Snippet #2114232

Raven blinked, the smile all but disappearing from her face and was replaced by a look of confusion. How could he not know this already? Wasn't he the one that had them taken, had them picked out and locked up in this place? Had those girls executed? She really didn't understand...He had to know...But, what if he really didn't? She'd already felt that he was too sweet to her and her sister wives to be capable of such a thing, but that was just on the outside...Until now. She opened her mouth, about to form the word 'yes' - thinking that, if he really was that kind, he would let all of them go...Thinking of Shelby, and Valentina, and maybe Lacey, she guessed that this would be best decision for them...And Decker had asked for her honest answer, hadn't he?
But something stopped her, and her mind went back to her life before coming here. Her father's drunken abuse, her mother's neglect, how she was forced to either endure it or live out on the street in the cold, where the people were weak and emaciated and dying...She couldn't go back to that. Not even if she was only here because she was forced...At least in this place she wouldn't starve, or freeze to death, and there was even the chance of her being loved here...
She knew it was selfish, and she knew it was wrong, but still she said,
"Of course not..." She looked down at the rose which was still in her hand. Yes, it was fake...and yes, this marriage was fake...But, now that she'd had this long to think about it, something fake and beautiful was a hell of a lot better than something real and wilting. "I want to be here...And, if it's how I've acted that's made you think that, then I'm sorry...I told you, it just takes a while for me to warm up to people..."