His head lowered, his lips brushing against my earlobe. “You drive me utterly mad,” he repeated, his voice still soft, against the back of my neck. “With that fucking cello. Looking like a goddamn angel under that chandelier sent to taunt me with her pretty fucking grey eyes. Playing the cello like a sad love song, your broken soul bleeding through it.”
His hand tightened around mine, pressing the blade deeper against my throat, enough that I felt a burning sensation and I just knew, the sword had cut through my skin. A drop of my blood trickled down my throat and my chest heaved with a shaky breath.
“So fucking haunting. So goddamn beautiful. How dare you, Julianna?” Killian rasped into my ear. “How dare you make me look at you as someone other than Gracelynn’s killer? It’s not fair for you to have such power over me.”
His confession almost broke me completely, his words a lethal combination of wrath and confusion. A hint of awe and a lot of sorrow.
Killian pulled away, his warmth leaving my back, no longer cocooning me with its sweet poison. I dropped the rapier at my feet, my body trembling. When I spun around, he was gone.
Killian had disappeared as if he had never been here as if the memory was all in my head. But his scent still lingered and I tasted it on my tongue. My skin still tingled from his touch and my heart was in shambles, his words still echoing in my ears.
I couldn’t go back in that ballroom. I couldn’t face these people without Killian as my shield. And I couldn’t look into their eyes and act like my marriage was anything but perfect.
Because my story was a flawed and an imperfect tale.
And I no longer had the courage to keep up with this pretty lie and perfect ruse.
I took off my heels and with unsteady bare feet, I walked away and took the stairs to the East wing. The longer I stayed in this cursed castle, the harder it came to hang onto my sanity – or whatever was left of it. These ghosts haunted me, reminding me of how this castle held nothing but tragic love stories.
My repentance came with a cost.
My bleeding heart. My shattered soul. And my fragile sanity.
Have I atoned for my sins now? How much more before it’s enough?
I limped into my room, but came to a halt at the doorway. The stranger sitting on my bed stood up when he realized I was standing there.
“Julianna,” he said, a voice so familiar – a voice I haven’t heard in three long years and my stomach hollowed, a sick feeling curling inside me.
He lifted his masquerade mask off his face and gave me a grin, filled with pain and longing.
“Simon,” I breathed.
It didn’t matter how desperate I was to bury my secrets.
When it came to all my lies, my past was quickly catching up to me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Killian
“Killian,” my father called out as I stalked down the corridor, away from the ballroom, away from everyone.
I came to a halt, my fists clenching at my side. “Yes, father?”
He stomped over, coming to stand in front of me, blocking my escape. “Where’s Julianna?”
I flinched at the sound of her name. “I don’t know,” I gritted.
His eyes turned into slits and his jaw tightened in a way that should have been a warning. But I just didn’t give a shit anymore.
Julianna Spencer had me in knots and I was just so goddamn confused. I was supposed to hate her; I still did – but why the fuck did my heart ache when I looked at her?
Thirty days and thirty nights with Julianna and now I was questioning my own feelings for her. How ironic. I vowed to make her life miserable, yet she was my nightmare. I was the monster; she was the villain. What a fucking pair, we were.
“You can’t just leave the guests like this. Both you and Julianna left the ballroom and the guests will talk,” my father said, his voice thick with warning. I could see him controlling his temper.
He knew this was all a ruse – this perfect image of Julianna and I as a couple.
But how long could I and Julianna keep this façade going, when we couldn’t even spend one day without turning our marriage into a bloody battlefield?
There was too much history between Julianna and I – our pasts way too intertwined with our present for us to have a better future. My hatred and her repentance. Her sorrow and my rage.
I took a deep breath and concealed my emotions, giving my father a calm and composed expression. I was Killian Spencer – a man with restraint. It didn’t matter that I had a wife who made me feel so out of control, I had to be contained.