Page 51 of My Dark Prince
“Shit.” He swallowed. Licked his lips. “It’s truth time, isn’t it?”
Finally.
I nodded, silent.
“The truth is, you suffer from low vitamin D.” He sighed, grabbing a chunk of bread from the table and popping it into his mouth. “I know. My future wife. Not enough D. The irony is grotesque. But God has a way of making the cruelest jokes.”
Vitamin D?
He took a swig of the wine, soaking in my unspoken question. “Yes, you’re a vegetarian, but your doctors noted your blood test results in the past. I thought now would be a good time to introduce you to some red meat. You need zinc, B12, fatty acids, calcium, iron. The works.” He held up a hand, even though I hadn’t tried to speak. “I know, it’s terrible of me, but I couldn’t run the chance of youfainting when you walk down the aisle. I want to lock this shit down ASAP.”
“It’s unethical and completely out of line.”
“Sweetheart, it is one of the least shocking things I’ve done in the last week,” he muttered. “But I agree. I apologize.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “When is the wedding, anyway?”
“We haven’t set a date yet.”
The more time I spent with my fiancé, the more I believed he’d undersold the magnitude of our fight. But at the end of the day, the Briar and Oliver I remembered could survive any fight. We were so in love as kids. So radically loyal toward one another. Still, I needed to kill the tiny seed of doubt that sprouted in my stomach.
“I’m going to ask you some questions now, okay?” I put a hand on his shoulder.
His breath caught in his throat, and I felt a jolt, too. Of something foreign and weird. Of an unfamiliarity that churned my stomach.
“Okay.”
“Do I have a criminal history?”
He choked on his wine. “Only for being criminally hot.”
“Be serious.”
“You don’t have a criminal history.” Pause. “Not that I am aware of.”
“Do I have any tattoos?” I knew the answer to that question purely because I’d noticed the ink on my hipbone when I’d changed earlier.
Our eyes met, and his ran wild with something I couldn’t read. Desire, and anger, and alarm, and something else. Something darker. Much darker than I knew he was capable of. This wasOllie. My happy-go-lucky soulmate. What happened to him? Tous?
My nostrils flared. “You should know the answer to that one, Oliver. Do I have any tattoos, and if so, what are they of?”
The silence hung in the air like a guillotine.
He tipped his chin up, drawling slowly, “You have one tattoo. Hipbone.Fight like a girl. Lobster font. You like it whenI trace the letters with my fingertips, one at a time, while I eat you out. You like when I kiss it when I wake you up in the morning and lick you head to toe. You inked it the day you turned eighteen and realized your relationship with your parents was officially over. It was a reminder you don’t need them. That you have yourself.”
The seed shriveled up in my belly, dying a quick death. This was Oliver von Bismarck.MyOliver. Right, and authentic, and true. The boy who gave me blue roses and went to sleep every night with his phone ringer on the loudest setting, just in case I called for help. I was being weird. Silly. Ungrateful. Guilt sent a load of heat up to my cheeks. How could I even doubt him?
“I’m sorry.” I rounded the table and threw my arms over his shoulders, drawing him close. “I’m sorry for ever doubting you.”
He clasped my waist, burying his nose in my hair. “I’m the one who should be sorry for not keeping you safe.” A tremble passed through his body. “I’ll go make you Aglio e Olio.”
“I’ll come watch you and try not to rip your clothes off as you do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Oliver
She’d become a vegetarian. News to me.
