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Chapter 12
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MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 13
ZARA'S POV "Are you quite sure about this, Zara?" The lady I've been staying with, Margaret asked, filling her eyes with concern, as she handed me a steaming cup of tea.With my hands wrapped around the mug, smelling first the soothing aroma of the chamomile, I responded, "Yes, Aunt Margaret. I have thought long and hard about it. This is the best decision for me."She heaved a sigh and sat down on the other side of me at the narrow kitchen table. In the fine wood grain that stretched between us, we could see the first sunbeams filtered through the lace curtains. "All I want is for you to be sure, dear. Once it's done, there's no going back.""I know," I said, infuriated, reaching out for the cup of tea and taking a sip to calm myself. "But bringing a child into this world under these conditions… that is not fair to anyone, let alone the baby."She reached across the table, her palm coming to rest over mine. It was a warm touch, very comforting in its way, much like everything that w
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 14
An hour went by with me pacing up and down my office floor, thoughts churning of what I would do when finally I had Zara back within my grasp. Mine. And she needed reminding of the fact. My phone buzzed an hour later with a new message that I grasped eagerly and read with so much anticipation. "I found her," the words said. "She is being held with an old Lady in a small cottage on the outskirts of town. Attached is the address." A slow, dangerous smile spread across my face. Now Zara was so near, this close, so near to being back to where she belonged. Not a minute could be wasted, and I instinctively tugged at my jacket, began for the door, and texted Ethan, That he should meet me by the car. We were off to see Zara, and it was high time that she learned she couldn't get away with it. The sun dipped under the horizon as Ethan and I turned into the drive, dragging long shadows across the landscape. The tension stirred between us, focusing into a core, sharp edge in the vacuum of s
MARRIAGE PACT 15
CHAPTER 15"'Still not thinking, love," I muttered, half to myself. "You need to come home, where you belong. We'll work this out, Zara. I swear it."She pulled again, but I wasn't about to lose her. "Kai, I don't belong to you, only this child does. I never did. If you were looking out for me, looking out for us, you wouldn't treat me the way you did."Actually, at this particular moment, I was just silent at the words that she said, cutting straight through the layers of anger and desperation that I had built around me. The words I am telling her are strange to my ears, the words that will make her understand that I am not the kind of monster in her view. But maybe, I am a monster. Not that it mattered; I could but barely let her slip away, not now, not ever.Zara wept, soundless, convulsive. "Please, Kai," she said, gasping the words, if you ever cared for me even a bit, make it such that at least I have a choice in this. Let me be free."Her words closed the room in on me, and I
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 16
ZARA'S POVAt last, Kai had won his battle. I woke up to a smelling fresh linen foreign in my nostrils, with a throbbing head. The previous day's events crashed over me, and I opened my eyes to the soft morning light that seeped through heavy drapes. Slowly, I rose into a sitting position, around me surveying the room clearly. My mind had been so weak with the word opulent when I took in a grand four-poster bed, antique furniture, and lush carpeting. All that luxury in the world could not make this place look more less than a prison, a gilded cage meant to hold me. I began kicking my legs across the bed and then down onto a cold floor below me, anchoring myself into reality. I needed to get out. Groggily, I looked around the room for some exit, anything. But there wasn't as all doors and windows closed tight at their handles while I pulled at them frantically.The door into the hall was open a crack. For one fleet moment, hope pumped through my veins. Maybe I could slip out unseen
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 17
Mrs. Adler's eyes sundered into mine, filled with a poison running my blood cold. Her dark, sharp features twisted into a scowl as she stepped toward me. In that frame, her elegance screamed of power and made me feel so small and inconsequential."'So this is the little runaway,' she sneered, her words dripping with contempt, loathing. “The ingrate who had the gall to humiliate our whole family before the whole city.”Somehow I swallowed and did my best not to step back, but oh, that bite from her words. And I felt my resolve weakening."Mother, enough," interposed Kai, stepping in between us. "This isn't her fault."Mrs. Adler turned on her a look that could freeze hell over. "Not her fault?" she repeated, very loudly. "She took off halfway through your welcome party, Kai! After everything that we did for her, after everything I did to her, she runs off like some common little thief!"I flinched at the razor-sharp tone, but Kai merely stood there, that hand still out to catch me shou
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 18
It was a little after mid-day, and I was pacing the floor. I tried to drive some of my thoughts from my brain when there was a knock on my door. My heart stopped a beat, and the door creaked open. and it was Madam Tess. Her visage was quite stifling; all the same, something seemed a hair off."Your father and sister are here to see you," she said quite formally.Blinking, my heart now thudding into my chest, but for an entirely different reason. Father and Lena really here? After everything that went on, after the humiliation I'd caused them, they really came?Madam Tess moved out of the way, gesturing to the room on the right. "They're waiting at the sitting room."I didn't speak a word for a moment, although my mind was running a mile a minute, wondering what they would say or think about me. Though it made it impossible to sidetrack my mind, I did press down a deep breath to square up my shoulder and walk out of the room behind her.I walked down the corridor, and in my mind, fear
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 19
KAI'S POVThe tension that washed over me was sledgehammer-like as I pushed the door open. The room didn't have any noise except the low hum of conversation flowing from the sitting room. A frown creased my brows as I moved forward through the corridor, pulled by the voice's inflection, Zara's voice. She wasn't alone this time. Her father, Mr Klein and her sister, Lena, were there with her. There I faltered in my stride; at the door sat Zara on a couch, her head tipped just a little forward, her eyes shifting around in quiet defiance. Beside her was her father, Mr. Klein—stiff in posture and steel in his voice while he spoke. Next came Lena, sitting beside her, trying to comfort her from the tension obviously etched into the atmosphere."Zara, you know better than this," he started, his voice low, though laced with disappointment. "You brought shame upon the lot of us. Do you even realize the kind of trouble you brought on yourself?"Zara just kept her eyes on the floor. Those fire-
MARRIAGE PACT Chapter 20
"Good morning, Zara," I said as I opened the door for her to the dining room, and then I sat and stared at her breakfast. Her hands were wrapped around a cup of tea, but her eyes wouldn't flinch away from mine. "Morning," she muttered back, barely above a whisper.I sprawled in the chair across from her, watching the tension in her form, her shoulders making this painful bowing, like she could make herself small enough to go away. I hated it. Didn't that just explain she refused to look my way? After what she'd seen me do yesterday, I knew she was still so angry at me. It was her right to be, but still, I had to try. I had to make things right."C'mon, you need to eat something," I coaxed, softly. "You've hardly taken a bite out of that."Finally, she looked up; those eyes were cold—ice-like, just like the stare she had been giving me since she stormed into the study yesterday. "I'm not hungry."Well, that would have been an uphill task. That wasn't going to stop me, though. I had s
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