Chapter Sixteen
The Devotion
A couple of nights later, Lauren was brought back to the stables, and the very next morning, the eight of them were marched out and lined up outside the rec room. Nicholas stood before them, hands behind his back, sober as a judge. The tension among the women was palpable as the trainer’s eyes scanned the line.
“Meris!”
“Sir?”
“Since you have the least to lose, why don’t you go first?”
The least to lose? What could he mean? Meris glanced around but none of the others would meet her eyes.
“Nicholas...”
He cut her off with a mere nod of his head toward the rec room door. “Now, please.”
Not until she stepped through the door and saw the single chair pulled out and the scissors did she understand Nicholas’s reasons for choosing her. Every eye moved with he
