Read Online Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) by Angel Payne - Free Book Online Page B

around any longer.”
    I jerk to my feet. It does nothing to dispel the rocks she’s dumped down my limbs. “Damon has nothing to do with this.”
    “Forgive me, my love—but bullshit.” Ironically, she finishes by looking like a Madonna. Shifted forward on the chaise, angling more of the chandelier’s light over the golden waves on her head, she caps the moment by spreading her hands, palms up. “But we shall burn his back for now.”
    “You mean…back burner him?”
    “Exactly.” She returns the hands to her lap. Twists them just softly enough that I’m reminded of the truth here—that she’s really struggling through all this as much as I am.
    Screw the Madonna. If I’m a goddamn Conan, then she’s my valiant Xena. If she’s getting through it, then I can too.
    “For a while,” I go on, “it was…idyllic. A gorgeous bubble. I worked hard with Nash, and loved passionately with his daughter. We finished on Eurail but another contract came through from the Dutch government, ensuring Lily and I could stay on in Utrecht for another three months.” I fold my arms while facing the ruined window once more. Am drawn to the jagged frame as if it’s a magic mirror, revealing the depths of time instead of a regular reflection. “We were so young,” I grate. “And in the custom of ignorant youth since the beginning of time, thought it would be that perfect forever. Or maybe we were so desperate to believe it, we just did.”
    “Which is why you proposed.”
    I drop my arms. Past the buzz swarming my head like pissed-off cicadas, my palms burn from the stab of my fingernails.
    Did I expect her to come to other conclusion?
    No.
    But did I expect this corner of the memories to hurt so damn much?
    Same answer, shittier version.
    But I’ve been through worse. Like the first time I lived through this crap. Months and months of it, instead of a few bitter minutes.
    Words finally choke their way up. “Let’s define ‘proposed’.”
    A rustle. A change in the air behind me. Though Ella doesn’t move beyond that, I can picture her stance now. Proud but pensive. Elegant hands clasped high against her waist, as regal as the royalty she served back in her kingdom. The “trap” I thought I was saving her from—a call I now question with every new second that passes. Every new corner of my past now exposed by her light.
    Every dark, dirty corner…
    “I do not understand.”
    Just like a queen, her voice is velvet girded by steel. Just like the beggar at her palace, I shuffle through a turn back at her.
    “Yeah. Of course you don’t.”
    “What are you trying to say?” Exasperation bites her words. “All right, you loved her. Then you married her—”
    “Yes.” I jog up my head another notch. “I loved her. I married her. But I never proposed.” Hard breath. One more. “I wasn’t given that choice.”

THREE
    *
    Mishella
    T here’s an intent here. Something he dreads saying so much, he cannot frame the words for it. Something his stare pleads with me to figure out, resulting in a stalemate of frustration because I cannot. I know my tight glower and leaden huff do not help—but despite his obvious assumption, the answer is not as clear as a spot on the floor between us. If it is, then it was created with invisible ink, and I have yet to locate the black light for revelation.
    I didn’t propose. I wasn’t given that choice.
    I am tempted to call bullshit again.
    He formed those feelings for Lily Quinn of his own volition—perhaps encouraged by his mentor, but certainly not forced. Even a girl from a sheltered past on a tiny island can deduce that. Besides, had Cassian not bid for Lily’s hand, there were likely five hundred others waiting in line to do so.
    So what had been different? Why was Cassian “expected” to marry Lily without taking the steps expected from a social echelon he had worked so hard to become a part of? I have snuck glances at enough of his daily mail to know. The magazines,