《When I’m Gone, You Love》全部章節：第 131 章 - 第 140 章

Beatrice's POVI didn't flinch.Cedrick stood close enough that I could feel the heat of his wolf against my skin, and his words about wanting to kill Martin were still hanging in the air between us, and every instinct I had was telling me to step back and lower my eyes and survive the moment the way I'd survived every moment with this man for years.Instead, I stepped forward."You can't touch Martin," I said. "His family is just as powerful as yours, and unlike you, he cares about me. He has cared about me for years, Cedrick. Without conditions, without chains, without throwing money at me to keep me quiet."His jaw tightened. The gold in his eyes burned brighter."Have you fallen in love with him?" he asked. His voice was low and rough, scraped from somewhere that sounded less like anger and more like a wound. "Is that why you betrayed me?"The word betrayed sat between us like a blade. He considered my leaving a betrayal. Three years of raising a child alone in a fishing town, thr

Beatrice's POVThe bar was dark and loud and smelled like spilled beer and cheap cigarettes, and I had been sitting in a corner booth for two hours waiting for a man who wasn't coming.Martin's contact had said Jin would be here tonight. A meeting with a local property developer, eight o'clock, the booth near the back entrance. I had arrived at seven-thirty and ordered water and positioned myself where I could see the door and the back hallway and every face that came through either one.Eight o'clock passed. Then nine. Then nine-thirty.Jin didn't come. The booth near the back entrance stayed empty, and the bartender had started giving me the look reserved for women who sat alone in bars for too long without ordering anything stronger than water.My wolf was restless inside me, pressing against my ribs with a frustration that matched my own. Three years of tracking, weeks of planning, two hundred miles of driving, and the man I was hunting had either changed his plans or been tipped

Beatrice's POVI woke to the smell of cedar and iron and the weight of an arm across my waist.My eyes opened. Morning light came through curtains I didn't recognize, falling across sheets I hadn't slept in before, and beside me, his face turned toward mine on the pillow, his breathing deep and even, was Cedrick.I sat up so fast the room spun."What are you doing here?" I pulled the sheet against my chest and pressed my back against the headboard. Cedrick opened his eyes and smiled, "You invited me," he said."I did not.""You pulled me onto the bed. You kissed me. You told me to stay." He sat up, and the sheet fell to his waist, and the morning light caught the twenty scars on his back as he turned. "Twice."The memories came back in pieces. The bar. The drugged drink. The room with the stripped mattress. Cedrick's arms lifting me out. And then, with a clarity that made my stomach drop, the hotel. My hands on his collar. My mouth finding his. My voice saying stay, and meaning it, a

Beatrice's POVI woke to the smell of butter and eggs and the sound of my son laughing.The laughter came from the kitchen, bright and unrestrained, the kind of full-body joy that only a four-year-old could produce at seven in the morning. I pulled on a robe and walked down the hallway, and the scene I found stopped me in the doorway.Cedrick stood at the stove. He wore his shirt from yesterday with the sleeves rolled up and a dish towel thrown over his shoulder, and he was flipping something in a pan while Elan sat on the counter beside him, his legs swinging, his face smeared with flour. A bowl of batter sat between them, and the counter was dusted with powder, and Cedrick was telling the boy something about the proper way to crack an egg that involved a demonstration so exaggerated it made Elan shriek with laughter.He looked up when I appeared. His eyes found mine across the small kitchen, and the expression on his face was one I had never seen before. Three years ago, this man h

Beatrice's POVI read the name on the document three times.My eyes moved across the letters, and my brain rejected them, and I read them again. The ink was old and slightly faded, but the handwriting was precise, and the signature at the bottom of the page was one I had seen a hundred times on letters and notes and the small cards he tucked inside gift boxes for my son.Martin.Martin's name. Martin's signature. Martin's handwriting on a commission order dated six years ago, authorizing the framing of Callum for the murder of Cedrick's sister. Martin's seal pressed into the wax at the bottom of the page, the same seal I had seen on the letters his owl delivered to my windowsill.I checked again. I held the paper closer to th