CHAPTER 70
The words felt like a physical slap, cold and sharp enough to make Isabella flinch. Never in a million years. She watched him as he turned away, his back a rigid line of defiance.
He picked up cup from the table. The air between them, which had been humming with a strange, tragic intimacy just moments ago, was now brittle.
He had retreated behind the throne, hiding the man she had glimpsed beneath the crown.
"Then why did you look at me like that?" Isabella's voice was soft, but it stopped him at the door.
Lucian's hand gripped the doorframe. His knuckles were still stained with the crimson evidence of his "offering."
He didn't turn around. Through the bond, Isabella felt a sudden spike of unease—not her own, but his.
It was a raw, bleeding emotion that he immediately tried to smother with a wave of icy indifference.
"I look at you as an investment, Isabella," investment, he said, though his voice lacked its usual bite.
