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I turn, forcing him to look me in the eye. He looks, but not at my face. His eyes dip down to where my breasts are smashed down by my arms. It’s a full beat before they lift back up, and his gaze is still slightly off.

“Where were you?” I ask, needing to know. I’d come to Wicker’s rescue before, never expecting anything in return, but he’d shown up once, threatening to blow up our entire lives to keep me safe. “What if I needed you down there?”

He moves the cloth, scrubbing it over the ball of my shoulder, letting the warm water run down my arm. His eyes follow the movement of his hands. “What could I do that Pace couldn’t?”

“You could have…” I struggle to find the words, remembering that day on the roof of the marina. “You could have been there.”

Sharp enough to make me flinch, he snaps, “Towhat? Watch you bleed? To watch you cry? Maybe I didn’t want to see you!”

A week’s worth of anger churns in my gut. “Because I was weak? Trapped?” I swallow, hating how his eyes go right to the marks on my back. “Ugly?”

He tosses the rag into the sink behind me with a splash, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Is that what you really think? That I’m that shallow?”

“That’s the whole point!” I say. “I don’t know what to think!”

He spins, and I think he’s going to walk away, but after two prowling strides, he ricochets back. There’s resolve set in his angular jaw. “I’ve spent the last five days hanging on by a very thin thread, wavering between killing my father for locking you up, and going down there and stealing you myself. But…” His eyes bear down on me, and I shiver at the mixture of agony and tenderness there. “If I’d seen you down there, with no way to get you out, I would have lost my shit and done something very, very stupid.”

Over the months, there’s been a lot of emotion between us. Hate. Loathing. Bitter rage. Sympathy. Even pity. But this feels different.

“What are you saying?”

“This thing between us is too fucking much.” His hand flattens on his chest, over his heart, fingers curling into his shirt. “I spent all those years not letting those people inside. I kept myself safe,” he pounds his fist, “in here. But you showed up in a fancy ballgown, guns blazing, West End wild, taking every fucking thing I threw at you. You were supposed to cry. To run. To make it easy for me to break you. But you didn’t break. You just kept fucking going. And then…”

My stomach clenches. “Then what?”

His eyes dart to my belly, then back up, making his hair flop in his eyes. “You rescued me.” His jaw tics. “Twice.”

“I did what any Princess would do,” I say carefully.

“No. No one has ever done something like that for me before.” He looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Not when I was ten, or fifteen, or twenty.” He inhales, eyes searching. “So why, Verity? Why do you do it, knowing damn well I can’t rescue you back?”

I lift my hand and cup his cheek, knowing the answer. “Because, Whitaker Kayes, despite how hard your father tried, this isn’t a transaction for me. I showed up because I see what you don’t.” With a sad smile, I stroke his cheek. “That you’re worth saving.”

26

Wicker

I toldVerity once that I wasn’t built for attachments.

I was built to be used, groomed to be a product. Over the years, the thought of caring about anyone—of being cared forbythem—has become such an impossible, foreign concept that I never allowed myself to pay potential attachments much mind.

Then one day, my father decided to force me into one.

But I’m not like Pace. Where he saw an opportunity, all I saw was something twisted and corrupted, and to accept it—to accepther—would be settling for the rotten scraps Father was throwing to us, andfuck that.

But her words, just like the warmth of her touch, go off like a bomb in my chest, taking down the walls so carefully built around my heart. It’s not so much what she says, but what the words mean.

Even through all the bullshit, Verity Sinclaireseesme.

And it’s both terrifying and thrilling.

To everyone outside my brothers, I’ve been a prop. A player. An athlete. A showpiece. A Prince.A whore.

But this woman has asked nothing of me but civility, and I’ve barely been able to muster it.

We’re so close our bodies are touching, her swollen belly reaching out to meet the hard line of my abdomen. She’s still in nothing but a thin pair of panties. At some point, while living in this palace, she’s lost all sense of modesty. I understand this more than anyone; she was conditioned out of it by all of us, giving in to our demands at a moment’s notice, spreading her legs, and taking our seed. But I was the worst. Belittling and abusive. Mean.

All because she scares the fucking hell out of me.