Free Shana Abe by A Rose in Winter

then? Are you going to marry him after all, after everything that happened between us last night?”
    She stood stone still in his grip. “Yes, Damon, I am going to marry him. Father came by this morning and convinced me of it. I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry? You’re sorry? What the hell has come over you? You can’t marry that bastard, he wants only your money and your lands, you know that! He cannot love you.
I
love you, Solange.”
    He gripped her shoulders tightly, willing her to look into his eyes and read the truth there. But she was changed, different in some sly way he could not fathom.
    “Love is irrelevant for marriage,” she said. “I am well aware the earl is interested in my dowry far more than my person right now. That simply does not matter. Father has reminded me of my familial bonds. I will be strengthening the family with this union, andthat is of tantamount importance.” She shrugged. “We cannot control fate, and my fate is cast.”
    “What are you doing?” he rasped. “I cannot believe this is you talking.”
    “Damon, last night was an impetuous mistake for both of us. If I had been thinking clearly, I never would have bothered you at all. I’m afraid that the suddenness of it all overcame me, and naturally I turned to you for help. You have always been, after all, my older brother. I have always counted on you as such.”
    Her words cut him to the quick, as they had been designed to do. She broke away from his grip and went over to her night table. She closed her fingers over something, then glided back to him, graceful as a swan on water. In her outstretched hand she offered him the ring he had given her.
    “Take it back,” she said. “I cannot accept it.”
    His life was shattering to fragments around him, cutting him deeper and deeper, bleeding his very soul dry. She held her arm motionless, waiting for him to take the ring from her palm. His throat closed; he had to blink to clear his vision. She was making the choice for him, he realized. He could not fight for her if she did not want him.
    She did not want him
. She did not want him, when he would have gladly given his very life for her with the snap of her fingers.
    She was choosing to become the plaything of a stranger rather than accept him. His pride finally rebelled at this indignity. Ignoring her offering, he snatched her by the waist and pulled her roughly against him.
    She recovered her balance quickly and attempted to escape his hold, but he grabbed the hair at the nape of her neck and held her head in place as his lips claimed hers.
    The garnet ring hit the floor with a muffled chime and rolled, unnoticed, in a wide half-circle away from them. It tumbled over against the bedpost, masked in the pattern of the carpet.
    He put his anger into the kiss, along with the anguish he couldn’t conceal. He was ruthless, plundering her mouth again and again, trying to force her to reveal something of her true self. He would conquer this foreignness in her, he would make her respond to him with the passion he knew she felt for him.
    It was almost her undoing. She held her arms out stiffly from them both, her fingers spread wide. With every last ounce of her willpower Solange fought the drugging desire he produced in her. This was Damon, the other half of her soul. How easy it would be to just give up, to submit to the darkness washing over her, to let go of it all and kiss him back. And what could her father really do to them that would be worse than separation? Her own life was of little importance to her without Damon, but his survival depended on her now.…
    Damon ended the kiss by pressing his face against her neck, a rough feeling that made her shiver. “I am not your brother, you know that,” he whispered harshly. “Run away with me! Come away and be my wife.”
    He couldn’t see, but her face twisted in pain, hermouth opened on a soundless cry of grief. Her father would hunt them down, she knew, aided by Redmond. They would be