Page 163 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

I read it.

Then I read it again.

You were always so fond of informed choice, Hawthorne. Make certain your wife has hers.

A strange roaring begins in my ears.

Informed choice.

I lift my gaze. “What does that mean?”

Lucian’s face has gone completely unreadable.

“Why would Voss say that to you?”

He looks toward the windows before returning his attention to me.

“Voss came to us because his wife had left him.”

I wait.

“He wanted us to use our network to locate her.”

“And you did?”

“No.”

The answer is immediate.

“Why?”

“There was enough information to make it clear she had left deliberately and had reason to fear him. He wanted her location. We refused to give him the means to find her.”

My fingers tighten around the phone.

“He wanted his wife back.”

“Yes.”

“And you decided he didn’t have the right to take her.”

Lucian’s expression changes almost imperceptibly.

“I told him a woman who chooses to leave is not property to be retrieved.”

The words enter me like a blade.

For several seconds, I cannot speak.

Because Lucian Hawthorne said that.

Lucian.

The man who spent eight years helping build a financial maze around my father until I became the prize at the center of it.

The man who forced a ring onto my finger and arranged a wedding before I had agreed to anything.

The man who once believed wanting me badly enough meant he could decide what was best for me.