“No.” I couldn’t fault her for thinking that. “I have provenance for it. I’ll make sure you can access that.” I’d have to install a safe that only she had codes for, but it would be worth it. “But at any given moment, you have access to a fortune. If you’re careful with it, you could live very well for the rest of your life on that amount of money...”
She blinked up at me, that damn bottom lip of hers back between her teeth. “T-Thank you, Brennan.”
“You haven’t heard the deal yet,” I teased.
Camille gulped and said, “Of course not. Sorry.” Then she broke my heart. She reached up and swiped at her eyes.
This woman, this crazy, fucking woman who hadn’t cried once yesterday, had wet eyes now.
How I didn’t haul her into me, I’d never know. My hands itched with the need to hold her close, to have her in my arms, but this had to be done.
“Don’t be sorry,” I rumbled, and I gave into temptation and let my hand cup her shoulder. My fingers spread out over the bare skin, and I watched as her body gave her away, just like I hoped it always would—a wave of goose flesh whispered down her bicep.
“What’s the deal?” she whispered, peeking at me with liquid green eyes.
“Remember I told you that I’d tie you to the bed if I caught you self-harming?”
She licked her lips. “I remember. You said you’d spank me and make me come hard enough to forget why I was cutting too.”
“Well, I recognize that wasn’t the right command to make,” I drawled, noticing the flush of arousal on her cheeks.
“No?”
“No. That might incentivize it,” I told her gruffly, smirking when her cheeks flushed even more. “See? I know you’re getting hot just thinking about it, and one day, Iwilltie you to the bed, but I don’t want it to be because of that. That’s not what we’re about.” I tipped up my chin. “Unless you don’t like how I’ve treated you in the bedroom?”
Her brow puckered with genuine confusion. “You taught me what a climax is. How couldn’t I like that?” She bit her lip. “Unless,youdon’t… want, I mean, maybe you don’t like—”
Her goddamn insecurities.
I squeezed her shoulder and told her, “I want you. I don’t want anyone else, that’s how much I want you, Camille. Any which fucking way you’ll have me, but just because I need that, doesn’t mean you like it.” It didn’t mean that a queen wanted to be treated the way I treated her...
She pressed her hand to my chest and then she nearly had my eyes crossing as she purred, “I love what we do together.”
My throat felt like an orange was stuck in it as I rasped, “Okay, then. So I’m not going to incentivize this. What we do together isn’t going to be reduced to that level.”
“What we do together is about you being nasty in the sack, huh?”
“Exactly,” I said with a grin, “and you loving every step of my being nasty.” My grin softened as I carried on, “Now, my deal is, when you want to cut, you come talk to me. You call me if I’m not home. Or you text me if you don’t want to talk—”
“That’s not practical,” she inserted, shaking her head. “You won’t always be able to answer—”
“That’s my point, Camille,” I rumbled. “I willalwaysmake time for you, okay?” A gasp escaped her, and I nodded. “Now, the day you decide you can’t talk to me, or call me, or text me, that’s the day I want you to grab this coin and I want you to sell it so you can make a new life somewhere else.”
Her brow puckered. “You wouldn’t want me if I cut myself?”
“It’s not about wanting you, Camille.” I groaned, then grabbed her and dragged her into me. “Christ, can’t you tell? I never fucking stop wanting you. It’s like you’re dosing me up with Viagra or something.” I grunted when I saw the pleased smile dancing on her lips. “It’s about trust. It’s about us talking. The day you can’t do that is a day you don’t trust me and it’s the day I don’t deserve to be your husband.”
“Y-You said there’d be no divorce.”
“And we wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have your own freedom.” I swallowed, because the concession was hard to give her. It was only after reading her journal, a small, padded book that was set up funny, each page waiting for a date to be written in, and each one able to house five days, that I’d seen how far back this thing went.
Reading her tell herself that she was lovable, that she hadn’t found her purpose yet, that she had to live to make up with her sisters... it had broken something inside me. Something that had already been cracked the day the Aryans took Ma, and I was the reason they’d gotten to her.
“It’s the only out I’ll give you, Camille,” I told her gruffly.
She shocked me—when wouldn’t she?—by whispering, “I don’t want an out.”
“Then always talk to me.” I let my hand come up to cup her cheek, allowed my thumb to wipe the single tear track that arced over the curve. So beautifully poignant was it that I felt choked up too. “Always let me in. No punishments for cutting, Camille. No punishments. Ever.”