The echo of his heartbeat... the one she had been carrying in her clenched fist, the one still pulsing warm and treacherous behind her ribs, vanished instantly, obliterated by the sheer audacity of the words that had just left his mouth.
Cixi bit down on her lower lip hard enough to leave teeth marks in the skin. And she once more found herself finding every curse word she had ever learned in two languages surged to the tip of her tongue and pressed against the back of her teeth, begging for release. But she swallowed them. All of them...! Because she needed to maintain the illusion that she loved this man, and women in love did not call their fiancees degenerate filth in front of bodyguards.
She turned to face him and smiled. A wide, teeth-baring, radiant smile that held absolutely zero warmth, zero happiness, and zero sincerity. It was the smile of a woman who was picturing him getting tied to the bed and enjoying the image.
