Bold Beautiful Love -- A Temptation Court Contemporary Romance: Temptation Court: Passion in New York (19 page)

A breath rushes from her. She strokes one shaky finger down the silver chain. “Oh, my.”

“He had nothing when he proposed to her, except this necklace.” A smile tugs my lips—not just inspired by the story. Her reaction to it really is like sun blazing my heart…hope soaring my spirit.

“She better have said yes!”

Her teary blurt reels me closer. I take her lips in a kiss. I stay there, lingering inches away, while relaying the conclusion of the story. “They went to the justice of the peace the next week. and he accepted the necklace as one of the finest ‘wedding rings’ he’d ever seen.”

She pulls back her hand from the chain—

To tear it at the moisture streaking her cheeks. I slip fingers down, helping her. Unable to resist touching her. Getting as many memories as I can of her…

“When the economy got better, he finally bought her a real ring,” I finish. “But to generations of Courts, this has been the more meaningful way of declaring our true intentions—to the women we truly love…and need.”

She drags in a quivering breath. When it releases, a new tumult of tears pours from the incredible hurricanes of her eyes. They rain into her cleavage like rain on a cream marble statue of a sacrificial virgin.

My masterpiece.

Immaculate.

Immeasurable.

Eternal.

Dear God, please. I just want to make her happy
.

Admitting it…comprehending the sheer size of it…

Drives me to my knees in front of her.

But with my head still raised, I draw the necklace away from its velvet bed. Dangle it in the air between us.

“Ella. I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next weeks, maybe the next few years. When this is all over, I may not have a thing to my name. No jet. No cars. No manor with turrets, or buildings with my name on the door.”

“Cassian.” She drops her head. Shakes it hard. Even, for a second, looks like she’s going to slap me—even as she plummets to the floor next to me. “You daft, proud,
stupid
man. I do not
care
about the
things
that come with your name—”

“It won’t be just the things.” With my free hand, I cup her face. “It’ll be the very integrity of my name. The core of my honor. The backbone of my professional standing—”

She cuts me off with the perfect upsweep of her lips. I don’t argue the point, letting her capture my senses with her sweet berry taste, her open and urgent passion. It’s a damn fine alternative to where my moroseness was going, especially when she concludes it with a smile so perfect and peaceful, I really wonder what Victorian magazine God was reading when fashioning her. Yeah, even now with her breasts crushed against my chest and her thighs softly brushing mine.

She’s a flawless fantasy. The ultimate incarnation of all my damn dreams.

But never more so than when she tugs up her chin, widens her smile, and gives me a gift outshining the necklace itself.

A perfect promise of a whisper.

“Beautiful, ridiculous man. Do you not see yet? We shall never have
nothing
—because we shall always have each other.”

I curl fingers back into her hair. Grip her like a lifeline. Who the hell am I kidding? She
is
my lifeline. I let her see it, feel it, know it…

Before I finally speak it.

“We will, won’t we?”

Her eyes smile first, turning morning sunshine blue. “Yes, Cassian.”

I smile too. Expose the full dazzle of my dimples, just the way she likes it. I relish her sexy little sigh, and for one moment, simply pretend the bubble will never break. That we can really do this.

“For better, for worse.”

I blurt it fast, feverishly. Her gasp of delight is completely worth it.

“For better…for worse,” she dutifully repeats.

“For richer, for poorer.”

She nods—but stops as I raise the necklace with both hands again. Looks from the golden stone in it, then up to me. “For richer, for poorer.”

“In sickness, in health.”

“In sickness, in health.”

I lift the chain over her head. Lower it with reverence, even faltering a little as I do. Even if we were at The Plaza Hotel, in front of three hundred people, decked in designer everything with Bruno Mars ready to sing us into the future, I probably wouldn’t be as fucking nervous as I am this moment.

“Until death do us part.”

Ella lifts her hair, allowing the tiger eye to fall between her breasts. I follow its descent, dipping my head, before pressing my lips against the stone. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me close until the necklace and her heartbeat are a union against my ear. Only then does she rasp words in answer to mine.

“Circle without end. Joy without finish. Love without bounds.” She brushes a kiss along the top of my head. “And heart…with its completion.”

The closing words of an Arcadian wedding ceremony.

I slide my eyes closed. Let the words permeate me, meshing to every cell of me, breathing in all the air of me. Only then do I shift, burrowing tighter against her, my lowered head surrounded by her arms, my whole being bound to her spirit.

“
Amsek-tana
, Mishella DaLysse,” I whisper into her skin.

She strokes my hair. Takes a deep breath, swelling her heartbeat into my ear. “I love you too, Cassian Cameron Jonathan.”

Poundings at the door break us apart.

The bubble falls into pieces around us.

“Cassian!”

It’s Samsyn.

It’s time.

“No.” Ella clutches me with a grip that shouldn’t astound me but does. For several seconds, I let her. Wrap her in my arms too, savoring the silken warmth of her skin, even the thundering fury of her heartbeat. “No!”

I draw back until our foreheads and noses are pressed together. Struggle to capture her lips with a kiss that encompasses the fullness of my heart. Yeah, even now.
Especially
now.

“
Armeau
.”

She shakes her head slowly—though does so with the strength of a tigress. “No,” she repeats. “Dammit!”

“Come on, my love.” I order my feet and legs to work again. Tug her up with me. “We’ll have some time on the way to the airport, okay?”

As she stands, she glares like a child who broke open the piñata, only to be showered in chunks of coal. But as Samsyn thunders again at the door, my fiery sorceress bursts back to life. “
Va cock de Créacu
,” she mutters, scrambling back into her leggings and sweater. “Some patience, my prince?”

I actually chuckle, albeit with a bitter edge, while shoving into my own clothes. Scrub one hand down my face and another through my hair while pacing across the room to the door—taking my fucking time about it despite Syn beating like flying monkeys are at his back.

“Shit.”

Not flying monkeys.

Monkey
suits
.

Still just as dingy and ill-fitting as I remember. Still draped on the two assholes I wasn’t expecting to see for two more hours. And their fun GI Joe Club of armed operatives—who look just as ready with their weapons as they did this morning in the service lounge.

“Freeze, motherfucker!”

Yeah.
Really
ready.

And probably a little more pissed-off.

“Settle the hell down.” McCree, magnanimous because he
can
be, waits for the soldiers to lower their barrels before sauntering a few steps forward. “Greetings once more, Mr. Court. Fancy meeting you here.”

Samsyn snorts with such fury, I’m sure a few nearby bulls are missing gonads now. “I am sorry,
arkami.
They fucking figured it out.”

McCree grunts. “Like it was hard?”

“Shut up, man.” Reyes also comes forward. Gives me a businesslike onceover and earns himself points for it—if I were giving either of them points. “So…yeah. We ‘fucking figured it out.’ Put on some shoes and let’s go, Court.” He holds up a hand at McCree, backing it up with a pointed stare. “If you cooperate this time, we’ll even do this without the cuffs.”

McCree smirks. “Looks like he might’ve been enjoying some, anyway.”

“I said shut
up.
” Reyes swings his regard back to me. Shockingly, his expression edges toward an apology, though his voice remains the stuff of hardware store nail bins. “Say your goodbyes, get your shit, and let’s go.”

I’m smart enough to give him a respectful nod.

Then dumb enough to look once more to Mishella.

She’s ghostly quiet—and just as white.

Still as a statue—and just as breathtaking.

I lift a hand to her face. Stare into her eyes—tearless now, thank God—but just as deep a torture with their watchful, powerful, incredible blue depths.

There’s so much to say.

Yet nothing left to say at all.

So I step over, tuck her in tight, and whisper what’s easiest—for us both.

“You know what to do now.”

Dammit. Easy isn’t going to be on our side right now, either. Not when she answers with words that meant so much less than an hour ago—and remind me of the joy, the passion, and the completion I’m choosing, like the world’s hugest dumb fuck, to walk away from.

“Yes, Cassian.”

*

Mishella

You know what
to do now.

I press shaking fingers to the curve of my ear, treasuring the vibration I swear is still there. Hearing his words, like echoes of the ocean in a seashell.

Hating myself for agreeing to them.

Knowing I have no choice but to obey.

If I am to trust he will fight as hard as he can against this slime bath of false accusations, I must uphold the promises I have made in return. To get on the plane. Let Laith fly me back to New York and let Doyle return me to Temptation.

Where I shall pace new grooves of anxiety into Cassian Court’s expensive carpets. Eat all the ice cream in his big fancy freezer, to keep the stress at bay. Perhaps even let my “sweet parts” turn into wild tundras, since no entity except my vibrator shall have to forge that forest.

Except that the
bonsun
has already been talking of changing out the carpet.

And he hates ice cream.

And loves the hell out of my tundra, no matter how I groom it.

Damn him
.

For being so utterly perfect.

For being so completely
not
here.

“Hey.” Brooke’s greeting breaks into my mope. The quiet concern in her eyes, about two shades lighter than mine, deletes any hope of hiding my misery from her—as if my swollen eyes, defeated shoulders, and twisted lips have not taken care of the job already. I am not sure I would find the energy for the deception, anyway.

He is not dead.

He is just…gone.

It is all I can manage for a definition. The thought of him, so beautiful and noble and golden, surrounded by the squalor of Censhyr Prison, makes my stomach lurch to the point that I sink to the ottoman.

He will defeat this.

He is Cassian fucking Court.

He
will
defeat this.

Then he will go home. To Temptation. Where you will be waiting for him, in the middle of that worn carpet, with your wild forest girl parts and your arms wide open.

Ready to be filled by him once more.

Ready to become one with him once more.

But that is not accurate either. One touch of a hand to the golden stone at my throat is a perfect reminder of necessary correction.

Ready to
become
one with him?

No.

We are already one.

“Hey.” I finally murmur it back, attempting to add a little smile at my friend.
Fail buzzer
. Even a weak pretense is not going to happen.

We hug, but the action is stiff. We do not try to fake that either. Things are simply not the same without Vy—though now that I have had a glimpse of the pain she must have endured in losing Alak, her resentful distance is easier to understand.

“You all set?” Brooke looks around the room, checking if I have left anything. “Of course, if I find anything, I can always ship it. Or just give to your par—” She darts an apologetic glance. “I’ll just ship it.”

“Thanks.” I am listless, numb. Perhaps it will be possible to sleep on the plane, though on a couch in the main cabin—
not
in the bedroom now full of so many memories of Cassian.

And
that
will stop the thoughts of him?

He is everywhere
…

And I do not want it any other way.

“Well then, the car’s here.” Brooke rolls her eyes. “We have to use one of the royal Bentleys, since all the Sprinters are still servicing the troops guarding the bridge.”

Surprise, surprise. A real smile
does
bloom. “Goodness. Vy
is
going to be sad for missing the fun.”

She embraces her own chance to laugh. “Right?”

As if our statements are two halves to a special spell, my phone chimes on the bed—with a photo identifier I do
not
expect. Near-black waves of silky hair. Impish grin next to fingers curved in the
ok
signal. Eyes of light orchid, shining during happier times for us.
Much
happier.

Brooke’s jaw drops along with mine. It is taken over by her excited energy. “Wellll?”