Page 67 of Luna

I comb my fingers through his wet hair.

“Tell me the truth, Lucien. Tell me why you’re keeping me here.”

“Luna...”

“If you want me to trust you, you have to tell me the truth.”

There is a pause. Lucien has stopped moving. He takes his hands from my waist and then he’s gone. He’s no longer inside me. “Why would I care if you trust me?”

His tone is hard and dark. His eyes are dark, too.

“Because we...”

“What?” He swims to the edge of the pool and levers himself out of it, grabbing his clothes, cock still hard. When he turns to face me, he meets my eyes. “Because we fucked?”

He holds my gaze defiantly, daring me to challenge him and to say out loud that it was more than just fucking.

“You can tell me what to do when we’re in bed,” he growls. “But you don’t tell me how to run my business. You let me handle it. Understand?”

His tone sends shivers through me. Not the good kind. It reminds me of Steven, and my father, and suddenly I have no words. My strength is gone. My voice is stuck in my throat, and I feel like I want to cry and run and hide all at the same time.

“Do you understand?”

The last time he asked me that question, it was with tenderness. This time, he sounds vicious. He sounds like them.

I lower my gaze. I can’t look at him.

“Time to go back inside.” He strides to a small structure that looks like a pool house and returns seconds later with a towel. He stands at the top of the steps and holds it out for me.

Disappointment, embarrassment, and hurt hum on my skin.

As Lucien watches me, his whole body stiffens. He hands me the towel but does not wrap it around me or kiss me. Then he turns and marches back toward the house.

And I follow him. Because what else can I do?

Chapter 24

Lucien

Itake her back to her room and close the door without saying another word. I can’t look at her. Because the way she looked at me almost ended me.

She thinks I’m like them. The men who hurt her. In that one moment, by speaking to her as if she was nothing to me, I broke the trust she had in me. And I broke her.

Not the way they did.

But enough.

And I hate myself for it.

She believes love equals control, and that she can’t trust a lover to keep her safe. I was trying to prove her wrong, but I’m a monster. Of course, I can’t give her what she needs.

I don’t deserve her. I should have stayed away, kept watching her in the shadows. I should never have allowed myself the privilege of getting close to her.

Back in my study, I deliberately do not turn on the camera feed to her bedroom.

I can’t watch her crying.

My heart swells in my chest. What if she...? I think of the razor in her hand. Would she? Now that the trust between us is broken?