Virgo (The Zodiac Queen Book 6)

  Virgo

  Copyright © 2021 Gemma James

  Cover design by Gemma James

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Up Next

  Newsletter

  The Devil’s Kiss

  Trashy Foreplay

  Swallow Me Whole

  Torrent

  Epiphany

  Playlist

  About the Author

  To Christine.

  Thank you for the chats and laughs.

  (I’ll never stop thanking you.)

  1

  August 23rd

  If I still believed in miracles and happy endings, I’d wish to rewind the month and go back to that day in the gazebo, when Sebastian surprised me with a different side of himself—a side he hadn’t revealed until the moment I became his.

  God, he’d been romantic and sweet. Passionately possessive. A man on a mission to make up for past cruelties. A man on a mission to prove his love.

  That was before.

  This is after.

  Just minutes ago, Lilith dropped her news on our happiness from out of nowhere, stealing our final moments together with a single utterance of truth. And the truth burns like napalm—like a horrendous dousing of acid that clings to my skin. Her confession, along with Sebastian’s lack of a denial in the face of it, haunts me after the door closes on her retreating back.

  Neither of us move at first, our inaction allowing disquiet to reach a momentous crescendo. That’s when he looks at me, his face awash with apology.

  “Novalee…”

  “Don’t,” I say, blocking his attempt to touch me. I bolt into the sitting room, but suddenly, the House of Leo feels cramped and suffocating—all six-thousand square feet of it. This place is no longer my sanctuary. Sebastian’s home has turned into the domain of laden hearts and singed dreams, and yet…

  I don’t want to be anywhere else.

  He follows me and drops into a chair, and as his hands come up to hide his face, he’s the portrait of guilt. Those same muscular shoulders I held onto in the shower this morning now slump in a way that spears me to the heart with betrayal.

  Dread simmers in my gut—a cauldron of despair threatening to boil over. My throat aches with unshed tears as I wander to the wall of windows and gaze at the dreary sky snuffing out the sea. Anything to stave off the incoming deluge.

  Because I won’t cry. After everything I’ve been through within these circular walls, this will not destroy me.

  “When were you going to tell me?” On the tail-end of that question, I realize I worded it wrong. I pivot to face him. “Were you going to tell me?”

  With a sigh, he rubs both palms down his face. “Of course I was going to tell you.”

  I cross my arms. “Really?”

  “Yes!” As his harsh voice echoes, he tries to hide a wince.

  “When?”

  “Right before I saw you in Castle’s arms.” The implied accusation detonates in the space between us, and he stands, shirtless, his dark blond hair a mess from my fingers all morning. There’s nowhere for me to go when he comes for me, eyes narrowed and brows slashing downward over an icy blue gaze. His audacity to wield anger in this situation shouldn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t put me on the defensive.

  Not this time.

  I hold my ground and meet the challenge in his gaze. “Well now I know, so what does she want from you?” My tone asks something else.

  What does this mean for us?

  Planting both hands on the glass behind me, he presses forward until my spine touches the chilly window. “She doesn’t want a ring and a white picket fence, if that’s what you’re asking.” He’s invading my space, derailing my runaway thoughts until a voice in the back of my mind points out that he’s crowding me on purpose.

  To distract from the issue at hand? Or to deflect? I can’t be sure, since he’s good at both.

  His eyes are molten ice, lowering to my lips a mere second before darting up again. We’re two stubborn pillars trading prideful stares. My mouth slackens as his lips part, and we share quick and shallow breaths—angry breaths with an undertow of desire.

  The ever-present heat between us will never cool. Anger fuels it. Lust fuels it. The sun rising in the east and setting in the west fuels it. Our chemistry is an inevitability, a foregone conclusion before the first sentence of our story was ever written.

  “It doesn’t matter what she wants,” he answers, breaking the tense standoff with a flick of his tongue along his bottom lip. “It won’t change a damn thing between you and me.”

  Truer words have never been spoken, and yet there’s a contradictory strain in his voice.

  I gear up to argue, but my vocal cords fail me, and that’s when he goes on the offensive, his lips silencing the mounting protest on my own. Before he slips his tongue past my defenses, I shove him back.

  “You can’t just kiss this away.”

  “I know,” he says softly, his anger losing strength. He sinks into a chair again like a hopeless brick on a journey to the bottom of the ocean.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Swallowing a piece of my pride, I settle into the seat across from him.

  “I already told you—”

  “I know what you said,” I interrupt. “Elise and Landon’s wedding was over a week ago. You’ve known all this time.” I pause, allowing a laborious beat to pass. “And time isn’t on our side.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me? I had to hear it from her!” I jab a finger in the direction of the foyer—the scene of the crime, where Sebastian’s past pulled the rug out from under me yet again.

  “After everything we shared—” My voice cracks as memories of the last few weeks flip through my head. I gave him my body, my soul, my everything, and he couldn’t even give me the truth. “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to end our time together like this.”

  I shake my head, prepared to dig deeper. “It’s more than that.”

  With a scowl, he leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I lost my shit, okay? When I found you on the dance floor with him…” He juts his chin with an undercurrent of bravado that doesn’t match his words. “I didn’t want to be the one to hurt you, again. Is that what you want to hear?”

  It’s Sebastian’s go-to; the defensive scorn he wears like cheap armor.

  I refuse to give him the fight he wants. “Is she keeping the baby?” I ask, bypassing the issue of Liam Castle, because my relationship with the chancellor doesn’t impact the truth.

  And the truth is, Sebastian is as much a coward as Liam when it comes to telling me harsh realities.

  Sebastian nods. “She’s against abortion.”

  “Are you sure it’s yours?”

  A tick goes off in his jaw.
“Lilith is a lot of things, but she’s not a liar.”

  Maybe not, but she will be the mother of his firstborn—a reality I fear will put me in the position of the “other woman” in this triangle. It won’t matter that, according to law, he’ll be mine after we marry. Not when Lilith has a piece of him we’ll never get back.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “What does she want from you?”

  “Nothing that you have to worry about right now.”

  “That’s not good enough!”

  “What more do you want from me?” he shouts, jumping out of his chair in an instant. “I’ve told you where I stand, and that’s in the shoes of a fucking ass because even though she’s carrying my blood, all I can think about is you!”

  I try not to flinch as his voice reverberates through the room.

  “You’re holding something back.” Shaking my head, I fold myself inside my arms—just a compact body housing a huge heartbreak. “I can feel it, and if we’re going to make a marriage work, we need to have honesty between us.”

  Two strides of his long legs close the chasm between us. “You want honesty?” He lowers his face until only an inch separates us, his body caging me in my seat. “I want nothing to do with Lilith, or this baby, or this goddamn Brotherhood. I’d take you out of here and never look back if I could.”

  “But you can’t do that.” I don’t know if I believe it, but he does.

  He closes his eyes. “No, and I can’t turn my back on this child, either.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Where it’s always left us. This changes nothing. You belong to me, and I belong to you. If you know nothing else, then know that.”

  “Where does that leave Lilith?”

  “At the moment, smack in the middle of our lives whether we like it or not, but that doesn’t mean she’s standing between us, Novalee.” As if to prove it to me, he leans down and grazes my mouth with his.

  Just a hint, a quiet yearning for forgiveness and understanding.

  For trust.

  “Stop,” I choke out, my throat caught in a vise of uncertainty. On the cusp of giving in, I move to push him away, but he grabs my wrists, fingers shackling my will.

  “I know I fucked up with my bullshit self-sabotage…” he says, pausing long enough to swallow hard, “and I am so damn sorry I put us in this situation, but you’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you walk out that door for the next seven months with this distance between us.”

  Regret haunts his sea-blue eyes, the glisten in them tugging at my heartstrings. But I’ve given in too many times in this tower, especially when it comes to Sebastian Stone.

  “Distance is all we have.” I yank my wrists from his grasp then give a hard shove to his chest. As he veers back, I launch to my feet before he corners me again.

  My gaze cuts to the clock on the wall, and I don’t know whether to feel relieved or sad at the hour. “It’s time.”

  “Fuck, not yet,” he groans, casting his gaze heavenward as he drags both hands through his messy hair. “You can’t leave like this.”

  “I don’t have a choice.” Something’s wrong with my voice—some sort of ailment that turns my words to stoic strength, even though despair reduces me to shattered pieces.

  “Just give me a minute,” he says, gesturing toward his state of half-dressed disarray. “I’ll walk you down.”

  “I’d rather go alone.”

  “Kissing won’t fix this, but neither will running away.”

  “I’m not running away.”

  He arches a brow. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m doing my duty, same as you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you have time to figure out if your duty is to Lilith, or to me.” I move past him, my destination the front door, but he grips my wrist and pulls me against his chest.

  His shallow breaths tempt my lips, those exhales heavy with the things left unsaid as we stand in a deadlock, bodies flush together.

  “I don’t need time, princess.”

  “But I do.”

  Until that moment, I’ve never seen a man cry—not since finding my father with tears in his eyes when I was ten. The memory is vague, and I question the validity of it, because I’d remember this searing pain of witnessing a loved one in silent agony.

  “This isn’t over.” He dashes the moisture from his eyes.

  “It’s not over,” I agree softly. “But it is on pause.” It’s all I can give him as I stand on tiptoe to kiss his scruffy cheek.

  The fight leaves his bones, his arms lowering degree by degree until I’m free.

  But as I exit the House of Leo, I’m far from free. Sebastian shackled and locked my heart during his month, and now he’s got a death grip on the key.

  2

  The corridor is quiet and deserted. My heels click-clack across the immaculate marble floor, but the sound barely registers above the mantra raging in my head.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Don’t think about lions or oceans or rides on the highway with the top down. Don’t remember the weight of his chest against mine, or the sheen of happiness in his eyes as he smeared birthday cake on my cheek.

  Don’t think about glistening lashes and downcast gazes.

  Keep breathing.

  In, out, in, out, in, out…

  The mantra is working, because my grief is but a ghost haunting me down the hall. Somewhere between fleeing the House of Leo and exiting the elevator on the first floor, I murdered the pain by taking a page out of Heath Bordeaux’s manual of brutal sadism. I whipped my heartache until it bled to death.

  I tell myself I’m calm and collected as a queen should be, capable and prepared for what comes next as I loiter outside the library, all the while knowing the hardest part is crossing the threshold into a new house. This isn’t unfamiliar territory, after all. I’ve been through it five times already.

  What’s one more? Drawing in a deep breath before letting it out in a long exhale, I push the door open.

  But Miles Sinclair isn’t in the library.

  At first, a sense of deja vu washes over me, and a searing recollection of gazebos, desperate kisses, and possessive promises stream through my mind like a romance movie. Swallowing hard, I banish the memories of my time with Sebastian, and that’s when I spot him.

  The familiar broad back.

  His expensive dark suit contrasting daytime through the window.

  I’d recognize that copper hair anywhere.

  Upon the door closing, the chancellor turns, his umber eyes hopeful and cautious all at once. It only takes a hint of his devastating smile to blast me square in the chest.

  “Where’s Miles?” I ask, my vocal cords strained. The last time I saw Liam, I was at the height of an emotional breakdown and on the brink of causing a public scene at Elise’s wedding. My cheeks heat as the memory of what happened afterward with Sebastian replays in my head. I’ll never look at an elevator the same way again.

  “You’ll join Miles in the House of Virgo soon,” he says, narrowing the distance between us as his hands disappear into his pockets. Mechanical and reserved mannerisms keep him in check, but I see right through the facade. No matter how much he tries to hide it, Liam wears his bleeding heart on the sleeve for all to see—a heart that gushes because of me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, lowering my chin until my blond locks curtain my face.

  His clothing rustles, and I sense him closing the gap, can almost feel the heat of his fingers on my cheek as he brushes back a tiny braid. Other than that, he doesn’t touch me.

  “What are you sorry for, my sweet girl?”

  “Everything.”

  With an ironic laugh, he tilts my chin up, commanding my gaze. “You’re innocent in all of this. No matter what’s happened, or will happen, remember that.”

  “I’m not innocent.”

  Something in my tone grabs his attenti
on, and he steps closer, his intense gaze searching my face. “You were upset at the wedding, and you’re upset now.”

  There’s no doubt in his statement. Liam sees through me as easily as I see through him.

  “It’s not important.”

  Liar.

  The arch of his brow echoes the accusation in my head, but he doesn’t push. It’s not his style.

  “Did something come up to keep Miles?” I ask, steering the conversation to safer ground.

  “No.” He steps back, arms crossed. “I’m afraid not.”

  I narrow my eyes, sensing another unwanted surprise about to land on my shoulders. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s something you need do before you can be alone with him. As chancellor, it’s my job to ensure it’s done.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” It’s a rhetorical question, but he answers with a shake of his head anyway.

  “What do I need to do?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.” He gestures toward the door before ushering me into the corridor.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To see Dr. Morgan.”

  Heavy silence descends as we turn a corner and continue past the portraits of the Brotherhood’s ancestors. As hard as I try, I can’t shake the dread on my heels, because if we’re going to see Vance, then that means something invasive is coming.

  I clear my throat. “I think you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

  “The House of Virgo has rules and protocols.”

  Of course. This tower is an oasis for rules stacked on top of rules.

  “Such as?”

  “Virginity is important to the Sinclair family.”

  “It’s common knowledge I’m a virgin. My uncle signed the contract, remember?”

  He shoots me a tilted grin. “I remember everything about your first day here, Novalee.”