Page 105 of Wedlock

‘Sort it out? How? This bloody vampire is determined to win me back, and every time I see him or talk to him his task gets a little easier. Could it be as simple as reverse psychology? If I stopbeing a challenge, will he leave me be? And is that something I can even do?’

I hear Yin open the door and snarl, and his low, polite response.

I don’t rise when he walks into the room, and his lip quirks into a tiny smile as he sits down opposite me.

“Hello, Angie.”

“Falcon, you can’t come here.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why?” I shake my head.

“You know why.”

“That’s just it. Idon’tknow why.”

“I told you, I want to date you. If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain must come to Mohammed.”

“Is it because I’m a challenge to you? Is that it? Have you really stopped to think about why you want to get to know me? And don’t say it’s for Tiger’s benefit, I don’t believe that.”

“It’s not about a challenge, Angie. You know how I feel.”

“Falcon, aren’t you doing exactly what Revna’s doing to you?”

He scowls.

“No. It’s not the same.”

“You had a relationship once, and she wants you back. She won’t accept no for an answer. How is this not the same?”

“Revna wants what she can’t have,” he sighs, “it’s true. But she wants an elusive memory. She doesn’t want me for who I am.”

“How can you say you wantmefor who I am, when you don’t know me?” I roll my eyes.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he snaps. “I want to get to know you.”

Sighing, I consider how to word what I need to say. He isn’t listening to Yin’s threats; he’s ignored us both telling him he isn’t welcome. I obviously need to approach this in a different way.

“Falcon,” I clear my throat. “When Yin and I say we don’t want you to visit us any longer, it’s not because I’m trying to punish you for the past or increase your desire by playing hard to get. I get that you say you want to know me, but we’re telling you,I’mtelling you, that I don’t want to get to knowyou. It’s over between us.”

He leans back into the seat and crosses his legs, his eyes not leaving mine. I can see the pain in them, but I steel myself to go on. I need to wipe out our past, and if that means being cruel, if that means lying to him about ever having feelings for him, then that’s where I’m going to go.

I take a deep breath, but I’m interrupted by a whoop and a screech as two small children run into the room, pursued by an appalled Yin.

82

It pains me to say it, but my second son, Talon, is everything my first is not.

When he’d run into the room I recognised him as mine instantaneously, and a lump immediately formed in my throat.

Talon was a strong, healthy, happy, little boy, with my features and his mother’s eyes.

His cousin, Marianna's daughter, was equally as enchanting, but I only had eyes for my youngest boy.

“He’s benefitted from his mother’s love,” I murmur after the brief introduction I was allowed as a ‘friend of the family’before he was ushered away. “The difference between my boys is remarkable.”

“It’s not that I’m here,” Angie shakes her head, her voice strained, “it’s that he’s not being poisoned by a princess determined to marry his father.”