Page 251 of The Enslaved Duet

Alexander turned me to face him after clasping it closed, his face impassive as he stared at his collar around my neck. He lifted a finger to run the back of it over the smooth rectangular yellow diamond in the hollow of my throat, and then he looked up at me with softly pursed lips to say, “Even L’Incomparable pales next to your money eyes.”

“Only because you love me,” I told him, trying to tease and failing because the words were hoarse with unshed tears.

He shrugged his insolent schoolboy shrug. “Undoubtedly. Now, slave, dance with me.”

Collecting one hand in his, wrapping the other around my waist, Alexander spun me into movement, music flaring to life like the kick of my skirt the second he whirled us into motion.

“Wagner wrote this symphony for his wife, Cosima, for her birthday,” Alexander told me as we danced, and everyone else began to dance with us.

I pressed my cheek to the fabric over his heart. “Why are you doing all of this?”

His chin rested over my head, his hands drawing me closer so that we were flush together, barely dancing. “Because I wanted to show you how serious I was about replacing all the nightmarish memories in this house with new ones, brilliant ones. I wanted to somehow illustrate how sorry I am for all the things I’ve put you through. I want you to understand even when I cannot measure the fathomless depth of love I have for you at the heart of me, how very much I desire you to be happy in this life with me.”

“Xan,” I said, pulling back to tip his head down to me with a hand at his neck, hard over his pulse just to feel it beat. “I would dance with you forever in the dark if it meant being with you. I don’t need the light or the diamonds, I hardly even need my loved ones. You could have dragged me into the cold, dim ballroom, clasped that old chain around my ankle, and I would still love you. I don’t regret the things you’ve done or the events of the past five years. They brought us together and cemented our bond. They made me strong, and they made you worthy.”

“Ours isn’t exactly a romantic story,” he admitted wryly.

I arched a brow, pressed my palm over the brand I knew he wore on the skin over his heart, and dragged one of his hands down my back to my ass where it rested over my own brand. I thought of Helios and my collar, of Xan pulling strings to get me a job with St. Aubyn, of the years he spent longing for me but denying himself to keep me safe. I thought of the way my body felt when I was away from him, like a form without a shadow even in absolute sunlight.

I thought of the way he would have died for me, and the way I nearly died for him.

“Isn’t it?” I asked softly. “I think it’s romantic as hell.”

“Literally,” Alexander quipped with a roguish grin that made me tip my head back to the mural of Persephone and her Dead God and laugh and laugh and laugh.

And when I looked back down at Alexander, my once Dead God was laughing too.

Cosima

The courtroom vibrated with hushed, anticipatory chatter as the gathered waited for the venerable Judge Hartford to take the stand and begin the proceedings. I could hear the cacophony of press and spectators outside the closed doors to the chamber and even outside on the street. It was the biggest trial against a supposed mafioso since the Mafia Commission Trial in the eighties, and it was sensational news throughout New York City and beyond.

This was helped, of course, by the fact that the man on trial for first-degree murder, racketeering, and illegal gambling was the gorgeous, charmingly incorrigible, and dangerously intense Edward Dante Davenport.

The noise rose tidal strong as the side door opened, and the man himself was ushered through by two guards and his law team. He wore all black even though it made him look wickedly sinful and sinister, his hair pushed back from his face but for one wavy lock that draped over his forehead into his black eyes.

He looked like an ad formad, bad, and dangerous to know.

I shook my head as I caught eyes with Elena, who stood behind him with the rest of his law team with her red-painted lips pressed together in a line that underscored her fury at losing that particular battle with her client.

He should have worn a white button-up, at least, to soften his appearance and make him seem like your average businessman.

But of course, Dante didn’t care to look innocuous, and I was certain he had argued wearing such a getup would only make it more obvious that he was a lion dressed as a lamb.

“Bloody idiot,” Alexander muttered at my side as he glared at his brother.

My husband was not in a good mood.

Not only because his brother was on trial for murder but also because his being so made it necessary for us to be in New York.

Alexanderhatedthe city.

It was the symbol of our years apart and my refuge when I’d been lost without him.

If he had it his way, we probably would never again set foot on Manhattan island again.

But Dante was on trial for murder, so here we were, sitting in the first row reserved for his family, lending the weight of the Davenport name and Greythorn rank to Dante’s case.

It was hard for the public to believe the brother of a duke would resort to becoming a mafioso.