“I’ll make sure your parents won’t have to pay my parents back for the money they already received.”
He would do it too. I wasn’t sure how he’d find a way to break the contract, but I knew he would, just as he would ensure my parents’ social standing didn’t suffer. But if I agreed to this madness, they wouldn’t receive the remainder of the money they’d been promised. Already, they were living on borrowed money they couldn’t repay.
I didn’t tell Etienne that, not wanting him to further fall victim to my parents’ manipulations and attempt to rescue them. Either I’d do it myself, or I’d let them fall.
It was, at the very least, what they deserved.
His words though. . .
“All I ask is that you open yourself up to Brenton while you’re gone. Let him love you. Let yourself love him.”
I hated the guilt that came with even thinking about Brenton, hated the flicker of anticipation I couldn’t quite smother. The bond between us pulled, whispering promises of what could be if I let it.
But I’d closed that door years ago when I gave in to my parents’ need, not that he’d ever know that.
He’d believed—he’d have to believe—that despite our soul-bond, I loved Etienne and had committed my life to him.
Evenifit so often tore at my soul.
EvenifI’d had to watch him flit from female to female when he wanted company.
EvenifI had to feel his anger and not his friendship. Not his love.
EvenifI still touched the crystals he’d given me so, so long ago.
My life was one of sacrifice, always had been. And despite Etienne’s words, it always would be.
Chapter
Five
BRENTON
Teddy hadto peel the twins from my arms. I wasn’t ready to leave them and wanted to hold them a little longer, but it was only fair for their father to have a chance to say goodbye, too.
“Will you be gone for a long time?” Victoria asked, her pretty green eyes shimmering as she peered up at the male who’d become her father.
Elias set her small body on the ground before he turned to scoop up Caspian and Zayne.
“I don’t know,” Elias said. “But we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Eleven-year-old Jasmine crossed her arms, shooting an angry glare at Javier that I was certain Javier couldn’t see through the thick darkness that covered Elias’s yard. Morning was coming, but her resentment hadn’t faded with the night. Javier had moved out of their home a long time ago, and Jasmine still held it against him. I understood, kind of. She felt abandoned by the big brother who’d looked after her when their parents couldn’t. Thankfully, she didn’t know the reason he stayed away, but he tried to make up for it by taking the girls out as often as his duties permitted him.
At least he’d quickly taken back his demand that George stop spending time with the girls before they’d had a chance to question his sudden disappearance too.
“It’s not fair. Why does Javier get to go on adventures while we’re stuck here?” Jasmine said.
George ruffled the top of her dark hair, which she’d cut short on her very own, leaving a zigzagged mess a hair designer had to fix. But according to her, she was too old for braids or flowers in her hair, so Teddy had agreed for her to get a more sophisticated cut.
I’d never tell her, but I thought the new cut made her look even more adorable, like a sweet little cherub.
“I wasn’t chosen for this adventure either.” George grimaced. “You and I can find our own adventure.”
“Me too?” Juanita, the youngest of the three girls, asked.
Javier took that moment to walk to us. Elias stiffened at his approach, putting his sons on the ground so he could wrap an arm around Teddy’s shoulders to bring her closer to him.
If Javier hurt her, I’d struggle to rein in my own anger toward him.Surely, he could forgive Teddy and Elias by now.
