Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

tten so sharp, his veins so defined, or if he appeared so because in this moment he was deadly.

His eyes softened.

Then they calcified to rock.

“This is it for us, Abigail. This has always been us.” He gestured at Ned’s prone body on the soft sand. “You’re the princess. I’m the dog. Just let me do my fucking job.”

He turned away, and I knew he was officially done humoring me.

Panic crawled up my lungs.

Ned didn’t get to take this from me. Not Theo. Not after everything I’d sacrificed.

So I did the only thing I could think of—I lunged at Theo, grasping his arm, pinning him with the move he’d taught me.

Thirty-Six

THEO

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” She pressed my right arm to my back. “Pinning you to the ground.”

I exhaled, took a breath, and stood up, shaking Abigail off. She was easier to get off my back than an ant—too easy. Abigail flew backward and I grasped her wrist, catching her before she fell.

Her eyelashes fluttered, eyes wide.

So pretty, too fucking beautiful. I was distracted, distracted by her big, surprised eyes. By the muted red of her lips in the dark night.

Fuck, I’d missed her.

It wasn’t lost on me she’d used a move I taught her, and that made me want to crush my lips to hers, pin her myself and slam my dick in her until she submitted. I was distracted by the Abigail of it all.

Too distracted, because in the blink of a second I’d lost myself, Ned stood up and ran away.

She grasped my wrist with two hands. “Let him go, Theo.”

Ned ran awkwardly down the beach, slipping on small dunes of sand. I ground my jaw, split between wanting to catch him and keep touching her.

“I’ve let him go too many times,” I said.

Her eyes were shining. “You’ve let me go too many times.”

The wind blew, whipping her sable-brown curls around her cheeks the same way it had the night she’d picked me off this beach. And with that distraction, I watched Ned Harlington run the fuck away.

“He’ll hurt you,” I said.

“He doesn’t want me anymore.”

“How can you be so fucking sure, Abigail?”

“I’m… I’m not,” she admitted. “But I’m pretty sure.” The engagement ring on her finger sparkled in the moonlight. It looked more like Abigail than it did Ned.

I looked down the beach. I could still get him.

She grasped my face, palms cupping my cheek, drawing my attention back to her.

“I love you, Theo. Even if you don’t want me, even if you can’t give me your love, even if you never will. I love you.”