He collapsed against my lap, the permanent furrow between his brows finally smoothing out. Stripped of his cold calculation, he looked almost harmless. Like a child.
"Selene... why... why can't it be me..."
The slurred murmur drifted up, and my entire body went rigid. I finally made out the name he'd been whispering through countless midnight dreams.
Selene Blanc. The woman who destroyed my mother. Who destroyed everything I had. The same woman who'd bullied me relentlessly, who dragged me into the dark. She was the moonlight he'd carved into his bones, the one he kept hidden in the deepest chamber of his heart.
Samuel had never forgotten her. Five years of tenderness and devotion had been nothing but a performance, a farce staged for Selene's benefit.
My mother's death. The collapse of my family's empire. The lie of my marriage. All of it was a show, orchestrated by my ex-fiancé and my husband to please Selene Blanc. My entire family had been nothing more than stepping stones.
I'd been too naive. Too stupid. I'd underestimated the depth of his obsession with her and foolishly mistaken this con for salvation.