Page 161 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

Mom decided the rules could bend because I needed tuition.

Dad decided my professional work could be repurposed because he needed credibility.

Both of them told themselves the reason mattered enough to justify the choice.

Love. Fear. Desperation.

Different words for the same permission they gave themselves.

A realization moves through me so painfully that I have to wrap my arms around my middle.

Everyone who claims to love me eventually decides that loving me gives them the right to choose for me.

And these men…

I look at them.

At Caleb, who has spent the day taking calls somewhere out of my way so I could work.

At Lucian, who remembered exactly how I take my coffee and brought it to me without interrupting.

At the men who lay beside me last night and asked what I wanted.

Who stopped when I wanted them to stop.

Who offered me choices in a world they once intended to control completely.

Yesterday, Lucian put a baccarat wager in my hand and trusted me with something he had spent a lifetime building.

A choice that mattered.

Last night, everything that happened among the three of us happened because I wanted it too.

No one engineered the way my body reached for them.

No one forced me to kiss Caleb or demand Lucian’s mouth or look at the two of them and think, mine.

Those choices were mine.

Weren’t they?

My anger loosens just enough for grief to slip beneath it.

Despite myself, I look again at the notation.

Voss.

And the memory lands with enough force to stop my breath.

Lucian’s phone this morning.

The message that woke him.

The tension between him and Caleb when I asked what Voss had said.

I straighten slowly.

“Voss texted you this morning.”