Page 149 of Fighting With Light

She smiles and winces at the same time. “You like when I’m mean to you,” she says and wiggles her brows suggestively.

I chuckle and rub my thumb on her thigh in a circular motion. “I just want to make sure it wasn’t said because of everything, if it was, that’s okay, just…tell me.”

“It wasn’t. In fact, while we were apart, I kept thinking about what it would be like to be your wife.”

“You just like being spoiled by me,” I tell her and she giggles, hiding her face in my neck.

“So what,” she says, but it’s muffled.

“I’ll spoil you for the rest of our lives, princess, that’s a promise.”

She chuckles. “I’m pretty expensive, though.”

I laugh. “Yes, baby, I know you are, but I get access to my trust when I get married, so it’s all good.”

“Ah, you’re a trust fund kid,” she says.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“For what?”

“For not telling you about the whole arranged marriage thing. I hope you’re not mad at me. I...didn’t know how to tell you and early on there was no reason to tell you because we weren’t supposed to be a thing and...” she trails off.

My stomach twists. I was a little angry at first, but I compartmentalized because we had a job to do. “I’m not going to lie, I wish you told me, but I understand why you didn’t. But because I did my research on you, I assumed as much.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me about it?” she asks.

“Because it wasn’t my business at the time, and then when we finally realized we weren’t temporary, I couldn’t find the right time to discuss anything like marriage.”

“Fair enough,” she sighs.

I kiss her and we’re both quiet in the dark, the sun has long set with the crickets chirping in the night. We’re many miles inland, so the only sound of water that I have is the pool running.

“I’mscared,” Aelia says.

“Why?”

“What if everything we’ve worked for doesn’t work? From what I’ve learned about your father, he’s a snake,” she says.

“Then we find another way, like we always do.” I take a deep breath and say the words I should have said the moment after it happened. “Aelia?”

She hums into my neck, and I want to take her to bed. I don’t want to dwell on this anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“For?” she asks.

“Sorry for killing your father.”

She sighs and lifts her head, pressing her lips to mine. Her pained whimper makes me pull back, and she grips the back of my neck, roughly dragging her lips on mine. I groan into her mouth, and she mewls softly, but holds fast to my neck.

“I don’t care if it hurts, I need you,” she says.

“You have me,” I murmur against her lips.

“As insane as it sounds, don’t apologize for killing my father ever again. I hated him, Liam. If it wasn’t you. It would have been someone else, maybe even one of my brothers. I was contemplating it myself. You have nothing to be sorry for. He wasn’t a good man or father, he did wicked things. The world is better off without him.”