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He had to stop it Now

‘Are you all right?’

Effie peered at Tak and tried to control her racing heart The entire evening had been unsettling, from the fancy restaurant to Tak’s too-close-to-home questions In all her life she had never found it so hard to recite

her practised lies Never before had she felt such a desperate yearning to throay her mask and finally let somebody see the real Effie

But what if Tak hated that person? What if he hated the liness that was her past? And it was so very, very ugly There was no dressing it up and passing it off as so palatable

An ache pooled deep in her belly as she watched Tak through lowered lashes He looked ht, in that sleek, smart-casual suit A lesson in sheershadows Solid and utterly, devastatingly i

And he was all hers

At least he was pretending to be

And that was the irony of it, wasn’t it? They were out in public so that they could fool other people, but the personfor the charade was herself

‘I’m quite well, thank you’

His rich voice glided over her skin like silk

‘Did you iine otherwise?’

‘You see herself ‘On edge’

‘On the contrary, I’ very much at ease in your company’

It wasn’t so much the way he said it—in that throay style of his, as though it was an easy compliment but didn’t mean very much at all It was more the way his eyes darkened sinfully, possessively, alainst his will