The Don's Wife, The Brother's Whore
Liora Havenwe kept her in the cellarframed and forgotten, the heiress came back from ashesi fell in love with my maidher tears were my light
Like something that had been decided.
When he pulled back, he was still close.
"I love you," he said.
I blinked.
He held my gaze, and whatever I was searching for, the clause, the joke, the escape hatch, wasn't there.
"I love you," he said again. Then, quieter: "Now I can have you to myself."
Then he continued. "I'm going to marry you."
A laugh came out of me before I could organize a response. "You're not serious."
He was looking at me the way he looked at things he'd already decided.