“Sully...” Her eyes sprung with tears, knowing without words everything I thought. “Stop.” She cupped my cheek, making me flinch. “Stop torturing yourself with lies you know are pointless.”

I captured her wrist, pulling her touch away. “They’re not pointless if they achieve what I need.”

“What you need is me.”

I huffed miserably. “What I need is for you to be free.”

“I am free.” She smiled sadly. “I’m free because I’m with you.”

Skittles and Pika flew into the wardrobe, bravely venturing to see if the aggressive lust between us had dispersed. The aggression might’ve faded, but our lust would never dim. It existed between us in every stare, sigh, and stroke.

Fuck...I can’t do it.

You have no choice.

Arming myself against the perfect image of Eleanor as Skittles descended trustingly onto her shoulder, I swallowed back my heartbreak.

Pika chirped, sensing my despair, and landed on my head despite my wet hair. He tugged at my strands, making my heart bleed harder.

I would still have one thing that loved me.

I’d survived my entire life with just a parrot’s love.

I could survive again.

Balling my hands, I said as coldly and as carefully as I could, “Our time is over, Eleanor. I won’t disrespect you by lying. I won’t stand here and attempt to make you believe I never loved you. But I will demand loyalty and obedience. I’m not asking, I’m telling. You are leaving tonight. You may remember me, but you will never see me again.”

I braced myself for her tirade.

I held an invisible crutch so I wouldn’t fall into a worthless beggar at her feet.

But a fist hammered on the door, real life intruded, and the clock finished its final countdown.

Tearing my gaze from hers, I cupped my cock for decency and stormed to face my fate.

Chapter Eight

PAIN.

There were different levels of it. Different methods of it. Different versions of different reasons full of different deliveries.

But this pain?

The pain Sully had just punctured me with?

I couldn’t breathe around it. I couldn’t see beyond it. I’d honestly never felt such catastrophic, claustrophobic...

Pain.

Not because I believed he didn’t love me. Not because he’d dishonoured me by trying to make me swallow a lie. But because he was resolute, resigned...deadened to his decision and already suffering the accompanying agony.

He can’t do this.

He can’t end us.

It was unthinkable.

Stumbling forward, I clutched the doorframe as Sully marched naked with Pika on his head to answer the door. For anyone else, the image would be comical. For Sully, it made him all the more royal. All the more regal and untouchable.

Keeping his hand between his legs, he swung open the door, his back straight, his muscles locked.

A guard I’d seen lurking around the gardens during my weeks here bowed his head in respect. “Your clothes, courtesy of Mr. Moor.”

Sully took the bundle. “Tell him thanks. His inability to keep his nose out of other people’s business has proven to be convenient.”

The guard nodded. “He also advised that the men are at their posts. We’re ready.” Pulling something from his waistband, he placed it on top of Sully’s clothing. His eyes didn’t stray from his boss’s face; the fact that he was nude didn’t seem to faze him. “Your weapon, sir.”

Weapon?

My heart skipped, adding worry to my pain.

Why had the entire island suddenly turned black with foreboding?

I stumbled from the walk-in wardrobe as Sully closed the door and strode toward my bed. I followed him, dazed and soul sore, hating the dread covering my heart in sticky tar.

My eyes locked on the weapon.

A gun.

Black and lethal, despicable and menacing.

The sight of the morbid gun on my pristine white sheets petrified me.

The truth of the matter swarmed into comprehension.

His brother was coming here. His brother was going to try to kill him. His brother was the reason for all of this awful pain.

“Sully...” I moved toward him, my eyes drinking him in as he tugged on a black pair of boxer-briefs, black slacks, and a black shirt. A uniform intended to camouflage him in the dark. A solider ready for bloodshed.

I ignored his lies about us being over. I pretended what he’d said in the wardrobe never happened, and I tried a different tactic. “If you want me to leave...come with me.”

He sighed heavily as if my attempt at compromise was too hard for him to handle. “Enough, Jinx.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut, and groaned low in his chest. “Enough.”

“You don’t get to shut me out just because you’ve made a decision. That’s not how a relationship works.”

“A relationship...?” His eyebrows tugged low over his tortured gaze. “We don’t have a relationship. I told you...we’re over.”

“I’m doing my best to be respectful of what you’ve been through in the past few hours, but your decision to cut me from your life without talking to me is by far the cruellest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Cruellest?” He chuckled darkly. “Has your love for me blinded you so completely?”

“It’s because of my love for you that I’m willing to stand up and refuse your decision to send me—”

“I’m doing it so I won’t do anything worse to you.” His temper flared. “I’m doing it because I don’t have a goddamn choice. Enough, Jinx.”

Pika swooped from Sully’s hair, dislodged by his shout. He landed on the sheets, glowering at the gun. He squawked in his stilted English. “Bye-bye! Pika!”

Skittles trilled loudly, landing beside her feathered brother, also glaring at the gun as if they both knew it caused mayhem and murder.

Sully huffed, nudging Pika away from attacking the trigger and grabbing the weapon from both parrots. Keeping his jaw locked against Pika’s antics as he pecked at the sheets in frustration, he tucked the gun between his spine and waistband.

He sighed again, gathering final courage to finish this.

I won’t let him.

He can’t.

“Help me understand what you saw over there. Tell me, purge to me...maybe if you share—”

His lips thinned as he shook his head sharply. “I never want to discuss what happened there.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t get the images out of my head; I won’t cement them any further with conversation.”

“It might help.”

His chin tilted up, his turbulent gaze meeting mine. “The only thing that will help is knowing you’ll be far away from me. Far from my brother and his threats. Far from me with my tendencies. This was a mistake. You were a mistake. It’s time I rectified that.” With muscles braced, he stormed over to me, clamped his strong hands on my cheeks, and kissed me.

He kissed me as if he wanted to destroy me.

A crackle of chemistry.

A sizzle of sensuality.

A bone-deep longing that would never end.

A mistake?

This wasn’t a mistake...we were the only thing that made sense.