Page 2 of Beautiful Villain
My laugh came out sharp and brittle.“Thenyoumarry him.”
He flinched.“Lower your voice.”
“Why?”My pulse hammered.“Is he listening already?”
George glanced down the hall, then grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the room.His grip was clammy.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered.“I didn’t have a choice.”
Neither did I.Funny how that worked.
“You gambled,” I hissed.“Again.”
His mouth tightened.“I’m sorry.”
“And this time, you gambled my life away.After youpromised!”
I sounded like a petulant child, even to my own ears—one breath away from stomping my feet for emphasis.
The organ music shifted—something slow, solemn.A warning bell.We were entering the final moments of me being a free woman.My chest felt too tight.I needed air.Space.Something that wasn’t closing in on me from every side.
“I won’t survive this,” I said.“You know that.”
“He won’t hurt you if you behave,” my father said quickly.“He needs a wife.A respectable image.If you give him that?—”
“He killed his last fiancée,” I reminded him.
There was a hesitant beat before he responded.
“That was a rumor.”
“She disappeared.”
Another beat.Longer this time.
George’s silence was the loudest thing in the room.
“Please,” he said finally.“Just do me this favour and get through today.”
Then what?
Something in me cracked.I stepped back.
“I need to use the restroom.”
“You were just in?—”
“I’m going to throw up on your shoes,” I said flatly.
He hesitated.Then he stepped outside.I closed the door and retreated into the room, heart pounding like it was already trying to escape without me.
I locked the bathroom door with shaking hands and pressed my forehead against the wood, breathing once.Then I pushed off and moved for the window before my courage remembered it had survival instincts.
I caught my reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror as I passed.If I didn’t do this, I’d be a bride in a gilded cage.And cages, no matter how shiny, were still cages.I’d wither in it.Wings clipped.Voice silenced.Probably die politely, the way women like me were expected to—quietly and inconveniently.
The restroom window was small and set high on the wall—because of course it was.I gave it a quick, ruthless assessment and figured I had five minutes tops before George came barging through the door again, threatening to carry me down the aisle.
I lifted the hem of my dress and climbed onto the toilet.
