My heart is fucking pounding as I enter the room. Tallulah’s peaceful form is buried under a mountain of duvets, and she stirs awake as I near her bed.
“Xavier?” She rubs her eyes and smiles sleepily when our gazes connect. “What are you doing here?”
“Yes,” I nod. “But it’s after midnight. Which means it’s officially your birthday.”
“It was my birthday the last time we spoke...”
“I know. I just wanted to give you a few presents already.”
“Right now?” She giggles. “But it’s so late!”
She pushes her shapely legs out of the bed and onto the hardwood floor. She’s wearing a short champagne-colored nightie with white lace trimming the edges, and I fucking swear my heart skips a beat when I see her in the innocent yet daring get-up.
“I don’t care,” I mutter, placing a tiny, carefully wrapped package on the coffee table. “Open this one first.”
Tallulah slips on a silk robe and comes to sit in front of me, her eyes wide as she picks up the small box. With wonder, she pulls on the ribbon and lifts the lid of the box, her eyes finding mine when she finds a key on a velvet pillow.
“A key?”
“It’s for this room,” I tell her with a smile. “I don’t want you to feel like you're staying here by force. You’re free here, Tallulah. I only ask that you put your safety first and don’t wander beyond the perimeter of the property.”
She nods and gives me a soft smile, but I can tell this isn’t exactly what she wanted. I reach for her trembling hand across the coffee table, asking, “What’s wrong?”
“I just... I’m worried I won’t be able to see Mathilda and my parents,” she says in a soft tone. “I know they’ll miss me while I’m gone. Do you know when I’m going to go back?”
I swallow the reply on my tongue, the word too ominous to share with Tallulah just yet. Because all I want to tell her is, she’ll never be able to return to her family. She’s my property, always fucking was. Just because I took her a year too soon doesn’t mean I’m going to go back on my deal.
I could tell her the truth right now. Explain everything. And yet I’m hesitating. Wondering whether the truth is going to make her hate me.
“Tallulah, we need to talk about something important,” I mutter. “There’s a arrangement I made with your parents when your mother was pregnant. How much have they told you about me?”
“Not much at all,” she mutters, running a hand through her long blonde locks. “They said you were a business associate of Dad’s, and that I need to be polite around you.”
I nod thoughtfully. It makes sense Heath and Rain didn’t share more details with their daughter. It would only make her afraid.
“When Rain was pregnant, she was married to me,” I go on unceremoniously, watching my ward’s eyes go wide. “She wanted a divorce so she could be with your father.”
“You and my mom were... married?”
I nod. “Unhappily so.”
“And she cheated on you... with my dad?”
“We had a... strained relationship,” I mutter, watching realization sink in for Tallulah. “But I wanted her to be happy. However, you know I’m known as ruthless. I couldn’t just give up my wife without a punishment. So Rain and Heath made a pact with me. To give up their firstborn once you turned eighteen.”
“Why?” she whispers. “Did they not want me?”
There are tears in her eyes when her gaze meets mine and a pang of regret hits me hard. It’s an emotion I feel rarely, an unfamiliar feeling. I don’t fucking like it.
I squeeze Tallulah’s hand to reassure her, saying, “Of course they wanted you, angel. They wanted you badly. But I couldn’t let them keep you, could I? Their decisions came with consequences.”
She doesn’t respond, staring at empty space with a broken expression. So many things must make sense to her right now. Maybe she’s finally realized why her parents always put her after Mathilda.
“We agreed you’d come to live with me when you turned eighteen,” I mutter. “If you’d been a boy, I’d initiate you into the cartel world. But since you’re a girl...”
The sentence hangs between us unfinished. The tension in the room is palpable and I can tell Tallulah’s scared.
“Yes?” she asks, her voice shaky.
“I need a new wife,” I finally mutter. “I need heirs, I need a partner, and I picked you before you were even born.”
All the color drains from her face, making me pull my hand back so I don’t spook her. But she’s slowly coming to terms with it, and if that traitorous flush in her cheeks is anything to go by, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It has made Tallulah hate her parents, not me.