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A
my god, are y
the shouts ripped Aure
ght, refusing to move. The air in the room was wrong-someone else's c
all of her back, her own voice catching on words she
been d
ked itineraries, doctored board documents, something slipped into her drink when she
ything stupid! The reporters
noise beyond the door-more than one person. Celeste had brought an audience. Her plan was obvious:
ow sat a man, tall and motionless, a block of shadow agai
ed three months ago. She knew
e glanced back at her. His gaze was dark, unreadable. He wasn't s
Her heels had been kicked into opposite corners. At the foot of the bed sat a man
ed it on, her fingers u
gled murmur. Voices overlapping. The shuffle of fe
Her eyes had landed on th
he room and p
e cold marble floor. His own tie had been used to bind his hands behind his back. Another strip of fabric gagged his mouth, knotted tight at the b
rashing, muffled grunts
lia turned to Hart.
fety req
f pride. As if binding a sixty-year-old man and leavi
ll working its way out of her system. She caught the doorframe. From the ha
ange heat had curled low in her stomach and her thoughts had started to blur. She'd felt the warning signs and tried to head upstairs. When
s at her door
thing their father had left her. Aurelia had always treated h
er is happening, we can
th and walked toward the
around the col
ered hers. "I'l
ooked up at him. "Thi
anked the
alvo of flashbulbs. The shutters clat
arranged into a flawless mask of sisterly co
flat against Celeste's shoulder, stopping
thrust int
rue you were with Harr
are he's a m
engagement to Pr
old composure of someone who had long stopped caring what people thought. The si
ouched the corn
a deliberate
heets and a half-dressed man. Instead they saw Hart-tall and
s face froze. "Where.
er hand and snap
at later, dragging Finch out by the collar of his thousand-dollar suit. Finch tumbled onto the h
hrough the crowd. Every c
kward, the color dra
ned for me?" Aurelia's voice was s
her head frantically, tears springing to her ey
ing the performance. She wa
s gaze sweeping over the reporters-silent, cold, carrying a threat t
med the
stumbling backward-and then fell away, swallowed by the thick wood. She had shut them out. Every last one of them. Th
silence gathere
was a
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