17

Iwas physically and emotionally exhausted when we rocked up at Julian's Parkland house that evening, seven-thirty on the dot. Physically exhausted because of the long hike. Emotionally exhausted because, well, this day had been one emotional tornado after the other. And now I had to face Councilman Julian Edgar with a smile on my face and pretend everything in my life was just peachy.

My gaze slid to Roman and lingered. Oh, who was I kidding? My gaze feasted. I would never be too exhausted to notice how breathtakingly gorgeous Roman West was. For this dinner, he'd paired his faded black jeans with a long-sleeved silk shirt, untucked and unbuttoned at the collar. He wore all that casual elegance like a second skin, just like he always wore his arrogant amusement…and his leashed authority.

Now that I knew a little more about the orphaned boy who'd been made into this man, I totally grasped the contradictions.

As if feeling my gaze, his hand reached for me, his fingers sliding between mine as we crossed the courtyard that the stone mansion hugged. The central flowerbed was now a patch of dirt, a graveyard for the colorful splash of summer flowers that had been there the first time I'd visited. I was pretty sure they'd soon be replaced by some other magnificent display, but for now, this graveyard served my feelings justice.

The Capra council promised life, that was practically their mission statement. Continued life for the human race, but mostly they just destroyed. What was the point in preserving life if you annihilated the soul?

The butler, McKinnon, opened the door for us with his usual stiff appearance and starch greeting. "Mr. West. Mrs. West."

"Thank you," I said as we stepped inside the grand entrance hall and he took my coat from me.

A sliver of a smile slipped his austerity.

Roman clapped him on the shoulder, and the smile disappeared. As much as the man liked Roman, he had a serious problem with informality.

"The family is gathered in the library," McKinnon informed us, and led us around the base of the elegant stairway that split halfway up to the east and west wings of the house.

Roman slid his fingers through mine as we strolled behind McKinnon, his gaze dipping toward me, serious and intense. He'd been doing that the whole day. Watching me with careful, worried looks, as if afraid I'd erupt. Or collapse. Or take off running again.

I smiled and untwined my fingers from his grasp. I immediately missed the warmth and surety of his touch, but I didn't want to share it with this house. It was irrational, maybe, but the way I was feeling right now, Julian Edgar and his fellow councilmen tainted everything they touched. They were not getting anywhere near this, this intimacy that linked Roman to me.

Something had changed between us last night. And then again in the tunnel. Not just the kisses and the longing and want. The spark ignited by undeniable desire last night had caught on fire and was burning its way through all our defenses and masks. We'd shared our hurts and our anger and our vulnerabilities, and once you saw, you couldn't un-see. There was no going back for us—and I didn't want to go back.

I was no longer afraid of falling too hard, too deep.

I wanted to fall and fall and never stop falling.

There was too much ugliness that crowded in around the edges of our world.

Too much sorrow bedded into our bones.

Too much reality shouting for attention.

Too many choices taken from me.

I chose this.

I chose Roman.

That's what I'd decided over the course of this infernal day.

I would choose to love Roman and damn the rest. We weren't perfect. We wouldn't be easy. We were still the gray space, and maybe the colors of his life and the colors of my life would rip us apart.

There were no guarantees.

But meanwhile, I chose to love him. And maybe this world would one day take him from me, but no one and nothing would ever take this choice from me.

At the library, McKinnon announced us with pompous ceremony that was ridiculous considering the four people in the room. "Mr. and Mrs. West."

Julian Edgar came forward, his charismatic charm on full display as he smiled a smile that crinkled into the corners of his eyes. "Roman. Georga. I'm so pleased you could join us tonight."

He clapped Roman on the arm. "Bourbon?" And turned to me. "Wine? White or red."

I considered shrugging and leaving him to pick, but I was feeling otherwise tonight. "Actually, I'll take a bourbon, thank you."

Surprise flattened his mouth for a brief moment. He recovered and the warmth that had deceived me so thoroughly in the past returned to his smile. "Of course, anything for you, my dear."

"I'll get it," Daniel spoke up, rising from a recliner by the bay window.

His blond hair fell in a silky wedge across his brow as he cocked his head, his gaze lingering on me for a beat, asking something, I didn't know what. But it was a look that softened my prickly edges.

I'd once thought I was destined to love this boy. My life would have been so different if he'd offered for me instead of Brenda. I couldn't picture that life anymore. I couldn't imagine ever wanting that life anymore. But he'd seen me at a time when I'd assumed I would never be seen. He'd heard me and he'd backed away to save me from the stifling, restrictive life of a councilman's wife.

There'd always be softness inside me for Daniel.

I shrugged and smiled at him, and he took that, turning toward the sideboard to pour the drinks.

His mother, Miriam, drifted alongside a bookshelf lining the wall with a glass in her hand. She was a beautiful woman, delicate and ethereal, and seriously gone with the fairies. A stint in rehab would do that to the strongest woman.

She offered us a tepid smile of greeting that never reached her empty eyes. "Should we go through? Dinner should be on the table by now."

"Of course, we can bring our drinks." Julian looked at her with such loving warmth, it would've fooled the devil. Or I don't know. Maybe it was genuine. Maybe he was two halves of the same man, the councilman who'd sent his wife into rehab, and the loving husband and father.

Brenda had been sitting on a corner couch all this time, nursing her glass of wine and studying me in a manner that wasn't entirely pleasant. We'd had our ups and downs, more downs since she'd stabbed me in the back and accepted Daniel's offer of marriage. That still rankled me. I couldn't help it. Looking back on everything now, she was welcome to Daniel, and he didn't seem unhappy with her.

But I wasn't sure our friendship would ever return to what it had once been.

Brenda was too changed, too caught up in the privileges and luxuries of her new life since she'd married into Capra royalty.

And maybe I was too changed, as well, and we'd changed in totally opposite directions.

Julian hooked an arm into Miriam's and led the way out. Daniel caught up to Roman and me, passing over our drinks.

Before I could move, he placed a restraining hand on my arm. "Georga."

His eyes willed me to stay a minute, to talk, and suddenly it felt like a bright idea. I wanted to know if he was still my Daniel, or if he was too far gone, fully embedded in the system and the council. I didn't think he was. But I wasn't sure, and I needed to be sure.

I sent Roman a look with an almost imperceptible nod. He got the message and strode out the room, giving me some privacy with Daniel.

Brenda wasn't as accommodating. She lingered near the door, watching us, waiting for Daniel.

"Go on ahead," Daniel told her. "We'll be right behind you."

"Don't be silly." She blossomed a smile for him. "I can wait."

"I would like a word with Georga." To his credit, he sounded neither annoyed nor impatient. "We won't be long."

She looked like she'd argue, then realized how petty and unnecessarily possessive she was being. At least, that's what I hoped. She'd already won the boy. She didn't have anything to fear from me.

Once we were alone, Daniel retreated deeper into the library, all the way across to the bay window.

I followed, speaking in a low voice, "Everything okay?"

"You tell me." His brow furrowed, his blue eyes serious. "Roman assured me you were fine, but he won't say what's going on."

"You don't know?"

"I know something went down last week, and it involved you," he said. "Roman and my father got into a tense discussion about it. And then a council meeting was called."

"You didn't attend the meeting?" I said, poking around for my own answers. "I thought that was your job, being a council heir and shadowing your father."

He huffed a dry laugh. "My job is to do as my father says. It'll be years before any of us are trusted with confidential council business."

I assumed he was speaking on behalf of all the heirs. In theory, seats on the council weren't inherited, they were elected by the sitting council. But that was just a loophole in the rare case when a councilman didn't have a son to succeed him—or didn't have a son he thought worthy of succeeding him.

"So you don't know anything about The Smoke or what lies beyond Capra's walls?" I pressed.

"No more than anyone." His gaze pierced me now, his voice quiet and rushed. "Is there something I should know? Georga, what have you done? Are you in trouble?"

"No," I said quickly, pulling back. "I was just asking too many questions about The Smoke. I was worried about a friend from St. Ives. Jenna Simmons. The girl who didn't graduate."

"I remember her," he said.

"You know me," I said with a tight smile. "She was removed from Society, and I wanted to know if that meant she was in The Smoke, and whether she is okay there?"

"Is she?" he asked. "In The Smoke?"

He didn't know. He didn't have a clue. I could hear the genuine curiosity in his voice, see it in his blue eyes.

I shrugged. "I have no idea, Daniel. I didn't exactly get answers, and I have to stop asking before your father decides to send me to rehab."

I don't know why I threw that out. I wasn't even poking anymore, I was just hanging on by a bitter thread and feeling slightly vicious.

"Don't joke about things like that," he said.

I wasn't joking.

"Daniel, it's sweet of you to be concerned, but you don't have to worry. I'm fine and there's no trouble on the horizon."

He looked at me a long moment more. "Are you sure?"

I assured him I was absolutely fine, and he finally accepted it, and we walked through to join the others. I was a little surprised when we filed in around the six-seater table in the smaller dining room reserved for cozy family dinners. I guess I shouldn't have been. Julian was thatkind of snake, the type that invited you into the bosom of his family so he could get up close and personal to strike.

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair as I remembered how he had invited me into the bosom of his family, and I'd been the one to strike. I'd drugged him so I could take his handprint for the Sisterhood.

Were we more alike than I cared to think?

Instead of triggering guilt, anger lashed through me. Capra had made me into whatever I'd become, and Julian Edgar and his council cronies were Capra.

I set my glass of bourbon down in front of me, but I didn't dare touch it. My senses were on high alert. I was in a viper's den tonight and I needed to guard my tongue.

I glanced around the table. They'd put Roman directly across from me. Brenda on my left. Daniel across from her. Julian and Miriam were seated at either head of the table.

The table was set with embroidered linen, fancy porcelain and polished silver. Above, a crystal chandelier was lit with dozens of tiny candle light bulbs.

Roman caught my eye.

I sent him a reassuring look.

"For goodness sake, Georga, we haven't seen you in ages," Brenda started off the dinner conversation to my left. "Where have you been hiding?"

Since I had no idea how much she knew about my ‘insubordinate behavior', I had no idea how to respond.

"That would be my fault," Roman drawled. "I've been keeping my wife entertained, haven't I, darling?"

Darling? Even so, heat warmed my cheeks. He was looking at me with a wicked glint in his eyes and the drawled darling tripped off his tongue like roasted honey. I wasn't usually keen on endearments, but I could totally get on board with this one. From his lips only.

Daniel coughed. "Well, it's good to see you, both of you," he added with a boyish grin at Roman. "You missed a great catch last night."

Roman cocked a brow at him. "Yours?"

"Who else?" Daniel spread his arms. "No exaggeration."

I was confused, until Julian said with a chuckle, "There's always some exaggeration. But every real fisherman knows to take at least ten inches off the tale."

Daniel shook his head in earnest, insisting, "That trout was forty pounds, I swear."

Brenda rolled her eyes and giggled, and two young men with spines almost as stiff as McKinnon's walked in with the first course. Crispy asparagus spears dipped in a creamy chive sauce, served with spinach and feta palmiers.

The lighthearted chatter went on around me as the meal progressed. Roman kept up my share of the conversation, and I contributed only when it would be rude not to.

I was giving Julian exactly what he wanted, a meek and mild bride who'd finally been tamed into something manageable.

But that was just coincidental.

I didn't have it in me to sit at this table and smile and laugh and joke with a man who'd taken so much from me. From Jessie. From Brenda. From every woman in Capra.

The only person at the table less animated than me was Miriam. She was here with us, but she certainly wasn't present. She cut off a dainty corner of her roast beef and put it in her mouth, her gaze drifting between her plate and the centerpiece, as if that were the most interesting thing in the room. Not her guests. Not her husband. Not even her son. I'd never witnessed her showing Daniel an ounce of warmth.

Daniel and Julian were back to teasing each other about last night's fishing trip. On the surface, they had a great father-son relationship. But it went deeper than that, far below the surface.

Daniel knew his mother had gone through rehab. He'd said as much, when he'd explained why he hadn't offered for me, although I hadn't realized it at the time. He'd said my smile was trouble. He'd told me I was a wildflower in a garden of potted plants. He saw me, and he knew I was too different.

A councilman's wife has to be perfect in the eyes of Capra. He could have been talking in general, but then he'd said, Roman will protect you when it really matters.

He must have been thinking of his mother, and how his father hadn't been able to save her from rehab. I was pretty damn sure, however, that he did not know that Julian had put her there.

My gaze went to Julian. There was a warm light dancing in his eyes as he joked about with Daniel. Everything in this life could be faked, but Julian wasn't a complete and utter cold-blooded sociopath.

He probably loved Miriam in his own way.

He loved his son.

Why had he had no choice but to…No! He was a councilman. He was one of the few men in Capra who always had a choice, and maybe it hadn't been an easy choice, maybe he'd struggled with it more than I'd ever know or care, but he'd made it.

He'd sent Daniel's mother away, and she'd returned to them as this empty shell, as if all vitality in her soul had been scooped out.

Julian glanced away from Daniel and caught me staring. I should have dropped my gaze, but I didn't.

I stared right into his smiling eyes. What did Miriam do that was so unforgivable? It hit me. I'd been married to Roman, a junior warden, for a couple of months and look at all that I'd discovered.

Had Miriam gone looking?

Had she found some of his deep, dark secrets?

Had she found his deepest, darkest secret? Had she learnt that he'd stripped her of a chance to bear a child of her own flesh and blood? And had that loss driven her to madness?

I stared into Julian's eyes, digging, screwing in. Something hot and reckless was clawing at my soul. Did she threaten to expose you to all of Capra?

The smile left his eyes, turning the look in them cold and flat.

I was a coward.

I dropped my gaze, refocused my heated stare on a split runner bean on my plate. But my heart was racing. My fingers trembled around my grip on the fork. My other hand was below the table and I rubbed a sweaty palm on my thigh. The thick woolen trousers I was wearing suddenly felt too thick, too hot.

My skin was burning up.

I forced myself to stab the runner bean and put it in my dry mouth. My saliva tasted like acid. My stomach broiled. I was going to vomit. I had never been so afraid, not once, not in my entire life.

The fear was a living thing inside me, and it wasn't fear that Julian had already determined I was a threat. It was fear of myself, that I wouldn't be able to control this fire burning up inside me. That the fury squirming inside me would escape and…and that I would do something stupid, hurl reckless accusations at Julian, and I would end up just like— No, I wouldn't, I could not end up like Miriam.

When I glanced up again, Julian was no longer looking at me.

The conversation had moved on.

But I hadn't. What the hell was wrong with me? Let it go. Not forever, just for now. I forced another runner bean into my mouth and counted the chews, one, two, three, four… Brenda said something to me, I had no idea what.

I glanced at her with a thin smile. "Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes at my lack of attention. "I asked if you'd decided what you're wearing to the Foundation Ball yet?"

The Foundation Ball? It took me a moment to comprehend what the hell she was talking about. "I—I don't know. No, I haven't."

"It's on Friday night," she exclaimed, as if I'd committed some cardinal sin by not yet choosing my outfit for the annual holiday event.

"I'm sure I have something in my closet."

"What?" she snorted. "Your graduation gown?"

I drew a blank.

"You couldn't possibly re-use your graduation gown." Her brow arched. "I won't allow it. I have some gowns from Mr. Burnier that I've never worn. Come tomorrow and choose one for yourself. There's still time for him to make adjustments."

No thanks!

But, what was I missing?

I shot a questioning look at Roman across the table.

His eyes were on me. How long had he been watching? Had he seen the tremble in my fingers? The sweat on my brow? The struggle burning me up?

His voice was sober as he replied, "We're invited to the ball, Georga. I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it before."

Yeah, well, we'd been busy. "The main event?"

As in, the actual ball in the Capra Foundation Building that only the most influential families attended, and not just the festivities that took place around town for everyone else?

"Naturally," Julian injected. "I'm very fond of you and Roman. Of course you're invited to take your place beside us." His voice filled with emotion. "This is the 95th anniversary of the Eastern Coalition, and I would like to take this moment to say how incredibly proud I am of everything we've achieved, which wouldn't be possible without you."

He gaze swept over the table. "Each and every one of you. Our youth. The next generation. You make us proud." His gaze landed on Daniel and stuck. "You make me proud, my son."

The way he said that, with such possessive pride, as if he owned it, owned Daniel, blasted through me.

Because I was slow.

Because I'd been so caught up in the choice they'd stripped from women, I hadn't once thought of the choice they'd kept for themselves.

The IVF treatments used frozen eggs selected by whatever method our medical practitioners determined, but the sperm was donated by the husband. The men in our world had never forfeited their right to biological offspring.

Daniel was flesh of Julian's flesh, blood of Julian's blood.

I jumped up, my fork clattering to the plate, my chair bouncing backward.

My mouth was too dry to swallow.

My brain was on fire.

Brenda gasped and leaned away.

"Georga?" Daniel said in a low, worried voice.

Julian's features hardened.

Roman pushed back his chair and stood, not nearly as abruptly as I had. His movements were calm and mechanical. His face was sculpted in granite, the look in his eyes cold and careless.

But I knew something of what Roman's mask looked like, and what lived beneath it was not cold and dead.

It was ferocious, arrogant and protective.

If I allowed the fury and bitterness lashing on the tip of my tongue to burn me to the ground, Roman would make some arrogant, silent vow to save me from the consequences. He wouldn't stop, he wouldn't give up, until he burned down to the ground with me.

I choked out a terrible noise and fled from the table, stumbling from the dining room. I knew I was causing a scene, but I didn't trust myself to stay. I was just as reckless and stupid—stupid, stupid, stupid!—as Roman always claimed. I was weak. I didn't have the strength it took to do the right thing. The sensible thing. I didn't have a mask to pull over the storm raging inside me.

My heart pounded and my knees turned to rubber as I found my way along the passage to the entrance hall.

What had I done?

Strong arms swept around me from behind, turned me until I was wrapped in Roman with my cheek to his broad chest. His heartbeat thudded against my ear, slow and steady, and my own heart finally started to slow to his rhythm.

"I am so sorry," I breathed out.

His chin rested on the top of my head.

"It's okay," he said softly. "I made our excuses. You haven't being feeling well all day. Must be a stomach bug."

My mouth curved into a smile. I would never, not in million years, have thought there'd be anything about today to smile at.

But then there was Roman.

McKinnon appeared magically with our coats. The butler had an uncanny sense of everything that happened in this house.

Roman thanked him and helped me into my coat. I offered McKinnon my smile, but it was already thinning out.

"I'm not like you," I said to Roman as we hurried across the courtyard to his truck. "I don't know how to do this."

"You don't have a choice."

He was just stating the obvious, but it was a hard truth that whipped the coil of anger stuck inside me.

I slammed my body into the passenger seat, slammed the door closed. "I know I don't have a choice. I'm not a complete idiot. But my brain was on fire. You don't understand. It literally felt like there were flames. Coming out of my head. I can't just take and take and take all this bullshit."

Roman settled in behind the wheel and we didn't hang around. He sped off, as if afraid Julian would call his bluff and come charging after us.

He didn't say anything until we were on the main road.

And then he simply said, "Okay."

Okay? I rubbed at my temple. What did that mean?

I breathed in, exhaled, and set my gaze on the dark night beyond the windshield. The headlights lit the road directly in front of us, but the sky was still overcast and there was no moon or starlight shining through. The woods on either side of us pressed with spooky shadows and everything—Parklands, Capra, the entire world—felt like it was closing in on me.

The only part of this world that wasn't crushing me, the only person in my life who'd ever given me some semblance of the truth and who'd never demanded my blind obedience and compliance, was Roman.

That was my excuse when I threw myself at him the moment we walked through the cabin door. I was desperate to lose myself in anything other than the crap going on around us, and Roman was my port in this storm roiling through me.

Also, he was hot as sin and I had all this angry energy that would burst me wide open if I didn't give it an outlet.

Also, I wanted him. It was that simple. I wanted to feel his mouth on mine. I wanted to run my hands all over his body. I wanted all of me to be pressed to all of him again. I wanted to ravage him and I wanted him to devour me.

I wanted him recklessly and mindlessly and with utter abandonment, and I was no longer afraid to admit it. Not to myself. And not to Roman.

I went up onto my toes and flung my arms around his neck, and pressed my mouth to his. At least, that was my intention. His arms came around me automatically, but his mouth swerved at the last second and my lips brushed his bristled jaw.

"Georga," he said, his breath a husky whisper on my throat. "Not like this."

"Like what?" I pushed my fingers through his silky hair and leaned away to look into his eyes. "I want you."

A predatory noise rumbled up his throat.

And he wanted me just as badly. I could see the hungry desire darkening his gaze.

But he said, "You want to forget. You want to use sex as your punching bag. And while I'd usually be okay with that…" His mouth curled into a gorgeous, rueful grin. "That's not how our first time is going down. I've waited too long."

He was wrong.

And he wasn't.

"I do want you," I whispered. "Only you."

"You have me." He brought a hand up from my waist and brushed his knuckles along my cheekbone. All the while, his gaze sank into me, adored me. "You will always have me."

I breathed out a huffy, frustrated groan. So far as rejections went, it wasn't the worst. But he wasn't kissing me senseless, either.

Roman chuckled softly and wrapped his arms tightly around me, tucking me against his chest. "You never did know how to take no for an answer."

Once upon a time, a comment like that would have made me see red.

But tonight I was enfolded in his masculine strength and warmth and scent, with the promise that he would always be mine, and that sounded much more like a compliment than an insult.

When he released me, he dropped a kiss onto my forehead. "It's been a long day. Try to get some sleep."

I didn't think I could. I was too wired. There was all this restless energy pumping inside me. As soon as my head hit the pillow, though, I was gone. I snuggled in and closed my eyes, prepared to drag my way through the long night, and the next thing I knew, my eyes were opening to weak rays of sunlight streaming around the edges of the drapes.

My night hadn't been restless, either. No nightmares chasing my dreams. Not that I remembered. I did remember dreaming about Roman. I was sleeping on my side, spooned against his body, his arm around me. In my dream, I remember sliding him a sleepy smile and snuggling closer, and feeling so safe, so at peace.

I rolled over and saw the other side of the bedcovers tossed and rumpled. My breath caught in my throat, and released.