Page 100 of The Tower

I still have the cake, and I take another bite before answering. “You’re Grimm to me. The man I used to not trust who now brings me cake.” I meet his eyes, feeling my cheeks heat. “Unless you’d rather I call you Liam?”

For a moment, he says nothing, then he smiles, slow and deliciously sexy. “That’s okay, Princess. You can call me whatever you like,” he says, his voice dropping to that register that seems to vibrate through my entire body. “So long as I can call you mine.”

The possessiveness should alarm me. After a lifetime of being my father’s property, I should recoil from anyone staking a claim. But that’s not how I feel.

Instead, a sense of belonging crests inside of me. Something that has nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with choice.

“That seems fair,” I say, the words barely above a whisper.

He lifts his hand to cup my cheek. His touch is gentle, almost reverent, and I lean into it without thinking. “Say it,” he urges, his eyes never leaving mine. “Say you’re mine, Princess. Say that I own you. All of you.”

It’s a demand, not a request. Controlling. Maybe even a bit manipulative.

But it’s real, too. And there is a choice buried inside.

And even though the choice I will make is inevitable, somehow it still feels real.

Mine.

Just like I am his.

“I am,” I whisper. “I’m yours.” And the words feel like the truest thing I’ve ever said.

The kiss is gentle at first, even sweet. Then it slides into something wild. Something like claiming. Something primal and hot that completely makes me forget that we’re in the middle of a crowded party.

His hand slides to the back of my neck, holding me close as his mouth moves against mine with a hunger that matches my own. I hear the distinctive click of cameras and phones—but can’t bring myself to care.

When he finally pulls back, I’m breathless, my heart hammering against my ribs. The world around us seems distant, muted, as if we exist only in our own pocket of reality.

“Your brother will have a field day with those photos,” I murmur, nodding toward the photographers who are now pretending not to stare.

“Let him,” Liam says, his arm wrapping around my waist. “I’m not hiding this. Not hiding you.”

The words warm me from the inside out, but reality intrudes, cold and insistent. “My father will try to use it at the hearing,” I say. “He’ll say you’ve brainwashed me, that I’m being manipulated, that it’s Stockholm syndrome.”

Liam’s expression turns hard, determined. “We have it locked in, Sasha. Your father won’t win this time.”

I frown, doubt creeping in despite his confidence. Ruby’s warning about the Grimm-Reed feud whispers at the back of my mind. What if this is all part of Grimm’s revenge? What if I’m just collateral damage in a war that started before I was even born?

“In my experience, things go wrong more often than they go right,” I say.

“Not anymore,” he says, his voice low and fierce.

And then he’s kissing me again, right there in front of Alexander Grimm’s society guests, press cameras clicking like mad. His arm tightens around me, pulling me against him, and I surrender to the kiss, to him.

In that moment, surrounded by whispers and stares and the weight of who we’re supposed to be, I allow myself to believe him. To trust that this time, things might actually work out the way we hope.

It’s probably naïve, but as his lips move against mine—as his hands hold me close—I can’t bring myself to care about the risks. The world disappears, and all that remains is this man, this moment, this choice I’m making with my eyes wide open.

For the first time in my life, I’m exactly where I want to be.

And still, Ruby’s warning echoes in my mind: The Grimms have their own agenda. Always have.

I push the thought away, losing myself in Liam’s kiss. Whatever agenda he might have, whatever secrets still lie between us, I’ll face them tomorrow. Tonight is for us—for this fragile, unexpected thing blooming between captor and captive, enemy and ally, Grimm and Reed.

Tonight, I choose to believe in something better than the prisons we’ve both lived in for so long.

Thirty-Two