Chapter 926
She clearly remembered that the man who saved her had taken a bullet…
Later at the Harcourt family mansion, when Evelyn had treated Seth’s wound, she had seen the exact same injury.
At the time, she just assumed he had thrown his life away for his true love.
She had inwardly mocked herself, realizing her seven years of devotion meant absolutely nothing to him.
Seth voiced her very thoughts. “Everyone thought I took this bullet for Bianca.”
He took her hand and pressed it gently against the old scar, staring into her eyes with raw intensity. “But I didn’t. I got this scar saving you. It had nothing to do with Bianca.”
“When we were leaving for the airport, you and Sophia Cole got into an altercation with Yvonne Laurent. Yvonne held a grudge and secretly hired people in Harborview City to exact revenge on you. Sage Joyner caught wind of it and warned me immediately. I purposefully ruined my engagement suit as an excuse to leave the island and rush back to Harborview City to find you.”
Even though five years had passed, recounting the memory still made his heart pound with lingering terror.
Thank God he had made it in time.
Thank God she was safe.
The hand resting against his bare skin began to tremble.
A torrential storm of emotions swelled in her chest, refusing to settle.
An uncontainable mist gathered in her eyes, quickly pooling into heavy tears that spilled over her thick lashes.
She tried desperately to hold them back.
But the harder she suppressed the feeling, the more fiercely it broke through.
Even her voice was thick and trembling. “It hurt a lot, didn’t it?”
Seth hadn’t expected his explanation to make her cry.
This was definitely not the reaction he was going for.
Letting out a helpless sigh, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her eyelid, tasting the warm, salty tears.
He coaxed her in a low, soothing whisper, “Don’t cry. It stopped hurting a long time ago.”
But the more he comforted her, the harder she cried.
Seth started to panic.
If he had known this would happen, he would have kept his mouth shut.
“It really doesn’t hurt anymore. Who has a wound that aches for five straight years?” Utterly defenseless against her tears, Seth was completely out of his depth.
He spent a long time murmuring sweet nothings until the overwhelming tide of her emotions finally ebbed.
Seth kissed her brow, kissed her red nose, and finally let his lips brush against the corner of her mouth.
It was an incredibly tender kiss.
Devoid of any lust or hidden motives.
Just pure comfort.
As their soft lips met, Noreen surprisingly didn’t pull away.
She looped her arms around his neck, actively kissing him back for the very first time.
No one could possibly fathom the tsunami of desire crashing through Seth’s veins at that moment.
It took every ounce of his legendary ironclad restraint not to lose control and devour her right then and there.
He was
responsified that an aggressive hard-won peace he had finagile
would shatter the fragile,
achieved with her content
Noreen kissed him for a long
moment before pulling back. Hemet
were
eyes glassy, looking at fin with a vulnerable, damp ga
Her voice was slightly raspy from crying. “Then what about Bianca getting
kidnapped? What was that about?”
Seth’s gaze turned somber, a momentary shadow passing through his expression, and he briefly avoided looking at her.
He could be honest with her about everything.
But he didn’t want her to see his cruel, manipulative side.
He was terrified that the real him would scare her away.
So in the end, he
he gave a vague, sanitized version. “The engagement ceremony was far too extravagant and she liked to flaunt her wealth. It
attracted the attention of local
pirates in those waters. They
snatched her and demanded a ransom from me.”
So that was it.
Noreen reached out and traced the jagged scar once more.
The uneven texture of his flesh sent another sharp ache through her heart.
She lowered her head and pressed a deeply reverent kiss against the old wound.
It was a fleeting, impossibly gentle touch, but it ignited a raging inferno inside Seth’s chest.
Wave after crushing wave of heat surged through him.
A split second later, he captured her slightly swollen lips, kissing her breathless.