Free Claim (A Dangerous Man, #3) by Serena Grey

commitment. I’m surprised you keep hanging on to a brief fling that happened a long time ago.”
    “Well, I didn’t forget how good it was between us.” She states peevishly.
    I start to shrug, but she steps towards me and pulls my face down towards her, kissing me. She’s holding on tightly to me. I don’t want to shove her, and it takes a while to extricate myself from her embrace.
    I take a step back. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove Carole, but it’s not working.”
    She narrows her eyes. “Whatever, go back to that mewling baby you call a wife.” She shrugs. “I don’t care.”
    I leave her there, intent on finding Sophie and leaving. I don’t expect to look for her everywhere and not find her. I don’t expect to call her cell phone over and over and get no answer. I don’t expect the fear that grips at my stomach when the guy at the front desk tells me he called a cab for someone who fits her description.
    I can’t get to the apartment fast enough. I don’t know why Sophie’s left but my worst fears are realized when I find her in the apartment, in our room, packing her bags, her face stained with tears.
    She is really leaving me this time.
    I feel like something is squeezing my chest. It’s suddenly very difficult to breathe. I have been dreading this for weeks, with a certainty that one day she would decide that she made a mistake and leave.
    One day. But not today, not so soon.
    I want to beg her not to leave, desperation clouds my thoughts, and I feel like a little boy again, throwing myself at my mother, begging her not to leave.
    I take a deep breath. “What are you doing?” I ask Sophie, my voice calm, masking the mounting apprehension beneath.
    “What does it look like?” She doesn’t even stop to look at me.
    I swallow the angry words threatening to come out of my mouth. “I left you for a few moments at a party, and now you’re leaving me?”
    “You left me for far longer than a few minutes, to make out with your old girlfriend.” Her voice catches as she speaks. She pauses and swallows, then goes back to her packing.
    Silently I damn Carole and myself... mainly myself. This is all my fault. With the realization comes a blinding anguish.
    “So now you’re running off back to Ashford,” I lash out before I can stop myself. “Tell me, is it Eddie Newton who’s going to be picking up the pieces of your broken heart, or will it be somebody else?”
    “What do you care?” She chokes out the words.
    I care. I care so much I feel as if my senses are being obliterated. “For God’s sake, Sophie!”
    She steps away from me, as if I’ve threatened her. “Let me go.” She whispers almost inaudibly. “I don’t belong here, in this big apartment, or in your luxurious life, and we both know it.”
    “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
    She sniffs and looks up at me. “David, do you love me?”
    I stiffen, looking from her face to the bags on the bed and back again, I don’t want to deal with her question. I can’t, not now, not yet.
    “What’s come over you?” I ask, eager to steer the conversation in another direction.
    It doesn’t work. “Do you love me, David?” She asks again.
    I turn away from her. “What do you want from me?” I’m not a man who loves. I know what she’s asking me. She’s asking if I’m willing to open myself up to hurt, to betrayal.
    I’m not.
    “You don’t love me do you?” She states softly, with the wounded expression of someone hearing the confirmation of something they already knew.
    I scramble in my head for something to say. “Love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be Sophie.” I say finally. “Other people would take what they have and be grateful for it.”
    “And what do I have?” She asks accusingly, “tell me the truth David. Why did you marry me?”
    How could I not? How do I tell her about the lust that drove me to claim her body, the possessiveness that made me tie her to me, and the desire now to