“You don’t trust me?” (Patreon)

“It isn’t for me to say. It’s up to Colette if she wants to confide in you.”

“Why would you protect someone who hurt your sister?”

As the silence stretched between them, his expression altered ever so slightly.

“You don’t trust me?”

“How can I? I know what you think of her, what you think of me. How ruthless you are. How many promises you’ve broken. Why would I give you another weapon to use against my sister?”

“Jasmine, I swear—”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Using a person’s weakness against them is your specialty, just like it was my father’s. Right now, you actually might believe you won’t use it against us, but once we’re no longer useful to you, you’d use it to get your way and hurt us if necessary. That just who you are. I can’t take the chance. I never know when you’re going to switch on me. I don’t even know what I did this last time to make you turn back into an asshole.”

Expression stony, he didn’t reply to her charge.

“You said you wanted a year to live out your dream. I should have known it had nothing to do with me. You needed me to attend the Trentham Ball. That’s why you begged me to stay in London. You never had any intention of making up for the past, of starting fresh, or making me happy.” Twin tears slid down her face. “I’m nothing special to you. You’ve proved that one hundred different ways this past week. It didn’t even take a month for you to get your fill.” She clapped once. “Congratulations. You accomplished everything you ever wanted.”

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.

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