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“Of course I am.” He grips the desk chair tightly. I can tell he wants to touch me, but he knows better than to do that right now. “Because I needed the power to Claim you. I needed leverage. If I just followed you out of Harmony Heights without any… if I was just one of the basic Owed… do you think you’d be my wife right now? Or would you be in the back rooms of the Court, fucking any Owed that climbed into your bed?”

“You took Demond’s place because Jack Collins is your uncle?—”

“I took Desmond’s place because you’ve always belonged to me. You’re fuckingmine, Avalon. You always have been. Even when you thought I hated you, I was protecting you. Because, damn it, Iloveyou.”

I wish I could believe that. I want to, but like always with Adrian, there are so many goddamn secrets. Financial manager, huh? God, I was such an idiot. The way he smirked when I asked him about his job… Financial manager, he told me. I guess whenyou’re cooking the books for an entire town, that’s the easiest way to describe what you do.

He’s a crook, and he’s a liar.

He lies.

And I’m the silly little girl who spent way too long convincing herself she was special. That he would be honest even if it hurt, but nothing hurts more than discovering everything I thought I knew… it wasn’t true.

He loves me?

That might be the biggest lie of all.

TWENTY-FOUR

CONFESSION

LONI

Ihave to get out of here. That’s all I’m thinking.

I make it halfway to the door when Adrian is suddenly right there.

He grabs my elbow. It’s not a rough snatch, though he uses his strength to whirl me around.

“Don’t walk away from me.” It’s not an order. It’s aplea. “Not after I told you I loved you.”

My chest feels tight. “You used to tell me that so you could fuck me,” I shoot back. “If you meant it then, I wouldn’t have had to leave Harmony Heights.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. If it came out then, my uncle would’ve been the one shipping you out of town. And that’s if you survived.”

“What?”

“He wanted me to Claim Haven, remember? I wasn’t allowed to choose. My Claiming would’ve been a joke. Just like he decided Dallas would pair up with Morgan Peyton, I was supposed to end up with Haven. The only way around it was refusing to Claim… but you were gone before I could explain.”

“You knew where I was.” He’s never come out and admitted it before now, but after the last few weeks as his wife… the things he’s let slip, how he knows me almost as well as I know myself… he found me long ago. I suspected it. His interfering with my job just proves it. “You could’ve explained then.”

“I could’ve. If I thought it would save you from the Order, I would’ve.”

I shake my head, jerking on my arm at the same time. He releases me, but he doesn’t back away.

Not yet.

“Do you know about my Aunt Reese?”

Therese Collins. While Jack was very rarely referred to as his uncle, he always called her ‘Aunt Reese’. They weren’t blood; Jack is Adrian’s mother’s brother. It didn’t matter. She was a sweet-faced blonde woman who was the Offering given to the man who would be King.

And then, about five years ago, she died. Oh, my dad said it was an accident. It was during our Father’s day phone call, and though I didn’t want to hear anything about the Order, even I was interested in learning about Reese Collins’ tragic death. She was alone on the balcony of her family’s penthouse apartment one moment. The next? She was flying without wings, landing on the asphalt out back.

Everyone says she jumped. Of course they do.

Because no one would ever blame the King—except for his rogue nephew.

“Offerings… wives… you’re supposed to be protected. But think about this: if my uncle looked the other way when I desecrated St. Catherine’s and killed the only son of a powerful family in town because he could, do you think he would let it slide when his wife had an affair with a man who wasn’t part of the Order?”