Page 16 of Pretend Wife (Angels of the Secret Order #4)

“Don’t just stand there, Danielle,” Sam commanded, but he sounded so far away.

I was paralyzed by the memory of the demon who’d promised to destroy everything I cared about.

It was only a matter of time before I made a mistake.

Either my family would find out about the deal I’d made or Hayden or Miles would learn that I was an angel.

I couldn’t win against a millennia-old prince of Hell.

Fingers tightened around my neck, cutting off my air, but it wasn’t as painful as the situation I’d gotten myself into with the Prince of False Idols.

And then the simulation vanished.

I choked in a breath. Lack of oxygen wouldn’t kill me, but there was nothing comfortable about being strangled.

“You froze,” Sam said, his voice void of any kind of sympathy.

I didn’t answer as I bent over, my hands on my knees, and pulled in as many breaths as I could.

“Danielle.”

“I know,” I forced out through gritted teeth. “I screwed up. I keep second-guessing which ones are human and which are demons.” And I got lost in a flashback of the worst night of my life.

“Humans can be monsters too,” he said. “Don’t let anyone, ever , grab you like that without pushing back.”

Too late.

“I think we’ve established that I’m useless when it comes to hand-to-hand combat.”

“Because you abhor violence and you’re putting up a block in your mind that’s stopping you from hurting anyone.”

“I hurt people when I shoot at them,” I argued .

“It’s not the same. The bow gives you distance, keeps the fight from being intimate. You can’t feel the heat of their skin or smell their scent.”

“Well, how do you suggest I fix it?”

Sam shrugged. “I can’t tell you how to do that. Only you can change the way you think. But like I said earlier, no one’s making you.”

The bitter taste of failure filled my mouth at his words.

I wanted to succeed, to prove to my family and, maybe more importantly, to myself that I could belong in the secret order.

But the reality was that I had no idea what I was doing.

I didn’t have a plan to get myself out of the deal with Beelzebub.

I couldn’t help feeling that I was a disappointment to my family, that I wasn’t worth the love and support they’d given me.

Even this training session was a waste of Sam’s time. He could be with his wife and kids right now, and instead he was here, trying to teach me despite the fact that I hadn’t gotten better in the past four freaking years.

“I want to,” I said.

Sam nodded. “Okay. Let’s put the bow down and talk about what’s holding you back. What do you think you need to succeed?”

A new personality. A brain and body that was actually good for something. A way to get rid of the choking fear that I would never measure up to everyone’s expectations, that their belief in me was misplaced.

But I wasn’t going to say any of that to Sam. “I don’t know. How do you do it?”

“It’s never been a problem for me.” He plucked a toothpick from his pocket and slid it between his teeth like it was a cigarette. “But I also have anger issues and find violence therapeutic.”

“What about everyone you’ve trained here?” Sam had dozens of employees who were loyal to him and wouldn’t hesitate to follow him anywhere… usually into fights with demons.

Sam laughed. “They’re in the same boat. That’s the thread that ties us all together. We each took a shit hand and turned it into something good.”

I wanted to be able to do that. I hadn’t been given the kind of bad hand Sam was talking about. My parents weren’t Fallen, and my childhood wasn’t traumatic. But I wanted a way to turn my deal with Beelzebub into something good.

It was bad enough I couldn’t defend myself in hand-to-hand combat. Now I wasn’t only a liability, I was a damn ticking time bomb.

The front door of the penthouse slammed and I jumped, dropping the knife I was using to chop vegetables. I’d been on edge since I’d left Youngblood this afternoon.

My hand ghosted over my thigh where my bow was strapped, and I wished not for the first time that I had Sam or Nate’s ability to sense demonic or angelic power.

Hayden rounded the corner, and I let out a relieved breath.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the second he saw me.

“You’re home early.” It was only five thirty, and I’d grown used to Hayden not coming home until around nine or ten.

His features twisted. “I didn’t realize that was such a bad thing. I can leave if you want.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t know it was you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know, Hayden. That’s the point. I knew someone was here, and I didn’t know who it was.”

“I’m sorry.”

I blinked in surprise. Did he just apologize?

“Are you okay?” I asked. Now that the initial shock of the moment had worn off, I could see the agitation in Hayden’s aura. There were lines of stress bracketing his mouth, and his eyes were dull, defeated.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Well, that cleared everything up.

He moved to the coffeepot that sat on the kitchen counter.

There was something robotic about the motion, like his mind was somewhere else.

I sort of loved the fact that Hayden made his own coffee instead of going to a café or having his assistant pick it up for him.

It was such a normal, non-billionaire thing to do.

“I told my father about the wedding,” he said without looking at me.

“Okaaay… Wasn’t that the whole point of this arrangement?”

“He wants to meet you.”

“All right. When do you want to introduce us? ”

Hayden let out a bitter laugh. “This isn’t about what I want, Sunday School.”

Right. Because Hayden had never wanted me near his family. If he’d wanted to introduce us, he would have done it during the year we’d been dating. “Fine, when does he want to meet me?”

My words were followed by a grimace from Hayden. “He and my mother want to take the whole family on a weekend away. It’s not enough that I get married, now he wants to spend an entire weekend with you.”

“Why would he want to spend the weekend with me?”

“To test me? To try to control my marriage and make sure he gets his way? Fuck if I know.”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, not sure what to say to that.

“When are we leaving?” I finally asked when I couldn’t come up with anything else.

“They want us there from tomorrow until Sunday evening.”

“Okay.”

Hayden’s brows climbed up his forehead. “Okay? You have no problem going on a spontaneous weekend trip with my family, whom you don’t know, just because they asked?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have any shifts at the hospital until Monday night. And I already know you and Miles.”

He closed the distance between us until we were close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. “You don’t have to do this,” he murmured. “I can tell them no. ”

“I’m really fine with it.”

“Are you?” His eyes bored into mine with an intensity so strong it was impossible to look away. “Because they’re all going to expect us to be in love. I’m going to kiss you, touch you, treat you like you’re mine. So this is your last chance to back out.”

“I think it’s a little late for that,” I said, holding up my left hand. “I already married you.”

He dropped his forehead to mine. “Do you regret it?”

“No. I agreed to this for a reason, and that hasn’t changed.”

“Right.” He pulled back abruptly. “I’m going to go pack.”

I watched him go, feeling like I’d somehow screwed that up. But I had no idea what I’d done to upset him.