Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 135378 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135378 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
With his father’s other son in Boston, he saw his opportunity and began to stalk his prey.
In watching his brother, he discovered the younger man had fallen hard and fast for a gentle young woman named Katherine. She worked at a bookshop, and he was a collector of rare books.
From afar, my grandfather watched his brother’s wholesome courtship with Katherine. He even arranged a meeting between him and his brother (his father’s second family knew nothing of the first, so he pretended to be a stranger) at a bar one night where the younger brother professed his excitement. He’d bought Katherine a ring and was just waiting for the right moment to ask her.
Grandpa James was suitably convinced that what his brother wanted most in the world was Katherine.
And then, because my grandfather was an asshole, he swept in and seduced her. She didn’t love him, didn’t really even want him, but he was older and more experienced than she was, so he was skilled enough to confuse and trick her. All he needed was a brief opening to strike, and when he got it, he did.
Katherine was mesmerized by James, completely out of her depths with him. He was cunning and got her pregnant quickly so she would marry him instead of his brother.
She did, and in doing so, shattered her lover’s heart.
Grandpa James got a bouncing baby boy, a brand-new bride, and the thing he wanted most of all.
Revenge.
As a result, my father grew up with parents who didn’t love each other. The generational trauma of abandonment had finally been resolved, but his mother was a lonely woman who could hardly endure my grandfather’s cruelty. He never stopped treating her like a tool he could wield to wound his brother, so he spent their entire marriage hurting her.
It was a relief when he died of heart failure at the age of eighty-three. She was sixty-six, young enough to perhaps find one last love to end her life with, but she never did.
Her first love had been so hurt by losing her to my grandpa, he never married or had children of his own.
Family urged her to reach out to him after my grandfather’s death, hoping for a reunion that might heal both their wounded hearts, but she was too ashamed, so she never did.
After watching his parents’ miserable marriage, when my father met my warm and loving mother, he knew immediately he had to lock her down. Warmth was the one luxury he never had access to from his cold, wealthy father or his lonely, destroyed mother.
My mother filled that empty well deep inside him until it overflowed, and for that, he loved her immensely.
The problem was, in his gratitude and appreciation of my mother, he let her have more freedoms than I think he should have. My mother is a warm and loving woman, but her love and warmth aren’t just for him.
Over the years, I’ve watched him ignore countless affairs as my mother’s friends have become more than that.
She’s not a cruel woman, just weak and unable to control her own whimsical desires.
My father isn’t the sort of man you’d ever imagine suffering such an insult without punishing everyone involved and ensuring it never happened again, but he’s weak when it comes to her.
Over the years, I’ve watched him love her, and I’ve watched her hurt him. She’s always immensely sorry for the pain she’s caused when her affairs crash and burn, and his arms are always open for her to run right back into.
I understand my father’s appetite for warmth, but not his tolerance of her misbehavior.
I can understand loving someone with little self-control, but perhaps I have a streak of my grandfather in me because if I were him, I’d have made damn sure she could never run off again after the first time.
For me, there will be no first time.
Once I have my sights set on a woman I’m actually serious about, she is effectively mine, whether she has agreed to it or not.
Tonight, Sophie won’t even endure my presence at her dinner table, but if another man’s gaze swept over her lovely tits, if they so much as shared a smile of mutual interest, I’d have his heart in a fucking box before night’s end.
Sophie is mine, apparently.
Because that’s what I want, and the men in my family always get what they want—whether we deserve it is frankly irrelevant.
Chapter Ten
Sophie
Sighing with contentment, I rub my belly and lean back in the leather-upholstered booth.
I just ate way too much food.
It was so delicious, and since I knew Silvan was paying, I even took the liberty of ordering a second dinner so I would have leftovers for the next couple of days.
Ha, take that, rich boy.
I know he probably won’t bat an eye at the bill, but it still makes me feel better to think I’m getting one over on him.