Page 141 of Broken Crown

His side looked barely slept in. Yet the memory of his arms holding me close through the night was still imprinted on my skin.

I hugged my knees to my chest and swept my gaze over the bedroom.

The weight of generations of wealth and power robbed the room of any sense of life or energy. It looked somber and masculine.

But there were cracks in the armor. Small ones.

His watch lay coiled on the nightstand. I knew the weight of it. I'd held it once while he'd showered, turning it over in my hands, pressing my thumb against the caseback to feel the movement ticking beneath the steel. A mechanical heartbeat. Proof that even cold, precise things could throb with something that mimicked life.

I looked away.

The ring was a shackle.

I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes until I saw white sparks.

This was what he'd done. Seeded himself into every mundane corner of my life until the extraordinary violence of our situation felt…domestic. Normal.

Here was a man who had orchestrated my entire career trajectory to weaponize me against my piece-of-shit father.

I dropped my hands.

Through the gap in the heavy velvet curtains, the first gray light of pre-dawn crept across the floor. It reached his jacket, still draped over the back of the chair where he'd tossed it last night.

I couldn't look at that jacket.

This room was a museum of all the ways I'd surrendered.

And every exhibit was damning.

Snatches of my fight with Sebastian refused to be ignored.

Love isn't enough.

But none of that mattered. Not really.

What haunted me now was the moment I told him I loved him—and he didn't say it back.

I rested my forehead on the tops of my knees and groaned.

It wasn't out of embarrassment or regret. There would be plenty of time for those emotions.

No, it was fear.

For Sebastian, information was power.

Knowing that I loved him gave him power over me.

A weakness he could exploit.

It made me even more vulnerable than I already was.

I rolled my head from side to side, my forehead rubbing against the hard bones of my knees. The blanket caught against the cut on my cheek, which still stung.

Fucking ring.

Not for a second did I think he truly planned to marry me.

It was just a power move to keep me under control.