Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Stella rolled her eyes, but I could see she was trying not to crack a smile.
She could fight it all she wanted, but she liked that I was possessive. She liked that I wanted to keep her to myself.
“Come here.”
She took a few steps closer to me, but it wasn’t close enough. I grabbed her arm and pulled her into my lap.
“Listen to me very closely, baby girl. I need you to hear everything I say. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” she mumbled, her head bent low so her hair fell in a pink curtain, hiding her face.
“I have no interest in your father’s money. I am managing it because that is what I do. I am also trying to track down some things that don’t make sense in your father’s books to protect you from whatever shady dealings your father may have been involved with.”
“My father wasn’t like you. He didn’t have shady dealings,” she sniffed.
“Your father was, at minimum, into some insider trading. But I think it was more, something with the Russian mafia,” I explained.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know for sure either way yet, and for the most part, I don’t care. I’m not judging him. I am just trying to make sure that no one is going to come after you.”
“But—”
“No, I said listen.”
She pressed her lips together and hid in her hair again.
“Before your father died, he was working on a deal to marry you to Ziegler. Do you know who that is?”
She nodded.
“Do you know what he did to Charlotte? How he put her in danger to stage some fucking PR stunt? Used her as a human shield and got her shot?”
I hadn’t wanted to believe it when I heard it.
In fact, I didn’t, but when I saw the video, I banished him back to his country. The little pissant didn’t listen. He tried to take my daughter again. So I ruined him. I had his creditors call in his debts, and his title was stripped. But he got to Deiderich before I could finish him.
“When your parents died while you were still in the hospital, I got a notification that Ziegler was back. He had a plan to claim you. He was going to forge the certificates and then have you institutionalized if you didn’t go along with it.”
“He couldn’t.”
I leveled a look at her that said she wasn’t that stupid.
“I chased him out of the country again and took ownership before he had the chance to get back to the city.”
“You stole my money to protect it?”
“You are young and in pain. He could have taken advantage of that. Where would you be? Married to a man you didn’t choose, who beats you.”
“You have beaten me.” Her voice was timid.
“Have I? Or have I taught you the things your body can handle and how a little pain makes the pleasure so much deeper?” I brushed her hair out of her face, tucking the cotton candy locks behind her ear just so I could see her blush.
“You really don’t care about the money?”
“Not a bit. I just needed in your father’s books, and to keep you here to keep you safe.”
“You don’t want me to be just a trophy you can laugh about with your friends?”
“Stella, you were made for great things. You were meant to be mine.”
CHAPTER 31
STELLA
He leaned down and captured a kiss, but it was soft, gentle, almost reverent.
It was wrong.
He wasn’t soft, he wasn’t gentle, and that wasn’t what I wanted from him.
I needed fire, passion, and heat.
I kissed him back, running my fingers through his hair as I adjusted my body to straddle his waist.
His arms wrapped around me, and his hands spread the warmth only he could give me over my back as he held my body to his.
Was this why I wanted him so much? Did my body know something that my mind didn’t?
I had heard that people’s instincts do not always make sense in the beginning, but they are right in the long run. Someone trusted a stranger, even though they were dirty and looked mean, and that person saved their life. Or another story of a girl refusing a date with a perfect gentleman who was in good standing with the community, just to find out later he had plans to drug and rape her. Instinct could be a powerful tool.
Could my body’s response to Lucian be a case like that? My mind had been screaming at me that this was wrong, but my body knew something my brain didn’t. Did something in me recognize that his motivations were not as simple or nefarious as I had assumed?
It made sense. I had always believed my father was a good man.
My mother had always told me my father was a good and honest man. But there were always things that didn’t add up: late-night meetings with people who terrified me, men with scars on their faces, calloused knuckles, and dressed in head-to-toe leather.