Page 31 of Greed: The Savage (Seven Deadly Sins #7)

M alric asked her to marry him. More like he’d insisted upon it. Had he even put it forth as a question?

She couldn’t recall.

It didn’t matter.

Here she’d not believed herself to possess a heart, let alone one that could be broken by anyone. Certainly not broken by a man. Only to have Malric come along and do so irrevocably, thus proving her utterly, and pathetically, pitiably wrong.

They’d sparred and battled since their first meeting at the Devil’s Den, and in the end, he’d proven the ultimate winner.

He’d broken her…and her heart.

Addien stood outside the prominent carved mahogany paneled door belonging to the Earl of Dynevor and stared blankly at the cherubs and demons tangled up in some macabre dance.

Her gaze remained locked with a particularly cruel, vicious sin eater.

His soulless, black painted, bulging eyes mocked Addien for her naivety and foolishness.

To have even believed for a moment the Marquess of Thornwick would actually want to marry her. Because if he truly did, surely , he would have had a better reason.

Here she’d been believing he’d made his offer out of some sense of largess, and even having been sure of it, that the sight of her virgin’s blood mingled with his essence, staining her once-white sheets had prodded some gentlemanly sense of guilt.

Any other time, she would’ve laughed at him.

That was, any other time before she’d gone and fallen foolishly, hopelessly, and stupidly in love with him.

An uncontrollable shake started in her legs, a terrific tremor that moved up her body. Her teeth chattered, clinking together.

Addien flung both hands out to brace herself against the oak doorjamb.

Her nails bit into the soft, polished wood, leaving deep crescent grooves in its flawless surface.

She’d marred the grandest part of this palace of sin—and yet that fragile grip was the only thing keeping her upright.

If she let go, she’d crumble, and she knew she’d never find the strength to rise again.

She’d been brought low today. Lower than ever before.

Not when she’d begged in the streets. Not when she’d stolen from mates to keep herself from starving. Not even by the baroness’s brother, Dunworthy.

Not even the time, as a girl, when a nob had crept up on her in the gutters, pinned her, and tried to take from her without so much as a pence for his cruel, vulgar trouble.

Oh, the bloody irony. She’d been brought down completely…and it had been a nobleman after all.

Just not in the way she’d ever imagined.

Tears made a joke of her usually great vision.

Ultimately, that’s what she’d become. One great, enormous, pathetic, wretched shadow of who she’d always believed she actually was.

But she was nothing. She was not strong.

She was not invincible or incapable of being hurt.

She’d been wrecked. And without so much as a blow having been landed, or a sharp cutting insult being delivered.

Simply by being, by going unloved by him. Someone had broken her.

“Addien.” That harsh, concerned, gravelly voice behind her brought Addien up and around. She spun so quick, and lightheaded from the suddenness with which she rose, she nearly hit the floor for a second time. The Earl of Dynevor caught her about the arm and steadied her.

“Whoa,” he said gruffly.

As uncomfortable as he’d always been when presented with the girls in the club who’d been harmed by patrons or hurt in other ways, he flinched. Soothing wasn’t his strong suit. It wasn’t even one of his suits.

How could it be? How after the life he’d lived?

Addien distantly registered him letting her into his office and steering her inside, and then kicking the door closed behind them.

Still retaining a grasp on her, Dynevor escorted her over to the leather button sofa and gave her a slightly forceful but still gentle shove, so she fell into the folds.

When the earl held a snifter of French spirits under her nose, she didn’t even hesitate to take it.

Murmuring, “Thanks,” Addien tossed back a long swallow. She grimaced, welcoming the burning hot trail it weaved down her throat and also the warmth it brought her within.

How utterly humiliating. Mortifying. Cringe-worthy. Here she sat, no different than pretty, polite ladies. She couldn’t stop herself from shaking.

There came the scrape of wood as the earl dragged his leather armchair closer. “Impressive,” he remarked.

No doubt because he didn’t know what else to say when presented with a distraught female.

God, how had she become a distraught female?

This time, her lip pulled with a grimace of self-disgust. She’d never been an overly proud person, but neither had she been overly critical of herself either.

The loathing she felt for herself was far greater than she’d ever felt for any person, and that included Mac Diggory, the liege who’d kept her alive while simultaneously tormenting her. Which was saying a good deal indeed.

“Yes. Yes,” she said acerbically, “I’ve had stronger spirits, none finer than this one. This one goes down easy.”

Addien downed the rest of her drink.

“Apparently,” he drawled.

Addien rolled her glass between her hands.

There had been one to whom she had confided about her time in Diggory’s snatches.

Tears threatened anew.

Addien stared at the bottom of her glass, a crystal so fine and thin and gleaming to perfection, so her downtrodden face reflected back.

Addien lifted her gaze. She owed it to herself and Dynevor to look at him when she spoke.

“I’ve been thinking it is time I moved on to finer pastures, Dynevor.”

The earl reached over and fetched the decanter. Unhurriedly, he made himself a drink.

Glass in hand, he slouched in his chair. Kicking his legs out, he crossed them at his ankles. He peered at her from over the top of his amber spirits before taking a sip.

“Does this have anything to do with Dunworthy?”

In other words, did Addien blame Malric? Oh, it’d forever hurt knowing he’d been meeting with the baroness, thinking about the maddeningly beautiful woman and, worse, intending to make her his marchioness.

A role he’d only just offered to Addien.

She stared into her drink.

Why would Malric ask Addien to marry him?

Even with the baroness’ threats, Malric could have the lady if he so wished. Lady Darrow—any lady, for that matter—would forgive him anything for the power that went with being his one-day duchess.

But he hadn’t…

Because imagine the triumph he’d have over his father bringing a guttersnipe like you to meet his da…?

“It occurs to me you’ve gone silent.”

Addien whipped her head up.

Dynevor stared intently at her. “Which, of course, leads me to ask if your exit from the Devil’s Den has anything to do with Lord Thornwick,” Dynevor pressed.

A bitter laugh threatened to break loose.

It had everything to do with Malric, just not in the ways the earl was getting at. “Got no grievances with Mal—His lordship,” she brought herself to say.

She had no right to be angry. Malric hadn’t lied. She just hated the truths he’d spoken. And she hated even more that he couldn’t love her, as she’d fallen so fast and head over heels in love with him.

“I didn’t expect that,” Dynevor said, his tone cryptic. “But if you do blame him for Dunworthy’s assault, you just tell me.” The icy undercurrent in his rough street tones said her answer would determine if Malric kept his job at the Devil’s Den.

She wasn’t petty and she wasn’t small. She wasn’t looking to get him sacked. Even on the day when she hated him most, or thought she hated him most, she’d never have gone about and seen him sacked.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with Dunworthy,” she said again, holding his eyes so he could see the truth all laid out there.

Unfortunately, she let him see too much.

The earl drummed his fingertips along the sides of his glass. “Not the situation with Dunworthy?”

She gave him a questioning look.

“You said it doesn’t have anything to do with Dunworthy. Not the situation involving Dunworthy, which leads me to believe your leaving has something to do with Thornwick.”

Shite. Bloody hell. She was rusty.

She’d been safe and secure for too long. She’d initially sought Dynevor out, believing she needed to erect space between her and a cold, hard man she’d fallen in love with. In actuality, it was so much more than that. He wasn’t the reason she needed to leave.

Security was the reason she needed to. Safety. The fact she’d let herself grow so close to him, and it wasn’t just him, it was Alice, who’d gone, and it was all the courtesans here. Roy. She cared too much and one couldn’t stay alive by caring about other people.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him,” she lied.

Dynevor gave a frosty half-grin. “You took a minute to think on that one.”

Yes, she had because she’d been knocked off her game. Her shoulders sagged. Dropping the ball with Dunworthy had been one thing, but falling recklessly in love with Malric was another. Her throat convulsed. “Gone and got my head all mixed up, I did.”

“Yer head or yer heart?”

Addien still couldn’t speak her folly aloud. “Do you believe in love?” she countered.

He chuckled, a hard, cynical sound. “I believe people call it love when it’s really just people finding another person who they lust after more than any other, who also makes them a perfect business partner.”

He spoke so confidently.

Mere days ago, she would have agreed with him.

Not anymore.

Tapping his ink-stained, calloused fingertips on the brim of his glass, he let his expression ask for an answer.

“I’ve let myself get soft,” she said. He could understand that.

From the corner of her eye, a tear sneaked out.

Dragging together the remnants of her pride, Addien turned her head and wiped away that telltale moisture.

Before Addien faced the earl, she took a deep breath. “I have to get out, Dynevor. It’s got nothing to do with Dunworthy or even Thornwick.” She grimaced. “Not really, not entirely.” Addien tried to explain. “I never let anyone close because people don’t stay. You get that, right?”

“Better than anyone.”

“And you can’t control other people. You can’t have them make the decisions you want.

You can’t make them care about you or l-l …

” Her voice broke. “As I said, I’ve let my guard down.

I’m no good here. And it ain’t about being afraid of anyone.

It’s about being weak. I’ve relied on you and the Devil’s Den.

It ain’t good to get this close to people. ”

Dynevor sat, studying her pain.

He knew what she spoke about. She needed him to acknowledge that fear, to know he carried it too.

Even more, she needed him to urge her to stay. To tell her she was family. That she mattered to him and the people here at the Devil’s Den.

But he didn’t because people didn’t care about her or need her. That was, they didn’t need her beyond whatever way she might serve them.

“…I’ve been honest about why I’d marry you. But hear me when I say: I respect you. I admire your strength, your courage, your unshakable convictions…I love having you in my bed…I will keep you safe…I will keep you secure…I will keep you so well sated you’ll forget what it is to want…”

She’d waited desperately for the one profession she’d yearned for him to make.

But it hadn’t come.

In the end, he’d promised so much, but it was the one thing he hadn’t said that had broken her.

Oh, God.

When the heart broke, it did so not with a large crack across the middle but an excruciating slowness. The process was debilitating, exacting slow, punishing suffering. It compounded upon sorrow to punish the one who’d committed the greatest of follies.

Finally, Dynevor spoke. “I’ve got enough places for you to hop around.

I’ll send word to the Hell and Sin. You’d probably want to start there though.

Ryker Black’s got a new club he started some five or so years back.

That’s another option. If you want to hide completely and definitely not get yourself too close to anybody and build your walls up, any one of my sisters will have you in their households as staff. ”

“No—” she said hurriedly. He’d given her so much and he was offering her even more.

He nodded slowly. “You’ve already got a place in mind.”

He’d given her everything and deserved the truth from her. She prayed he’d see why, even as she would forgive him if he couldn’t.

Addien held his gaze and nodded slowly. “I must go somewhere, where…” She couldn’t bring herself to say Malric’s name. It hurt too much. “The people at Devil’s Den won’t be able to reach me.”

Dynevor’s expression hardened.

He didn’t make her say it aloud, which she certainly owed him.

“You do know that’s the one place I can’t help you?” he asked gruffly and without anger.

In a heightened reminder of why she had to get the hell out of here, tears sparked her eyes, prodded by his concern.

“I do,” she murmured, her voice rough. “I need to go there.”

There, the club where Malric’s brother had betrayed one of the proprietors, was a place he’d never be able to step foot on the streets outside, forget about the inside of those scandalous walls.

Dynevor nodded. “It is done.”

She and all contact with Malric, the man who’d broken her heart so completely, were at an end.

It is done.