Bold Beautiful Love -- A Temptation Court Contemporary Romance: Temptation Court: Passion in New York Read Online Free PDF

helpless and trapped, he becomes a beast in a cage.
    “Dammit.” His guttural snarl confirms the assessment. He shoves upright, at least relieving my fear for the laptop screen, beginning to pace a figure-eight, hands remaining white-knuckled at his sides. “Evrest—look—I didn’t play a hand in creating this fuck soup, but I need to help make it right. In half an hour, you can have me on the ground and in your office, granting you access to every file for every vendor I’ve hired so far for the Arcadian projects.”
    My king’s heavy breath precedes his answer. “I could also have a lynch mob outside the Palais gates, screaming for your head on a spike.”
    “So keep the peace.” Cassian concludes the bite by spreading his arms. “And make me go back to America—then wait for the weeks, perhaps months, it’ll take you to wade through our legal system, subpoenaing those files like our fun legal-eagles will make you.”
    Silence.
    So long and so deep, I wonder if the connection to King Evrest has somehow been lost.
    Until a few select words of Arcadian trickle through the laptop speakers. Select, as in filthy and furious. I glance at Cassian, wondering if he understands that “fuck goat” is the least of his concerns now.
    “You need to give me twenty minutes,” Evrest finally barks. “I must find Samsyn.” His brother, the spearhead of Arcadia’s military forces, is Creator-knows-where in Sancti right now. “Tell your pilot the Sancti Tower will radio him when we are ready for the landing.”
    Cassian’s head drops, heavy with finality, while the rest of his body remains stiff. He is a warrior who has triumphed in a skirmish but understands a whole battle waits ahead. “ Merderim, Evrest.”
    My king’s snort is harsh, perhaps scoffing, over the line.
    “I accept the sincerity, Court, but not the word. In a few hours, gratitude may likely be the last thing on your mind.”

THREE
    *
    Cassian
    “B y the damn powers , Court. Are you completely demented?”
    “He must be. It is the only explanation.”
    “Creator’s balls. We thought that contract stipulation for Mishella was insane—”
    “But now this —”
    “Now coming here, to the Palais, while the bridge is still burning— literally —”
    “Are you trying to be trite, Selyna?”
    “Are you snapping at me, Fortin? Because if I recall correctly, you were the one who opened us to the liability of his damn contract in the first—”
    “ Shut. Up. ”
    Every muscle in my body craves to enforce the order by slapping them both—but the dumbstruck faces in front of me belong to Ella’s parents. For the thousandth time, I ponder how a pair of such selfish, petty creatures could be the DNA donors for a miracle like Ella. Perhaps she really is the spectral sorceress I have imagined, an angel conceived by the clouds and given to mortals for safekeeping for a while. Trouble is, heaven got the address wrong.
    “Shut up,” I repeat, gentler because Ella would wish it that way, and right now my poor woman can’t speak for herself. “Stop thinking about the bridge, the contract, or your goddamn liabilities.” I turn from where they’ve been bickering the wallpaper off of a Palais Arcadia sitting room, a damp washcloth in one of my hands and large glass of water in the other. “And start thinking about how your daughter may need you for once.”
    “Cassian.”
    Ella’s weak rasp jolts me back across the room, toward the chaise where her skin tone matches the pale damask entirely too closely. The parquet floor trembles beneath my furious steps back to her side. I drop to the flimsy furniture, feeling it shake beneath me. “Right here, favori .”
    As I stretch the cloth between Ella’s temples, there’s rustling in the room behind me. More footsteps, as loud and determined as mine, followed by a discernible spike of stress from the pair I’ve just berated. “Your Majesty,” Fortin and Selyna murmur together.
    “ Bon sabah .” Evrest