Twisted Kingdom (Royal Elite 3)

Aiden is the type of deviant who feeds on hysterics. The best way to win against him is to reverse his own tactics, disrupt his thought process, and keep him in the dark.

Due to his lack of empathy, he has a knack for reading people. He relies so much on intuition and logic; they’re his greatest assets. It’s almost impossible to shuffle his formation or make a move he didn’t already anticipate.

However, I have one advantage.

I know him so well that I’m able to look him in the eye and seal all my emotions inside.

If he’s searching for a fit of anger, he won’t be getting any.

“You disappeared on me,” he continues after a moment of silence. “I understand you’re angry, but you didn’t hear my side of the story, Elsa.”

Angry? How about waking up in the middle of the night to find myself crying and my chest squeezing painfully? How about the sense of betrayal I’ve been blocking out so I don’t break into pieces?

His side of the story? Fuck that.

Fuck him.

He has no side of the story. He kept a fucking engagement a secret while I was going berserker on the girl who had more right to him than I ever would.

The bastard reduced me to being the other woman.

It’s such a dirty, humiliating place to be, and I’ll never forgive him for that.

I lift my dress and start to pass him.

Aiden grips me by the arm. His touch would’ve set me on fire before, now it’s just… so cold.

So freezing.

So wrong.

“I said,” he enunciates as if I didn’t hear him the first time. “You didn’t hear my side of the story.”

I wiggle my arm free and surprisingly he releases me.

That’s a first.

I take two steps when his lethal, hard voice stops me in my tracks. “You made a promise, Elsa. Fucking keep it.”

“If you don’t keep your promises, why should I keep mine?” My voice is so calm, it’s kind of haunting.

I don’t turn around or face him.

He chose this. He chose to have us in a place where my back is the only thing he sees.

“I don’t give promises I don’t keep. You’re the one who does that over and over again. I told you loving me is a one-way road. I told you not to say the fucking words if you didn’t mean them.”

I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. “I meant those words. I love you, Aiden, but I also love myself enough to walk away from you.”

And then I head back inside.

The urge to cry hits me like a sudden natural disaster; hard and destructive. Still, I don’t cry. I won’t shed tears for him. I won’t be reduced to the victim he wants me to become.

Pain grips the centre of my chest. It’s deep and affects every layer of my heart.

I thought if I admitted I still love him, the pain would lessen.

I thought wrong.