Read Brie's Christmas Pearls (Submissive in Love, #3) for Free Online Page B

tubes. Although I’ve been told she’s brain dead, looking at her I felt she might open her eyes at any moment.”
    “How did seeing her like that make you feel?”
    “I wasn’t prepared for the opposing emotions. I thought I was, had spent two days in Japan bracing myself for it, but seeing her…”
    Brie could almost imagine the love and loss he must have felt, despite the fact that his mother had been so cruel to him. Sadly, Ruth was his mother, and that bond was so deep it couldn’t be severed.
    “I fully expected to be overwhelmed by emotion, but not by the one emotion that consumed me.”
    “What was that, Sir?”
    He shocked her with his answer. “I wanted to punch that smug look off her face. A grown man shouldn’t feel that way.” He looked up at the night sky and sighed with frustration. “Even in that state, she has power over me. Every cruel deed, every unkind word still resonates in me.
    “That was when I realized that all the issues in my past I’d thought I’d conquered, all the growth I’d assumed I’d made were just an illusion. I’m still that boy, standing in the doorway, helpless to stop what is about to happen as she watches my father lift the gun and end my world.”
    Brie wrapped her arms around him, laying her head against his shoulder, wishing desperately that she could take away the painful memories.
    “I looked at her lying in that hospital bed and had to fight the urge to physically choke the life out of her.” He brushed his hair back, a look of resignation on his face. “And yet…”
    “You still love her.”
    “Love is an ugly word when it’s associated with that woman. My feelings are tangled in a hatred so dark it scares me.” He groaned, looking up at the stars again. “I counted on having resolution with her someday—it didn’t matter whether it ended well, I needed that final confrontation with her. I never realized how much I depended on it. To have it stolen from me is a loss I cannot bear. I’m left floundering like a drowning man.”
    “It’s completely understandable,” she assured Sir, hugging him tighter.
    His voice broke when he admitted, “I know this should be a simple decision, Brie. She needs to die, but I find myself…struggling.”
    Brie took his hand in hers. “I stand beside you, whatever you decide.”
    “Being next to me is a dangerous place in my current state.”
    “I will not fail you.”
    He disengaged from her embrace. “But I will fail you.”
    She tried to protest, but he hushed her.
    “Marquis is right. I had no business collaring you. My past makes me unfit to be your Master. I knew that, but for a moment you had me believing differently.”
    She refused to listen. “You followed your heart. You’ve always insisted that if I trust my instincts, they won’t steer me wrong. It was sound advice, Sir.”
    He disagreed, shaking his head. “Instincts and the heart are two different animals. The heart cannot be trusted.”
    She smiled, taking his hand and pressing it against her cheek. “But it led me to you.”
    “You could have done so much better, my dear.”
    Brie could hear the painful truth behind his sarcastic tone, but she shook her head in defiance of his words, still smiling at him.
    “I will hurt you… Hell, I already have. I’m broken, and no amount of wishful thinking can change that. I’m not what you need.”
    “Sir, you have chosen a path of integrity and followed it relentlessly. I admire you, and am honored to be collared by you. I’m willing to suffer alongside you now because I see a future ahead full of promise. It will be glorious.”
    He cupped her chin. “You are naïve and sweet, but naivety is fragile and sweetness can quickly turn to bitterness.”
    “Who I am is enhanced by you, not diminished, Sir.”
    He gave an amused smile, shaking her chin from side to side. “Stubborn.”
    “Like a condor.”
    He laughed out loud.
    Brie wanted to follow Marquis’ advice and be the strength Sir