dani giving birth to Kane’s niece and the girls and me being attacked during our spa day due to some psycho bitch—at least Dani thinks it’s a woman—coming after my family because she thinks we should hand Harbor Point over to her, and I don’t want to leave.
But it’s inevitable.
