Free Wicked Nights With a Lover by Sophie Jordan

seemed so pointless moments ago, found her and sealed her in, sinking its teeth deep.

Chapter 8
    A sh observed the female within the deep shadows of the carriage, seeing only the hazy-dark smudge of her. He relaxed against the squabs, perfectly content to delay the moment when he clapped eyes on her. His future wife.
    Triumph zinged through him at how easily he had stolen her from the partner who sought to steal everything from him, the empire he had created from two crumbling businesses.
    Hopefully, she was at least passing fair. Not that he was marrying her for her face. Still, he hoped she bore little resemblance to her craggy-faced father.
    Jack’s daughter seemed to have stopped breathing from where she sat across from him. Curiosity rode hard in his chest, the urge rising to see what kind of woman he had shackled himself to. Before he’d captured her up in the blanket he’d glimpsed dark hair neatly arranged at the back of her head. There was that, at least, to look forward to in his future wife. He enjoyed dark hair, liked seeing it spread across his bed like spilled ink, trailing his fingers through the liquid dark …
    Wife. The word left a bad taste in his mouth.
    He’d never thought to marry. Had vowed against it, in fact. His earliest memories were of his parents’ fighting, terrorizing and tormenting each other bit by bit until they finally succeeded in killing each other.
    As for his sister, she was a casualty of their little war. Had they not been so obsessed in their rage for each other, they might have noticed their daughter slipping away from them, afflicted with rickets and dying in slow degrees. If they’d noticed, if they’d cared, they might have gotten her the proper nourishment she needed, might have saved her.
    He shook off the unpleasant memories and faced the present. Getting leg-shackled was the last thing he desired, but he would not have a union like that of his parents. He wouldn’t repeat their mistake. He would never possess such killing hatred for the female sitting so still and silent. It wasn’t possible. To breed that kind of hate, one must first feel love. The sort of love his parents had shared at the beginning.
    He squinted at her still shape. Jack’s daughter—his future wife. His gut churned anew at the thought.
    He need only remind himself that this marriage would help secure all he’d built—and would show Jack that he was not to be overlooked.
    “What’s your name?”
    Silence answered him.
    Now she would play silent? She’d been full of hot words earlier. “I’ll have it from you eventually.” He shrugged. “Something must go on the wedding register, after all.”
    “You cannot be serious.” The croak of her voice scratched the air.
    He flexed his fingers on his thigh. “Assuredly, I am.”
    “Why would you wish to marry me? You don’t even know me.”
    “It is not you, specifically.” He had every intention of being forthright with her. The simplest means to avoid confusion and disappointment. “I’ve determined to wed one of Jack Hadley’s daughters.”
    “Then choose another. Turn this carriage around. One of my half sisters may in fact be agreeable. Even now, they’re preparing for a soiree of some sort where they will meet prospective suitors—”
    “Which I am not considered to be,” he growled, his hand squeezing into a fist. “Jack does not approve of me as a husband for any of his precious offspring.”
    “That’s what this is about then? Some blasted grudge you harbor against my father?” She muttered something indecipherable beneath her breath in a language he suspected was not English. French, perhaps? Her words were too low for him to determine. “Has the world gone mad?”
    “Has it ever been sane?” he asked. He had decided the world a far from logical place long ago, when he’d been lost to the streets at the tender age of eight. “When you mull it over, you and I marrying is scarcely absurd. Fitting perhaps. Face it,