“Mon Dieu, if this is what love is, I’m rather glad I was spared it. You two turn my stomach with your little show.”

“We should go,” Damon said, coming closer to them, a gun held in his hand. “If he’s here, then...”

“They’re afraid of Kingsley,” Marie-Laure explained. “I, however, am not. If he was going to try something he would have by now. He’ll let you two suffer and die while he’s off somewhere else not caring. I suffered for months right under his nose and he didn’t care, wouldn’t care.”

“He suffered, too,” Søren interjected. “I told you before we married that ours would be a marriage in name only. You agreed to it. You knew I didn’t love you.”

“You should have loved me.” Marie-Laure glared at him with the fires of hell burning in her eyes. “Everyone loved me.”

“And you loved no one,” Søren said without the slightest tinge of rancor in his voice. “You didn’t even love me. You were merely insulted that someone you desired didn’t desire you back. Kingsley knew what love was. You mistook desire and jealousy for love. You didn’t want a husband. You wanted a conquest. I only fascinated you because I wouldn’t give in.”

Marie-Laure said nothing for a moment. Nora shivered as a little smile danced across her lips.

“You’re right, my husband. I tried to seduce you and failed. I tried to woo you and failed. I tried to conquer you and failed. I will not fail again.”

“There is nothing to be gained by this,” Søren said. “If you kill me, what will you achieve? I’ll die still in love with her and never having loved you.”

“That’s true.” She nodded her agreement. “Too true. But perhaps you would be a bit easier to seduce now than you were all those years ago. Damon?”

Damon stepped forward and put his gun to the back of Nora’s head. Her heart stopped the second the cold, heavy metal touched her hair.

“Now...” Marie-Laure knelt on the floor next to them. Søren had seemingly stopped breathing the moment Damon pointed the gun at Nora. “Kiss me.”

“Søren, don’t,” Nora begged. “Not even to save my life. Don’t.”

But Søren ignored her. He turned his head and Marie-Laure rested her hand against his cheek. Nora’s stomach churned in revulsion as Marie-Laure pressed her lips to Søren’s with terrible ardor. Nora had seen Søren with Kingsley, seen him with submissives at the club, and never had she felt disgust or even the slightest shred of jealousy. In fact, she enjoyed watching him play with others, enjoyed watching others adore him. Seeing him forced to kiss Marie-Laure, seeing the tightness in his face that signaled his own disgust, his own revulsion, at being forced to do something so intimate with someone so foul, sent bile into the back of her throat. It was like watching someone piss on the Mona Lisa. It was like watching a rape.

Marie-Laure kissed Søren with endless passion and all Nora could do was watch.

“Merde...” Marie-Laure yanked back from the kiss and stared wide-eyed at Søren. Blood streamed from her lip.

Søren glanced at Nora and winked.

“Oh, no,” Nora taunted. “He bit you. Now you’ll turn kinky, too.”

Marie-Laure’s hand snaked out and slapped Nora viciously hard on the face, so hard she felt blood escape her nose.

When her vision cleared, Nora smiled at Marie-Laure.

“See? Told you so. You’re one of us,” Nora said.

Marie-Laure stood up and reached into Damon’s jacket pocket. From it she pulled out a black-handled dagger, sleek and lethal. She laid it on the floor between Nora and Søren.

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Marie-Laure said to Nora. “Time to decide, and this time, whatever decision you make will be quite permanent. You have a choice...you can walk out of this room right now and leave him with me. He’ll become my husband, my real husband, no pretense this time, and we’ll fly away together to my beautiful home far from here. And Damon and Andrei and a few of my other boys will make sure he stays inside and does every little thing I want him to like a good and attentive husband.”

“Or?” Nora asked. Whatever the other option was she’d already decided to choose. Søren forced into slavery, forced to service his madwoman sexually, forced to perform for her? Never. “I can already tell you I’m taking door number two.”

“Is that so? Well, let me tell you the other choice. It’s quite simple. You can take that dagger and you can shove it into his heart and let him bleed to death on this floor in front of your eyes, in front of mine. And while he’s bleeding to death, you walk away. By the time you reach the end of the driveway, I’ll already be on my way out of this ugly country.”

Nora let the words sink into her. She could let Søren live out the rest of his life a slave to this woman...

Or she could kill him with her own hands.

“Eleanor,” Søren whispered, giving her the most desperate and imploring look she’d ever seen on his face. No...the only desperate and imploring look she’d ever seen on his face.

“No helping.” Marie-Laure snapped her fingers in his face. “She decides, not you.”

But Nora had already decided. The choice was no choice at all.

Nora picked up the dagger. Søren sagged with relief.

“I want to say goodbye, first.” Nora clutched the knife tight to her chest. “I won’t do anything without saying goodbye.”