Page 173 of Theirs to Possess: The Marriage Claim

Calypso leaps onto the coffee table, trying to figure out an angle to get to me. When she can’t, she meows pitifully, and I sob into my sister’s shoulder.

I hate myself for falling for them, hate that I want to feel Dorian’s arms around me, hate that I miss all the ways Brennan cared for me.

How could I have allowed myself to believe we could share something real, that I was more than a trophy, a woman who will give Dorian the heir he wants, an interchangeable bride?

My realizations crush me.

Margaux holds me while I cry, mourning for something that I never really had and never will.

Finally, even more broken than before, exhausted with no resources left, I push myself away from her.

She grabs a couple of tissues from the box and dabs my cheeks.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I confess.

“You don’t have to know right now.”

Calypso leaps back into my lap, her warmth a small comfort against the turbulence raging inside me.

“You stood in for me, moved out of Mom and Dad’s house, even though they all-but disowned you. You’re braver than you think.”

Though I appreciate her encouragement, she’s wrong.

“I’ll be here for you. Every step of the way.” There’s some guilt in her words, along with the promise.

She stays until the ice cream’s gone, until I’ve finished my water, until I’m so emotionally wrung out that I have no energy left to do anything except sleep.

Somehow I rouse myself to stand, and she sweeps me into a huge hug.

“This whole thing is my fault. I’m so sorry, Isla. So very sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Promising to call me later, and threatening to return if I don’t answer, she makes her way to the door.

Scooping up Calypso so she doesn’t escape, I check down the hallway, then lock the door.

Now that I’m alone again, the apartment’s too small, too empty, too full of a life that’s not mine anymore. I’m not Isla Davenport. I’m not Mrs. Vale.

I hug Calypso more tightly as hopelessness swallows me whole.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Dorian

I lift the brass knocker, its weight dragging at my arm, and stand before the gloss-black door of Altair Montgomery’s BDSM club, the Retreat.

The lacquered surface of the door throws back a fractured ghost of myself—eyes hollow, jaw shadowed with days of neglect.

When did I last bother to shave?

My stomach twists, hollow but for the burn of Bond’s whiskey I’ve been drowning in. No food. No sleep. Going nowhere, just staying in the penthouse, where Isla or Brennan can find me.

But neither have looked.

Of course, I keep constant track of both of them.

Brennan—so pissed he can’t speak to me—is still loyal, even though I don’t deserve it.