Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
He was her book boyfriend before she knew book boyfriends could become real.
Devyn’s hands had gone white-knuckled on the book’s edges.
One hundred and seventeen times.
She’d listened to this man’s story one hundred and seventeen times. Chosen him, over and over, every time she pressed play. Every time something bad happened. Every time she needed to escape.
He turned another page.
Paul calling her my love. Paul calling her sweetheart. Paul looking at her like she hung the moon—not with the cold assessment of a mafia king evaluating an asset, but with open, uncomplicated adoration.
Paul’s voice: calm, gentle, steady. The kind of voice that soothed instead of commanded. The kind of voice that would never call her unfit in front of a room full of crying servants.
Paul saving her. Deflecting danger with one hand while holding her safe with the other. Powerful and protective without being destructive. Without being dangerous.
Paul, who was literally a Greek god.
Who could not lie to her the way Devyn just had.
The pages kept turning. Devyn couldn’t stop. Every image was a fresh wound, every word a reminder of everything he wasn’t, everything he could never be.
Paul was patient where Devyn was impatient.
Warm where Devyn was cold.
Gentle where Devyn was intense.
Golden where Devyn was shadow.
And Bailey had chosen him. Not once, not accidentally, not because she’d stumbled into a chapel wearing the wrong dress at the wrong time. She had chosen Paul Theodore one hundred and seventeen times before she ever knew he could be real.
Devyn Chaleur had been the route she refused to read.
The dangerous one. The one she avoided.
And now he’d confirmed every fear she might have had about him. He was the dangerous choice. He had hurt her. Exactly the way she’d probably always suspected he would.
He turned to the final page.
The next time Bailey returns to her world, it will be her wedding day.
She will marry Paul Theodore.
She will be happy.
She will be safe.
She will be loved by a god who has never made her cry.
The book fell from Devyn’s hands.
He stood in that pocket of Hewhay, surrounded by warmth and soft light and the smell of books that Bailey would have loved, and he understood.
This was what she deserved.
Someone who didn’t break her heart in front of the entire household staff. Someone who didn’t make her cry. Someone who could protect her without destroying her in the process. Someone she had already loved, for years, before she ever stumbled into his world.
He wasn’t competing with just another man.
He wasn’t even competing with a god.
He was competing with her heart’s first choice. The one she’d picked a hundred times over. The hero of the story she’d used to escape every time life became unbearable.
Paul Theodore was the love story Bailey wanted.
Devyn Chaleur was just the one she’d gotten by accident.
A bitter laugh scraped out of his throat.
Why hadn’t Hewhay just told him straight? Why the games, the doors, the books that showed him exactly how inadequate he was? If the universe preferred a literal god for Bailey, it could have just said so. Could have kept her from ever stumbling into his chapel in the first place.
But no.
Hewhay had let him have her. Let him marry her. Let him fall so completely that he couldn’t breathe without thinking of her.
And then shown him this.
The door behind him shimmered. An exit. A way back to his world, his territory, his still-living fiancée who wasn’t Bailey and never would be.
He didn’t move.
Because there was one more line of text appearing on the book’s final page. Ink spreading like blood, words forming that hadn’t been there before.
Unless.
Devyn’s breath stopped.
Unless you fight for her.
Unless you become someone worth choosing.
Unless you prove that the dangerous choice can also be the right one.
The words faded as quickly as they’d appeared.
But Devyn had already made his decision.
He was a man who decided. That was who he was. Not brooding, not conflicted, not hesitating while he wrestled with feelings. When he wanted something, he took it. When there was a problem, he solved it.
And he wanted Bailey.
He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. More than his territory. More than his crown. More than the safety of walls that kept everyone at a distance.
She was his wife. His queen. His.
And he was going to get her back.
Even if he had to fight a god to do it.
Chapter Seventeen
OKAY, BAILEY. FOCUS.
I’m standing on a sidewalk in a wedding dress that isn’t mine, in a timeline that shouldn’t exist, talking to myself like a woman who has completely lost her grip on reality.
Which. Fair.
The light here is wrong again. Too warm by at least 500 Kelvin—like shooting through a gold reflector no one asked for. My photographer brain keeps trying to color-correct this world. It never works.
Mrs. Lyme has already disappeared into the crowd, probably grateful to escape the strange bride-shaped person who accosted her outside the market. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either right now.