Taming London (Warwick Dragons #1) - Milly Taiden Page 0,50

he was about to argue, but he nodded softly. He brushed his lips against her forehead. “I was going to tell you.”

“But you didn’t. You lied.”

“I didn’t lie.”

Her lip trembled. “Withholding information is the same as lying.”

“I should have told you, but I knew you would be torn up.”

“And you wanted me in a good mood to break the news to me that I was your mate.”

She used the word was purposefully.

She didn’t know much about dragons, but she was sure that mates weren’t supposed to lie to each other. He hadn’t flat-out lied, but it was a lie by omission. He had done it to get his way first. It stung just thinking about the duplicitous nature London turned out to have.

“You make it sound like I was manipulative. But really, I was just waiting to hear back from James to make sure we had concrete proof. I can only guess that his presence here means that he has said proof.”

“I do,” James confirmed. “It came to me when I was on the flight back from the US. London had a good idea that Humphries was the culprit, but he didn’t have proof. I have it now.”

James’s admission helped, and Bethany’s heart was grateful for it. Her ragged breath steadied. London wasn’t as manipulative as she was making him out to be.

“I need space and time to process this.”

There was no way she could think clearly around London. He had still known that her stepfather was a major suspect, and he hadn’t said anything, knowing it would get in the way of their time together. That was something she had to address with him later. First, she needed to think.

It would have been sweet if it didn’t belie London’s overbearingness. He was entirely too used to getting what he wanted.

Her ex had lied to her all of the time, gaslighting her until she had stopped trusting herself. If it hadn’t been for the stray pair of panties, she would have gone on thinking she was nuts.

James’s admission that London had indeed kept something from her was a metaphorical pair of underwear in the bed of their new relationship. If there even was a relationship. But was it as bad as she made it out to be? Maybe all men weren’t lying bastards like Lucas. God. He’d really fucked up her ability to trust. London hadn’t lied yet she kept accusing him of that as if he’d been the one she caught cheating. She had to stop.

After all, Leonard and her mother had been together for years. By all accounts, they had had a happy marriage, and she had just found out he had her killed.

How could she let herself trust someone in light of all this? She didn’t even know which side of London was the real one. The womanizer or the sweet, sensitive guy she’d been spending time with. It was all so confusing.

“Please,” she pleaded. “I need to go.”

London nodded and opened the door for her.

She was surprised he let her go at all, but she didn’t look back over her shoulder as she rushed to the elevator.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bethany

Bethany couldn’t quite remember the cab ride over to her house. Nor did she recall paying the cabbie. She could only hope that she had. She didn’t even know how she got into her living room. She plopped down on the sofa. Whatever comfort she thought her house would offer her, it didn’t.

Eugenie rushed down the steps with loud footsteps that set Bethany’s teeth on edge. Her mind was going about a million miles a minute.

In the span of a few short minutes, everything she had thought to be true about her life had been shattered.

First, her stepfather had hired a hitman to kill her mother. She had foolishly believed that he had loved her mom. Though his quick wedding to another woman only three months into his widowhood should have been a huge fucking clue that it had been a lie. Bethany had been going to a grief counselor at the time, and the woman had assured her that some people were unsettled by grief in such a profound way that they did strange things. Sold houses, shaved their heads, gave away their fortunes and moved to a new country. None of these were good coping mechanisms, in fact, all of them were seriously frowned upon by the mental health profession. Things done in the fresh pain of grief could compound the trauma and exacerbate the deep sense