Read Online Ever After by Kate Serine - Free Book Online Page A

a shipment of diamonds—” She broke off suddenly, her eyes going wide with excitement. “Do you want to see it?”
    I frowned, confused. “The diamond shipment?”
    She waved away my words with a laugh. “No, not the diamonds! I sold those ages ago.” She grimaced when she saw the look on my face. “You don’t really want to know this, do you?” She sighed. “I had to make a living once I came over, Gideon. I couldn’t expect Merlin to keep letting me freeload off of him.”
    I strode toward her, closing the gap between us in just a few steps. “You could’ve come to me,” I insisted. “You should’ve come to me instead of relying on that egomaniacal bastard.”
    She tilted her head to one side, her brows drawn together in a pained expression. “Oh, Gideon . . . Don’t you think I wanted to?” She rested her hand on my chest for a moment, an explanation hovering on her lips. I could feel her indecision, her desire to protect me, of all things. “Please, can we not argue any more about the past? Can we just hang on to the present?”
    If I hadn’t been able to feel the agony and regret she was experiencing because of the time we’d lost, I don’t know that I could’ve forgiven her. But the ache at the center of her chest was making it hard for her to breathe; the weight of her remorse was so substantial she was crumbling beneath it. How could I not rescue her from such torment?
    I took her face in my hands and pressed a lingering kiss to her brow, then rested my forehead against hers for a moment. When I pulled back and peered down at her beloved face, she was smiling again, the twinkle of excitement that was so contagious shining in her eyes once more.
    â€œC’mon,” she said, taking my hand. “I want to show you the first relic I found, the one that has helped me locate all the others.”
    I followed dutifully, my curiosity admittedly aroused. She took me to what must’ve once been a dressing room for the actors but had been converted into a bedroom, although aside from a bed there was little that made it so. The thought of her sleeping alone in this musty, rotting building night after night made my chest tight with sorrow. Of course, she hadn’t been alone, had she? She’d been with Merlin. And he’d done a piss-poor job of looking after her, that was for damned sure. What kind of man let a woman stay in a place like this?
    I clenched my fists at my sides. “That son of a bitch.”
    â€œWhat’s that, love?” she called over her shoulder as she dragged aside several plastic storage containers packed full of books to get to a beat-up chest of drawers that was missing two of its four porcelain knobs. “Didn’t catch that.”
    â€œNothing,” I muttered, stepping in to take over with the books. Through the clear plastic I could see quite an assortment of titles at a glance, most of them classic stories, fairytale anthologies, books on myths and legends. She’d been doing her homework.
    When the books were finally moved aside and stacked out of the way, she pried open one of the drawers with a missing knob and rooted through a neatly folded stack of satiny undergarments. Feeling my cock growing hard again, I averted my eyes and tried to focus on a libido-dampening nineteenth-century painting of a bucolic landscape that hung on the wall.
    Except instead of the effect I’d hoped, the painting brought to mind the number of times we’d tumbled to the ground in an intimate tangle in just such golden fields, our desire for one another too strong to deny until we could reach the cottage I’d built for us to share. Even as I stood there, I could once more feel the heat of the sun upon my skin as we lay naked together, our arms and legs entwined, basking in what I’d thought to be a perfect happiness.
    How wrong I’d