She Was Never Just a Pretty Face novel Chapter 219

They lay bare against each other.

But he wasn't in a rush to claim her.

He threaded his fingers tightly through hers, pinning her hands to the luxurious sheets. Suddenly, a cold, slender band slid down her ring finger. Hilda looked down in the dim light to see a massive, 10-carat pear-shaped diamond ring. Even in the shadowy room, the stone caught the ambient light, sparkling with blinding brilliance.

Hilda stared at it in stunned silence.

He seized her moment of distraction.

Burying his face against her neck, he poured dark, sensual promises into her ear, proposing to her in the middle of their intimacy.

"Marry me."

"I'll give you the wedding of the century."

"Let's get the license first."

"Outside of that 10 percent equity transfer, we won't sign a single prenup. This is my absolute surrender, Hilda. I told you I'd be a good husband and a perfect father. I will be entirely loyal to you. Be Mrs. Sanford. Be my wife. I will make you the happiest woman in the world."

"Please, just love me again."

Once upon a time, before the heartbreak and before Harrell, she would have wept and said yes immediately.

But now, she only hesitated.

Luther knew exactly what was holding her back.

She was terrified that he would destroy Harrell.

But worse than that, she still clung to a sliver of hope.

Her heart still belonged to that man.

Luther's grip on her fingers tightened violently, crushing any words of rejection she might have spoken. She was his. She would always be his... He had clawed his way through hell to force her back into his life, and he would rather burn the world down than hand her over to someone else. Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

The night stretched on endlessly.

Luther knew exactly how to break her down.

The more her mind wandered to another man, the more ruthlessly he punished her. He forced her to beg, forced her to whisper shameful, degrading things into the dark, pushing her until she was sobbing into the pillows. He wanted to brand himself into her memory. He wanted her to feel him so deeply that every trace of Harrell Judson would be violently eradicated from her soul.

Even if it cost him every shred of his own humanity.

By the time the storm finally broke, Hilda was completely paralyzed with exhaustion.

She lay with her back to him, her body still trembling faintly with aftershocks.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify