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He was a look at me wrong and I’ll destroy you and everyone you care about kinda guy, and he’d do it looking so calm and gorgeous you wouldn’t notice your world burning down around you until you were already a heap of ashes at his Tom Ford–clad feet.
With an IQ of 160, Alex Volkov was a genius, or close to it.
“You could’ve told me.” “I did tell you. Just now.”
“It might help with your condition.” “What condition?” Alex sounded bored. “Stickuptheassitis.” I’d already called the man an asshole, so what was one more insult?
What the fuck was wrong with me? That was Josh’s sister. Innocent, doe-eyed, and so sweet I could throw up.
Which meant if I promised Josh I’d look after Ava, I’d fucking look after her, and I’m not talking about a text check-in every two weeks. She was under my protection now.
Those therapists didn’t get it. I didn’t want to heal. I wanted to burn. I wanted to bleed. I wanted to feel every scorching lick of pain.
This girl and her sunshiny smile wouldn’t last a day in the real world, where monsters lurked around every corner and people hid their dark intentions behind masks. I was sure of it.
“Please remove your hand from my cock unless you plan on doing something with it,” Alex said coolly.
“One time, we ran into a bear while hiking and the fucker didn’t even blink. Just stood there looking bored and annoyed until the bear wandered off.
“You want it so much you’d say yes to anything. Believe in anyone. One more favor, one more kind gesture…and maybe, just maybe, they’ll give you the love you want so desperately you’d whore yourself out for it.”
Because what I admired most about Ava was also what I hated about her.
She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet. I hadn’t known it myself until I saw her in Colton’s arms and every instinct raged at me to tear her away. To claim what belonged to me.
And the one thing all hearts of gold have in common? They crave love.”
“Alex, stop. You’ll kill him!” I adjusted my shirtsleeves, breathing hard. “Is that supposed to deter me?”
Like he wanted to burn the world down at seeing me hurt.
I realized that I wanted Alex Volkov to care. Very much.
“You don’t have to work overtime to get people to love you, Ava. Love isn’t earned. It’s given.”
I was more nervous than I should have been, but maybe that had something to do with the wildly inappropriate dream I’d had last night. One that featured me, Alex, and positions that would make an acrobat’s jaw drop.
lmaooo real
Stark desire scrawled across Alex’s face as he stared at me, his eyes burning through the camera and straight into my soul.
But here’s the thing: even a few seconds can change someone’s life. And as I turned off the camera and packed up my equipment with shaky hands, I couldn’t shake the feeling that mine had been altered forever.
I refused to entertain any other reason I’d been so cranky since my birthday, especially if that “other reason” happened to be five five with black hair and lips that tasted sweeter than sin.
“Here.” I placed a brand-new phone—the latest model, which wasn’t available on the market yet and cost me several grand—on the counter. Her brow knit in confusion. “Your current phone is clearly broken, since I haven’t received so much as a text from you in the past five days,” I said icily.
I left the gallery in a remarkably better mood than when I’d entered.
So cold and uncaring to the world, yet so warm and protective when he wanted to be.
He wasn’t the man I thought he was. He was so much better, even when he tried to convince me he was worse, and I wanted him like nothing before.
“No one else will see me this way. Only you.”
“What did I tell you? You’re mine, Sunshine. You’re never touching another man unless you want him six feet in the ground. So yes, we’re fucking exclusive.”
Free to talk? He was still inside me!
Ballsy, considering she was the princess and he was the bodyguard, but Rhys Larsen wasn’t Booth.
“I’d do anything for you. No matter how twisted or impossible.”
“Josh will never forgive you for this.” Michael’s eyes burned. “He worships me. Who do you think he’ll believe? Me, his father, or you, a punk he met a few years ago?” “In this case, Father—” Josh walked in, his face darker than I’d ever seen it. “I think I’ll believe ‘the punk.’” He slammed his fist into Michael’s face, and all hell broke loose.
I should feel something. But I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything at all.
She shook her head, her chest heaving. She’d stopped crying, but her eyes burned with anger and betrayal.
That’s my girl. Hate me. Don’t cry over me. Never cry over me. I’m not worth it.
I reveled in the pleasure of that small movement—it’d been two weeks; he must be in serious pain by now—even as my heart tore itself apart at the way Ava looked at me. Like she didn’t know me at all.
I had a feeling the man wouldn’t blink an eye even if aliens in silver tutus poofed into existence before him and started dancing the Macarena.
You were nothing more than a means to an end.
He was, after all, the consummate liar. Right? Or had he been lying about lying? There was only one way to find out.
A world in which I loved and had been loved in return. He hadn’t said it, but I thought… I’d really thought he loved me and had just been too scared to say it.
Pretty words and pretty faces don’t equal pretty souls.”
I couldn’t remember why I liked winter. Everything looked dull and gray. Lifeless.
What about me made me so damn unlovable?
Ava, you are so FAR from unloveable.
the one who’d believed in light and love and the goodness of the world.
That girl was gone.
Ava. The name sliced through me like a razor-sharp knife. No physical beating could hurt more than thinking of her.
Was any of it real? Yes, Sunshine. All of it. Realer than I ever thought possible.
Josh’s face hardened once more. “If I ever see you near me or Ava again, I will kill you.” He shot one last disgusted glance in my direction before he left.
One more beautiful thing in my life, ruined.
“Princess Bridget of Eldorra, here to see Asshole—I mean, Alex Volkov.”
