Tamed: The Barbarian King. Jennie Lucas

Tears rose to her eyes and she fought them with all her might.

      “You bastard,” she choked out. “You cold-hearted bastard. I’ve known for years you had no heart, but I never thought you could…never thought you would—”

      But the tears were starting to fall from her lashes. Turning before he could see them, she shoved open the double doors. They banged loudly against the walls as she fled down the hallway.

      “Jasmine! Stop!”

      But she didn’t obey. She just ran.

      Fireworks boomed outside the tall windows as she raced past the corner where she’d first crashed into Kareef—literally—by sliding on the marble floors in her socks, playing with her sisters. When she slid too fast around the corner, he’d grasped her wrists, catching her before she could fall. His blue eyes had smiled down at her with the warmth of spring’s first sun. She’d loved him from that first day.

      Now, after thirteen years of trying to forget Kareef’s existence, this one day had brought it all back, times ten. A single word from his deep voice, a single look from his handsome face, and he’d caught up Jasmine’s soul like a fish in his net.

      Racing down the hall, she pushed open the first door on her left and ran down the wooden stairs into the courtyard. Cloaked in darkness, she took deep rattling gasps of the warm desert air. She stood beneath the swaying dark palm trees of the garden, beside the dark water shimmering in the silvery moonlight, and wrapped her arms over her thin cotton sundress. She could not allow herself to cry. She could not allow herself to collapse.

      Because this time, if she fell, there would be no prince to catch her.