More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 14 - August 15, 2023
Revenge is a lot easier to exact on someone when they don’t think you’re capable.
Parents have that ability; they create you, and in return, you spend your whole life craving their approval, even if they don’t deserve it.
To an outsider, King’s Trace is your average, cutesy tourist town, but I know the danger that lurks beneath. I am the danger.
“I think it was something else. Something grand. Spectacular. Earth-shattering, like you.” “What are you talking about?” “Caroline, I can’t get you out of my head. I don’t know what it means, especially since we still hardly know each other, but I know these thoughts aren’t normal.”
“Who the hell ingrained in your head that the stuff that happened to you doesn’t matter, Caroline? Tell me right now, and I’ll go bash their goddamn skull in.”
“If it still hurts, it matters.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re starting to catch feelings for me.” His eyes harden, mouth forming a thin line. “Would that be such a bad thing? We are married, after all.”
Caroline Harrison is my wife, and it’s time she realizes what that means—that I’m not the kind of guy who shares or is okay with her keeping secrets.
Because the only way I’m letting her go now is if they pry her from my rotten corpse.
Fuck, I’m gone for this little nymph.
I don’t want to mean anything to this man. Yet I want to mean everything.
“I don’t need your forgiveness. Don’t want it. All I want is your goddamn surrender.”
All this time, I thought she’d be the one surrendering—giving in. Jesus Christ, was I wrong.
Elia Montalto isn’t a king; he’s a god.
“I want you to know I’m putting that girl back together if it’s the last fucking thing I do. Her scars are not permanent; they’re erasable. Just. Like. You.”
“You don’t have to ask, amore mio. At this point, I’d do anything for you. Spoken, unspoken, I don’t care. I want all the responsibility.”
“Why?” I squeak, terrified that I already know that it’s already over. “Because you’re worth it.”
I want to own her; for our souls to be so entwined, there’s no way they can ever be separated, but not at the expense of her goodness. Her innocence. Fuck me; I want to love her. I think I might already.
“And what is this, Caroline? What does this feel like?” “It feels right,”
“Fuck me, Elia. Fuck everyone else into oblivion, so that it’s only ever you for me for the rest of our lives.”
“I love you, Caroline.” Panic seizes my chest, causing muscles to tighten as my eyes spring open. I sit up, holding the comforter against my chest, and blurt out the first thing that comes to my brain. “I’m pregnant.”
“Fuck, yeah. You’re stuck with me now, baby.”
She taps me three times, a gesture I’m coming to recognize as her way of telling me those three little words she’s yet to utter. Hovering over my heart the way I imagine she’d hold it in her hand, she taps out her version of a Morse code that speaks to my pulse. It makes my chest swell, even if I wish for vocalization. I’ll settle for this for now. I know the truth, anyway.
She’s a balm to the chapped, burned spots on my soul. Not the solution. Not the fix. But the provision of just enough relief that I feel like I can get through life.
Her nails flex into my skin, little pinpricks that have my dick swelling, and she taps me once. Twice. Three times. Tears pool in her eyes, and she shakes her head, blinking them away. “I love you, Elia.”
I don’t know what primal urges her being pregnant awakens in me, but I can’t seem to keep my hands off her. Which is how we wound up pregnant again before Poppy’s first birthday.
Caroline planted a garden in my soul, replacing the tar and darkness from before, flourishing with each passing day I spend with her and my daughter. My family.
“Our kids, even if they turn out exactly like you, still won’t be bad. I certainly wouldn’t be mad about it. You were never a villain to me, Elia.”
