Page 110 of Wedlock

I dress carefully tonight, a backless royal-green dress that he’d bought me on our last date in Paris, and scrutinise myself in the mirror.

My colour is too high, eyes too bright, and this dress is scarily similar in colour to the one I wore the night we first met, although its cut is entirely different, draping my body in soft folds to the knee, rather than sheathing it in fabric so tight I can’t walk.

“I’m an idiot,” I snarl at my reflection, “an absolute fucking idiot.”

“It’s been a month of dating,” Yin says from the doorway, “so, yes, if he isn’t bored by now, it’s fair to say your plan isn’tworking. And if you wear the sexy dress he bought you, then yes you’re an idiot – you’re sending him all the wrong signals.”

Sighing, I turn to her and shake my head.

“I’m trying not to, Yin. I keep hoping each date will be the last, but…”

‘But I’m falling more and more in love with him every time. Fucking hell, what am I doing? What am I going to do?’

“Are you sleeping with him?” She asks quietly.

“No!”

“Perhaps you should.”

“What? Yin, that’s ridiculous.”

“Your relationship, from what I gather, was mostly physical. You’re still a challenge if you’re holding out on him,” she shrugs, “maybe this is what he needs to finally get over you. Maybe he’s holding on to some memories that he’s glorified in his tiny, vicious little vampire mind.”

I look at the ceiling and roll my neck around, wincing as it cricks here and there.

Or maybe he remembered it just the way it was.

Mind-blowingly incredible.

Either way, sex with my husband is the last thing I need right now. And I’m not so sure it’ll make any difference to his seeming infatuation with me. His mother told me vampires love for life, and every indication he was giving, from the places he took me, the things he did for me and the things he said, were leaving no room for doubt that he believed that to be true. He’s made no secret of the fact that he wants me back.

As for sleeping with him, I know that if I do,I’llbe lost.

Right now it’s taking all my willpower to refuse his access once more to my heart. I have to actively remind myself of all the terrible things he’d done to stop myself from falling as deeply in love with him as I had been the day I married him.

That, and reminding myself of my duty to my children. To my special little girl.

But it was getting more difficult each time I saw him, and rather than have him learn to dislike the real me, our intimacy was growing.

On our last date we’d held hands. He’d taken one of mine as I trod down the timber steps of a Japanese teahouse and wobbled on my heels. He hadn’t released it as we’d wended our way through the gardens to the waiting limo. And I hadn’t withdrawn it, because it felt warm, and safe, and right, and his thumb, brushing back and forth across my knuckles had sent tingles all over my body. Just as it had the very first time we held hands.

So, yeah, my plan wasn’t working, and I was an idiot.

‘And I don’t know what to do.’

“You could be right, Yin,” I finally say. “I might need to sleep with him to get it out of his system.”

“Do what you need to do, or I’ll do what I have to do,” she says cryptically as she walks away.

“Right,” I mutter as I lean down to strap on my heels. “In other words, knock off his infatuation or you’ll knockhimoff. And hey, where are you going?”

“I’m doing another circuit of the mountain,” she says, not meeting my eyes as she straps silver knives to her thighs, “just routine.”

I frown as she leaves without saying goodbye.

Each night since Falcon’s first visit she’s been out supposedly just ensuring the perimeter of our mountain acreage is secure. But I’ve heard snatches of her conversations with Phil over the phone, and I think she’s putting contingencies in place that she doesn’t trust me to know about, in case I share them with a certain vampire. Contingencies that I fear might include a paramilitary group known to have a penchant for killing every vampire, and anyone who works for one, that they come across.

“Just routine,” I whisper as I give myself another check in the mirror. “Sure.”