C5, PT. 3

“Do your friends know about Thalia Crane?”

The underlying anger warned her who he was referring to. She shot him a cool glance over her shoulder. “You mean Matthew, Lincoln, and the others?” At his curt nod, she turned her back on him and paced toward the crowded bookshelf and wondered if he’d read every single title. “No. They’d be horrified.” She paused and then let out a humorless chuckle as she drawled, “Or, if they’re as interested as you suggest, maybe they’ll want me even more once they realize how experienced I am. I wonder if any of them has a fetish—”

She received no warning that he was on the move. He whipped her around with such force, she would have fallen if he didn’t grab hold of her.

“Try to find out the answer to that question, and I’ll break their necks,” he said through clenched teeth.

Her mouth dropped before she slammed her hands against his chest. “You’re the one who brought it up! You keep tossing my past in my face. If you didn’t want a whore for a wife, then you should have conned another innocent virgin like you did the first time!” She glared up at him with burning eyes. “You wanted to be my one and only. Well, I made sure I drowned myself in enough men to wipe your taste from—”

He gripped her cheeks, forcing her mouth wide so she couldn’t speak. She returned his molten gaze with seething resentment.

“I never touched another woman.”

It took a moment for his words to penetrate the red haze, and several more to process his statement. Her brows snapped together. When she tried to make a vehement denial, his grip tightened, causing her teeth to scrape the delicate inner lining of her cheek.

“Before you, women were a barely tolerable nuisance. You were the first woman I saw as an individual, one with depth and light and facets I wanted to explore.”

She gripped his thick wrists with both hands to coax him to ease his brutal grip, but it tightened instead.

“I didn’t want anyone else. The way I acted when I came to Philadelphia should have told you that. I stayed faithful while we were separated.”

When she let out a low moan of pain, his hand dropped from her cheeks to her throat. He adjusted his grip so her pulse jack hammered against his palm.

“You aren’t the injured party in this scenario. I endured years of servitude at Maximus’ hand for daring to claim you, and you walked away without a backward glance. You ran to him, begging him to set you free from the only person who was willing to put it all on the line to have you. Baldwin and the others wanted you, but only acted when they received permission.”

His voice was devoid of all emotion, but his eyes belonged to the devil. Unblinking, malevolent. The fact that he was able to keep his expression blank while his demons raged sent a chill down her spine.

“I didn’t wait. I took what I wanted. I knew I wasn’t in your league, that I shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as you, much less touching you.” He fit his unforgiving frame to her quivering curves. “I knew you were used to a certain standard of living, things you took for granted being his daughter. I vowed I’d build myself an empire that would rival your family’s in wealth and influence. And. You. Left. Me.”

“Roth,” she began, but her voice cut off abruptly as his fingers dug into her throat.

“You should thank your lucky stars your father kept you hidden from me. If I had caught you with another man, I would have killed him and you…” He watched her dispassionately as she gasped for air. “I’m not sure what I would have done to you. I still don’t.”

Her hand twisted in his shirt, popping off buttons as he continued to apply steady pressure.

“I worked my ass off to build myself into a man worthy of you, and you let those filthy fucks defile what I worshipped.”

Watery eyes flicked up to his face. The homicidal maniac staring back at her sent a surge of terror through her that made her claw the back of his hand. He didn’t seem to register the blood she drew or her frantic fight as he watched with detached interest, eyes completely blank.

It was her going limp in his arms that made him come to his senses. He loosened his hold enough for her to get a sip of air before he buried his face in her hair, panting as if he were the one being suffocated.

The hand on her throat trembled from the effort it took to restrain his demons. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to fight and keep her body relaxed and pliant against his as he fought the urge to take her life. She closed her eyes and focused on her choppy breaths and the fact that that clock was still ticking, letting her know time wasn’t standing still. She was rewarded for her patience when his grip on her throat eased a little more. Hot breath fanned her face as he tried to get a hold of himself. She couldn’t tell if seconds, minutes, or hours passed, but eventually, his hand fell away.

“The housekeeper insists on floral arrangements. I don’t give a shit,” he said, voice muffled by her hair. “And I didn’t get the vasectomy because I fucked around. I did it because I don’t want children. That’s a choice I made before I met you, and I won’t apologize for it.”

She forgot herself and tried to move. Instantly, his hands locked on her and his energy, which had been leveling out, went electric. Instinctively, her gaze rose and collided with those of the monster Kaia warned her about. Her mind wiped clean.

“I never wanted to see this look on your face,” he said softly, finger tracking a tear that slipped down her cheek. “But it was inevitable. Everything I touch, I ruin.”

More tears fell.

“You were my one good thing. The only thing that had ever been just mine,” he said as he leaned down to taste her heartache. “I didn’t want you near London while I was fighting for my life. What man wants his woman to see him sweat or on his knees when things go to shit? Am I wrong for wanting things to be perfect?”

When she whimpered, he nuzzled her.

“You say I meant more to you than your family.” He brushed his wet lips over hers, letting her taste the salt from her tears. “Ditto.”

She shuddered as his hand came back to her throat. As her breathing quickened, she inhaled the metallic tang of blood.

“At times, I hated you more than Maximus.”

The vicious, vindictive thing that lurked inside him searched her eyes as his thumb stroked her uneven pulse.

“Maximus said you used me to get back at him.”

It took several seconds to process that. Her brows twitched, began to furrow.

“He said I was an experiment you gave up on when you realized I would never be accepted in society, no matter how successful I was.”

Disbelief replaced her glassy panic.

“He said you learned your lesson, marrying outside your circle. You decided you wanted someone of your own class, someone worthy of you.”

 “Worthy.” She repeated a word she had never associated with herself with glum amusement. She was astounded that Dad not only managed to spout this bullshit with a straight face, but had convinced Roth he was telling the truth when he should have known better.

“Is it true?”

She stared at him for a second before she whispered hoarsely, “You don’t know me at all, do you?”

His eyes flickered before his lashes swept down to hide his thoughts. “Maximus was very convincing.”

“He played on your insecurities.”

Insecurities she didn’t even know he had. Her father was too discerning for his own good. He butchered Roth’s pride before blackmailing him. She thought back to their hospital reunion in Colorado. His fury caught her off guard. She chalked it up to offended male ego, but now knew it was so much more. Years of anger and resentment for things Dad had planted in his head about her. Maybe he thought telling Roth these things would make him avoid her in the future. In his eagerness to help, Maximus dug her and her sisters a grave so deep, it would take a miracle to get them out.

Roth stood with his hand at her throat, head bowed, lost in thought. Sensing the danger had passed, she called his name.

“Jamie.”

His eyelashes lifted, confirming the monster had retreated.

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Confessions. Please do not share or distribute.

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