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He said: You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you? Our wedding was like a hole-in-the-wall affair and I still think we should marry again. You deserve a proper—-
She said: I mean it. My every dream came true when I saw you waiting for me.
Note to editor: We’ll get back to drafting this chapter later. My beloved wife has just given me a raging hard-on that cannot be ignored a moment longer.
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ATALL DARK-HAIREDman stood with his back to the windows, sunlight cascading from behind to lay golden stripes on the royal blue carpet. He had the strong classic features of a Greek god, but marring its perfection were the faintest shadows of bruises that were still in the process of healing. He was dressed in a well-tailored black suit, with a snowy white shirt underneath.
The room he was in had marble floors, expensive stenciled wallpaper, and high vaulted ceilings. At two hundred square meters, the room was the largest in the building and cost more than a thousand dollars a night, something not any ordinary person could afford.
Even so, there was no denying the truth.
This was a hospital room, and it was not fit to be the wedding venue for a man who was once a billionaire.
When the door opened, Damen Leventis drew his breath sharply at the sight that greeted him. Standing in the doorway was the girl he would risk everything for.
Mairi Tanner.
The girl who had captured his heart...and whose heart his own cruelty and cynicism had caused to break...over and over.
For a moment, all they did was stare at each other.
Memories, short but vivid, passed through his mind, and Damen’s fists clenched at his sides.
So many memories...
Mairi, the first time he had seen her in Diana’s school, her beautiful smiling face a picture of innocence and optimism...
Mairi, the first time he had kissed her, and with a dazed look in her eyes, all she could say was ‘hi’...
Mairi, the first time he had told her the truth about his engagement to Alina Kokinos, and she could only look at him helplessly as if wanting to stop loving him but unable to...
Damen’s chest heaved.
So many damn memories, and most of them were darkened by the pain he had caused Mairi.
If he was an honorable man, he would cancel the wedding and let her go. She deserved someone better, someone who would never cause her to cry a single teardrop.
But he was not an honorable man when it came to Mairi.
He was a man whose heart no longer belonged to himself, a man whose life would be forfeit if she ever left his side.
He would never let her go. It didn’t matter if she no longer loved him. It didn’t matter if she only chose to stay with him out of pity.
Damen would take Mairi any way he could.
****
MAIRI SMOOTHED ONEtrembling hand over the lacy overskirt of her dress, a concoction of white silk that her best friend Velvet Lambert-Sallis had especially ordered for her. Velvet was on her honeymoon now, and it was only at Mairi’s insistence that neither Velvet nor Mandy had come to her wedding. Everything about her life now was a mess, and she didn’t want her friends to suffer from any kind of public backlash because of her.
As the stylist continued to weave her hair into artful curls, Mairi let her gaze drift around the spacious walk-in closet of Damen’s hospital room, now serving as her temporary bridal boudoir.
Next to the door was a lovely waist-high rosewood cabinet, and gracing its top was a vase of exotic roses sent by Drake Morrison. The flowers had come with a handwritten note, and remembering the message made Mairi hastily blink back tears.
In your heart, you never betrayed him.
And he knows that.