Chapter 1698
No.1
"What's wrong?" Her voice dripped with deliberate insolence. "Is Lord Alex angry..." Her fingertip pressed against his lips. "...or scared that his toy ran away?"
Alexander seized her wrist with crushing force.
The next instant, her back slammed against the fountain's edge.
Icy droplets soaked through her thin blouse. His scorching palm branded her waist while his mouth claimed hers with savage intensity.
Evelyn didn't resist.
In the brief moment their lips parted, she nearly laughed aloud.
This madness would become evidence against her later.
No.2
Her submission was a crime. Her devotion was a crime. Even her existence was a crime.
"Mmm—" Sharp pain bloomed on her lips.
He bit her again.
Like she was an inanimate object to be marked with his teeth and blood.
Evelyn shoved against his chest and bit back hard.
The metallic tang of blood filled their mouths.
Alexander froze. Suddenly, his hands gripped her waist and lifted her entire body. She clung to him instinctively, like a drowning woman clutching driftwood.
No.3
"Evelyn Sinclair." His eyes burned crimson, voice ragged. "How could you be... so filthy?"
Without warning, he dragged them both into the fountain.
Freezing water swallowed them whole—
......
"Evelyn Sinclair, how could you be so filthy?"
She'd heard those same words five years ago.
On her eighteenth birthday, the Kingsleys threw her a grand celebration.
No.4
Alexander never showed.
After the party, she hid among the rose bushes, wiping away tears.
Then his voice came from the shadows: "Evelyn, come here. I have a gift for you..."
That night was a blur of sweetness and aching pleasure.
But at dawn, when she tentatively wrapped her arms around him—
He shoved her away violently.
The look he gave her was like she was something vile.
No.5
"Evelyn Sinclair, how could you be so filthy?"
......
Water roared in her ears.
The icy cascade shocked her feverish skin into shivers.
Alexander gripped her chin underwater. "Where did he touch you?" His rough thumb ground against her lips. "Here? Or—"
"You're insane!" Evelyn shoved him away.
"Alexander! Let her go!" Julian Ashford's voice cut through the chaos.
No.6
Alexander finally released her and stepped out of the fountain.
Evelyn staggered onto the pavement—then the world spun violently.
"Evelyn!"
Julian's shout was the last thing she heard.
......
Cold.
Hot.
No.7
The alternating extremes tortured her nerves.
Her throat felt stuffed with cotton, mute.
In the darkness, someone kept calling her name: "Evelyn... Evelyn..."
Like that summer when Alexander broke his leg hiking and burned with fever.
She stayed by his bed, her wrist trapped in his grip.
Half-asleep, she'd heard him murmur her name repeatedly.