Work is the only thing I can think to do so I don’t go out of my mind while she’s gone from the castle. She’ll like that I’m doing work on Battleman’s. When she gets back I’ll finally tell her what I’m working on. Maybe… Maybe we could work on it together. It could be our life’s goal together. I could prove to her she doesn’t have to carry the load alone anymore.
Still, other thoughts pop in, and they’re annoyingly loud.
You should never have let her go. The second they get her back in her clutches, she’ll—
No. She’s not like that. She’s strong. I’ve helped her become strong. She’s mine. She swore a sacred vow when she gave her body to me and me alone. They can never have back what’s mine.
My hands clench in fists but I force myself to breathe out. She’s my Daphne. Loyal to a fault. She’s the one person in the world who will never betray me.
But gods, I miss her face already.
I heave my large body down into an office chair in front of a research laptop and in spite of myself, can’t help but type her name in a search bar.
I just need to see her face to tide me over. She should be calling any moment. She said she’d keep me up to date on how her father is and when she’ll be back. My phone is in my breast pocket but I don’t pull it out for the thousandth time to check the battery and whether or not the volume is at full capacity. It’s a weakness and I hate that she makes me weak.
But for Daphne, I’ll bear a little weakness.
So I pull up the page of results from her name, expecting the same old news articles from years ago with press photos.
But instead—
My fist pounds on the table when the first thing that comes up is a photo of the two of them.
Adam fucking Archer.
Holding my Daphne’s hand, grinning up at her with the smile his father paid a fortune for, down on one fucking knee.
The click-bait headline shouts: Magnate Playboy Adam Archer Finally Getting Hitched!
I roar and throw the laptop against the wall, smashing it to pieces. Then I stand and grab anything else within range. Raging. Destroying everything.
When I’m done, almost all the lab equipment is upended, there’s shattered glass everywhere, and my heart is on the floor among the shards.
She was just like the rest of them after all.
A two-faced liar who would’ve said anything to get away from me. To get back to her fiancé. How they’re probably laughing at me.
She’s made a fool of me.
And the Master is going to make her pay.
Epilogue
Daphne
There’s an engagement ring on my finger. How the hell did that just happen? I stare down in shock even as the click and flash of a hundred cameras go off, memorializing the moment. One second I was trying to think of how to do damage control and then Adam was down on one knee and then—
Logan. Oh gods. What did I just do? I’m going to be sick.
But Adam’s grabbing my hand and holding it up, grinning at all the reporters. I never actually said yes. Not the words. I just sort of stared at Adam and gave a head bobble and then he shouted to the crowd that I did say yes and put the ring on my finger.
I do my best to keep the horror off my face. How could he do this? How could he put me on the spot like this?
Then I remember: Adam doesn’t know. No one knows I’ve spent the last two weeks falling in l— I mean, becoming extremely close with another man. A man I’ve let master me. It’s not hard to imagine Logan’s fury when he finds out about this.
But that’s not what’s gutting me. It’s knowing that underneath his anger and rage, I’ll have hurt him. Hurt him so deeply.
No, panic chokes me. No, I’ll be able to explain it. I didn’t have a choice. If I can just explain it, then he’ll have to understand—
Adam pulls me close and mashes his mouth to mine. His tongue tries to invade my mouth but I seal my lips stubbornly shut. I can only be pushed so far. I understand I lose the company if I don’t go along with this. I understand it might be the last shock that pushes my father’s health over the edge if I don’t agree with the farce.
But I can’t betray Logan any more than I already have. I turn my face away from Logan and pull back, smiling at the crowd and waving.
“We have business inside now,” I call out to the reporters. “Have to share the happy news!” And then I stride as quickly as humanly possible in these damn heels into the Belladonna offices.
“Oh Mama, it was awful,” I cry, tears leaking down my cheeks. I sit, legs folded, beside her grave and the beautiful statue of her likeness, just like I used to do by her bedside. Thornfield, my childhood home, looms in the distance like a comforting monument to sameness in the midst of all this change. This small ancestral graveyard is at the east edge of the property.
“I’ve made a mess of everything.” I look up at her, beautiful and serene, the sunshine lighting the cold planes of her stone statue. It’s nothing like her and yet better than anything else I have. Right now I’m clinging to anything of her I can get. I need her so much right now.
“Adam wanted to talk after the board meeting but I ran away like a coward after a few minutes. He’s sincere and nice but he treats me like he’s just going to come in and fix everything. Like I can’t do anything myself. And gods, maybe I can’t. Look at how I screwed it all up when I was CEO.”
“And when I tried to tell him I couldn’t marry him for real, he just said I was exhausted and that he’d take care of everything. Instead of fighting, I said he was right and I was going to go home and sleep. So then I was going to go straight back to Logan’s to explain everything but instead I came here.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance and clouds cover the sun, casting my mother’s beautiful face in shadow. Like she, too, is turning her face away from me, wherever she is in the heavenly fields of paradise.
I bend over her grave, my tears falling and salting the ground. “Please,” I beg. “Don’t leave me alone. You always knew what to do. You knew how to handle Daddy when he was being impossible and you always made me feel better no matter how bad things got and I—”
“So now you show up at your mother’s grave.”
I choke out in shock at the voice and swing around. Logan! He’s standing not five feet behind me. I jump to my feet and start to run towards him when I notice his face.
His features are cruel and angry.
He saw. He saw the news.
When he grabs my hand and holds it up, exposing Adam’s ring still on my finger, I know for sure. He throws my hand away roughly in disgust.
“You lied to me,” he spits.
“No, wait, Logan, it’s not what you think—” I start but he swiftly cuts me off.
“Are you engaged to Adam fucking Archer?”
“I- I mean, well technically, but not—”
Before I can get another word out, though, Logan’s crossed the few feet between us and his hand is at my throat. “Faithless whore,” he spits. “Our bed wasn’t even cold before you were off spreading your legs for him. I was just practice, I suppose, to break you in like a bitch in heat?”