Chapter 4: You'll Like It

Evelyn's Point of View

A moment later came the sound of silk tearing.

"Ah!"

For a full three seconds I couldn't move. Then I screamed.

"You're insane! I don't know you!" My eyes flew wide, and something in my head pulled tight as a wire.

"Evie, you never used to talk to me like that." Sebastian lowered his head, and I felt his breath against my skin, heavier now. "Be good. Call me Seb."

"No." I was close to breaking.

"I said, call me Seb." He pressed the point, fixed on that single name in a way that chilled me.

I had no other move left. "Seb," I choked out. "It's a mistake, I swear. Please let me go. Or find Julian, he can explain everything."

"Good girl." He pressed a kiss over my racing heart, and his voice turned cold and dangerous. "Julian. I will find him, just not tonight."

Something in that registered. "You know Julian?"

"Tonight is our wedding night, Evie. I won't waste it on people who don't matter." His arm circled my waist, and his mouth traveled slowly along my collarbone.

That was when I understood. This was no accident. None of it was. The swapped gown, the stalled car, the man waiting at the end of the aisle had been planned, every step, by the man holding me now.

"Relax," he murmured. "You'll like it." His dark eyes were full of longing and tenderness, and under both of them, a resolve that would not bend.

My heart went cold.

The next thing I knew, I was on the bed, and the rest of the night dissolved into a blur I couldn't hold on to.

When I woke, the other side of the bed was empty.

I dragged myself upright, my body aching. The room was unfamiliar, all European opulence, gilt and velvet and polished wood. My wedding gown lay in ruins, so I gave up and wrapped myself in the thin blanket instead.

I had barely stood when the door opened. Sebastian walked in with a breakfast tray.

"You're up. Come eat." The face that looked at me was devastatingly handsome, and impossibly warm, a soft smile on his mouth like morning sun. It was nothing like the wolf of the night before.

I stared at him in terror. I wanted to run.

"You have two choices," he said, his gaze drifting over me, hot and slow, as if the blanket weren't there. "You eat breakfast, or I eat you."

I swallowed my fear. "Breakfast."

He set the tray on the table, then hooked an arm around my waist and settled me on his lap as if I were a child, and fed me one spoonful at a time. I couldn't taste any of it. I finished the whole bowl of congee anyway.

"That's my Evie," he said, smiling down at me. "So good."

He said it the way you'd praise a little girl, and I hated how it made my skin crawl and my pulse stumble at once.

I shifted, trying to slide off his knees, and froze. Something hard and unmistakable pressed against my thigh.

"You were just being good, and now you're not." His smile deepened. "You worked hard last night, so I'll let you off for now."