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388 pages, Paperback
Published February 20, 2019


She hadn’t forgotten there were still so many secrets left between them.
“Do you think he would understand?”
It went beyond a simple miscommunication.
She couldn’t even say she was particularly evading.
She had outright lied to him about everything from the very beginning. It didn’t matter that she loved him with every part of her being and that none of that had been fake or pretend.
There was a chance none of that would matter to him at all.
He could very well just see it as a betrayal.
“It should no longer surprise me that you know as much as you do.”
She cringed, so easily forgetting herself and the careful life she had constructed, but she nearly breathed a very audible sound of relief.
“You’re very good at your job.”
She was.
But she was also very good at manipulating the truth to fit her needs.
They had that in common.
In this life she’d wanted for herself, she lived modestly within the means afforded to her by the paper. Everything about Uilleam, from the homes he bought to the cars he drove, were all grand in comparison.
Larger than life almost.
That was how he seemed.
So far above the clouds that he could be watched and admired but was too far away to actually be touched.
She wanted to right wrongs while he wanted to make more of them.
The impossibility of what they were had made her think maybe they were fated—that there could be something amazing between them because they fit like two puzzle pieces.
Now … now, she knew how wrong she had been.
She should have known better.
It was at this moment that she knew this was the man he was. Something dark and formidable hidden behind a beautiful smile. She hadn’t been foolish enough to believe she could change him. She’d just underestimated the monster that lived and breathed inside him.
The man who was willing to do anything to get what he wanted.
He’d shown her, more than once, but she’d elected to ignore it because she loved him.
Now … now, she had a choice to make.
It was time to leave.
“If you’re not in line with me,” he returned easily, meeting his stoic gaze, “then you’re already an enemy.”
The rumors were certainly true: It was very lonely at the top.
Karina, as much as he’d loved her and the way he felt as if he was complete when he was with her, had been a distraction. A beautiful distraction he’d quite enjoyed losing himself in as much as he possibly could, but to get to where he was now … he couldn’t be soft.
She’d made him that way.
But now that he was here, and people quaked in the face of his name alone, distraction or not, he wanted her back.

Was this what it felt like to die while still living?
It certainly felt that way.
She didn’t care that her wounds were healing, including the stitches down the length of her stomach, or that she was alive and breathing.
None of it mattered.
None of it made a difference because Poppy was still gone
