by Fiona Cole
“Kill him with kindness,” Nova said. “Show him how you kick ass all on your own.”
“He doesn’t exist, and his cock doesn’t exist…even though it was pretty big. How big again?” Rae asked, holding her hands apart like she was guessing the length.
“Raelynn!” Nova scolded.
“Are you sure you have to stop fucking him?” Raelynn asked, only partly joking.
“Oh my god,” I said, laughing this time. “Yes. We have to stop.”
A knock at the door pulled my attention away from the screen.
“Okay, guys. I have to go. Someone’s knocking. Thank you so much for talking me down and helping me through my crisis.”
“Anytime,” Nova said.
“Keep us updated,” Raelynn requested.
We said our goodbyes, and I closed my laptop, heading to the door.
I was a little shocked to find Camden on the other side. I opened it to find him in a Navy suit he probably wore to work that day, sans tie.
“Camden. Hey. What are you doing here?”
He pushed past me and turned right into the living room. “I’m glad you’re home.”
My brows rose high, and I looked side-to-side like someone else would be looking back with the same shock. I slowly closed the door and met him standing in the middle of my white living room.
“Yeah,” I said lamely, not sure where to go with this. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’ll just have some of this wine. Thank you.” He filled the empty glass about half full and drank, scrunching his nose.
“Sorry, it’s not a great bottle.”
“Yes, well. When we’re married, I’ll have to take you to a vineyard and teach you about better wine.”
I ignored the arrogant tone and instead chose to focus on how he wanted to travel together. “I look forward to it.”
He finished the wine in three swallows and set the glass down before digging in his breast pocket. His smile tipped his lips slowly, and the two measured steps closer had my shoulders pulling back. He produced a white envelope, and something about the glint in his eyes warned me that I should just shove it back and say no thanks.
Instead, I tugged the small rectangle from his grip and barely breathed, trying my best to keep my unease hidden.
“Open it.”
With a swallow, I slid my thumb under the fold and tugged out the thick cream cardstock.
My brows furrowed as I read our names on the invitation, confused until one word caught my eye. Every ounce of blood dropped down to my feet. A tingling buzz started in my head and spread like ice through my veins.
“What is this?” I breathed the question.
“An invitation to our engagement party, silly.”
Engagement party.
Engagement. Party.
Engagement.
No matter how many times I read the words, they didn’t change.
“It’s in a little over a month.”
“I wanted to do it sooner, but planning required more time.”
More time? This was not the more time I thought I’d have. I thought I had a year. I thought I had at least six months. I thought I had…more.
Irritation simmered in my veins, heating up the ice that had frozen me stiff. “You didn’t even talk to me.”
“It fits with our schedule. There was no need to discuss it.”
“No,” I said, dropping the card at my side and pulling my shoulders back. “It fits with your schedule. You never asked me about mine.”
He laughed softly. “You don’t have a schedule. You don’t work, and I spoke to your father about any charities you may be working on, and there was nothing. Maybe you had a playdate with your little friends, but that can be changed. Your schedule is my schedule.”
“I’m not a child,” I ground out. “I’m an adult that needs to be consulted on things like this.”
His smile shifted, turning mean. With each step he took closer, more warning bells rang. “The only thing you are is my future wife. And as my wife, I expect your attention on me.”
He stood less than a foot away. I stood helpless against his hand shooting into my hair and jerking me against his body, holding my face up to his. I gasped at the sharp sting and hated the rush of fear that flooded my body. I’d never been handled so roughly in anger, and the dark glint in his eye terrified me.
“You will be a good wife, right?”
Despite the fear flooding my body, I didn’t want to back down. Maybe if I fought softly, he would see. He would understand what kind of marriage we could have. I would set the precedent and pray that he’d follow. “You don’t own me,” I said softly. “I’ll be the best wife to a good man. It’s a compromise.”
He ran his nose along my cheek and squeezed my hair tighter. “Wrong. I will own you.”
“You’re hurting me.”
He loosened his grip marginally and stroked his thumb across my cheekbone. Some of the panic eased, and I hoped it was merely a moment of loss of control. One that wouldn’t happen again. When he leaned down for a kiss, I turned my cheek. I couldn’t. It was too soon, and he’d scared the hell out of me. We still had so much to discuss and work out. I couldn’t kiss him. We needed to talk first.
I opened my mouth to let him know we needed to sit down and talk first when the words died in my throat over a choked gasp. The backs of his fingers skimmed over my breast, turning to pinch my nipple.
“Camden,” I cried, trying to pull away.
In turn, he palmed my breast. “So innocent. A virgin, I wonder?”
I couldn’t have refuted him if I wanted. Everything inside me retreated to a corner as his hand moved down my body.
“Either way, I’ll leave you until our wedding night.”
Run. Knee him in the balls and throat punch him and run. Nova and Raelynn’s voices rang in my head, but I couldn’t move.
His hand slipped between my thighs and roughly gripped me. “But I plan on claiming this tight, young pussy as soon as the ink is dried. As much as I want. However, whenever, wherever I want.” He leaned in and bit the soft lobe of my ear. “Whether you want it or not.”
With that, he jerked me to him again and pressed his lips to mine like he was trying to mark me. I kept my lips pinned closed and squeezed my eyes shut tight.
He stepped back, and I almost collapsed when he let go. Shifting his cock in his pants, he licked his lips and looked me up and down. “Yeah, you’ll be the perfect bride.”
I managed to stay upright until the door slammed closed behind him. As soon as he left, I ran to lock the door and fell to my knees, gasping for breath.
What the hell happened? How had I let that happen?
Tears burned the backs of my eyes, and I slammed my fist against the door in frustration.
That wasn’t the man my parents said they wanted for my future. That wasn’t a man who would change and compromise with a wife.
That was a monster.
He must have been the charming man from the gala to my father. No way my father knew who the real Camden was and would expect me to marry him. He always wanted what was best for me. He and my mother promised.
He couldn’t know.
Well, he was going to find out.
Standing on shaky legs, I grabbed my purse and called for a car.
It was time I put an end to this once and for all.
Twelve
Vera
By the time I reached my father’s house, my legs were no less wobbly. But my spine hardened on the drive, adrenaline from the assault mixed with a burning righteousness. I would put an end to this. I’d tell my father about Camden being a monster in sheep’s clothing, and he’d end our arrangement.
I stormed inside the foyer, slamming the door so hard, the flowers on the round table shook in the middle of the entryway. A wide-eyed maid came around the corner, but I didn’t stop to explain. Instead, stomping down the hall to the office, where my father spent most evenings.
I could have laughed at the way he almost skidded out the door to his office, his glasses perched above shocked eyes, a stack of papers gripped in his fist. I could have if this day hadn’t already sapped all humor from me.
“Verana?”
“I can’t marry him. I can’t.”
He blinked a few times at my outburst, looking me up and down. I hadn’t checked myself in the mirror before I left, and I could only imagine what I looked like. Tear tracks down my cheeks, my hair tangled, and a mess from where Camden roughly shoved his fist into it. My clothes wrinkled from where I had momentarily collapsed on the floor. My eyes crazed with wild determination.
“What?” he asked once his jaw finally snapped shut, his eyes still concerned. “Bambina, what happened?”
Hearing him call me by the pet name my mother always called me, had me almost falling into his arms, begging him to make it all better, like I had when I was a little girl. But disgust over how I got here kept me standing with determination to stop this.
“Camden,” I sneered his name, throwing my arms wide. “I can’t marry him. I know you and Mama had a good marriage, and I know it can take time. I know you think you chose a good man for me, but Papa, he’s not a good man.”
I bit my lip to hold back the trembling my outburst caused.
He swallowed and looked me up and down like he was hesitant over his next words. “He will take care of you, Verana,” he said, but it lacked conviction.
“No. You’re not hearing me,” I pleaded. “He threatened me.”
Papa’s jaw clenched and the papers crinkled under his tightening grip. My father loved me—even if he’d struggled to show it after my mother died. He’d never tolerate anyone treating me poorly.
His whole body expanded and grew into the man who saved me from my nightmares. And then it deflated like I’d never seen before. The hurt written all over his face, the sorrow in his familiar dark eyes had me holding my breath. I waited anxiously for him to rage and take my side. I waited for him to angrily state how we were Marianos, and we were not disrespected.
But it never came.
Instead, a shutter came down on any familiar emotion, and he shook his head, waving the papers around like he was trying to shoo an annoying fly. “This is absurd.”
Did he not believe me? Something was off, and I wanted to ask him where the worry went, but my emotions ran too high. I had to make him hear me. “It’s not. I’m not making it up. H-He threatened me with…duties as his wife. Horrible things.” I couldn’t even bring myself to repeat what Camden promised to do.
My father stood tall and hard—this time missing all the knight in shining armor and leaving a statue I didn’t recognize. His face set in a scowl but determined. Alarms blared that it wasn’t determination to help me.
“Then be a good wife and do them,” he said, his voice rising.
“What?” I stumbled back, his words hitting me like a physical blow. “No. I can’t.”
“It’s not all about you, Verana.” Whatever calm he’d held on to snapped, and his lips curled in frustration, his fists tight at his side. “We all must make sacrifices. Now, I—I’m done with this discussion.”
My jaw dropped at his outburst, at his complete willingness to let this continue. I was his daughter—his little girl—his bambina. What the hell was going on?
I watched him turn and walk away, my vision blurring like it was all a dream. Surely, that had to be what this all was. Surely, the man walking away from me in my time of need wasn’t real.
“No,” I said, bringing his retreating form back to me. “No, I won’t. I won’t do it.” I shook my head and barely held back from stomping my foot like a child. If he could be someone else, then so could I.
He turned back with narrowed eyes, and he stalked closer like a lion cornering his prey. For the first time ever, I retreated from my father. He’d treated my mother and me like royalty—rarely ever raising his voice, let alone being threatening.
“Don’t make me be this man with you, Verana. Don’t make me be mean.”
“Then don’t. Please, Papa,” I pleaded, my hands reaching out for the loving father I knew had to be there. “Surely, you can’t want this for me. Mama—”
“Isn’t here,” he cut in, his hand slashing through the air before digging his finger into his chest. “I am, and I’m ordering you to marry Camden.”
His face colored red with anger, and I knew the man I’d come to for help didn’t stand before me. My chest heaved over the panic that I didn’t recognize him. This was a stranger, and I’d never felt more alone in the realization that he didn’t care, that I was stuck. My eyes looked left and right around his angry form, searching for a way out of this. Searching for someone to pop out and tell me it was all a joke—for my father to laugh and pull me into his arms and apologize for scaring me.
But it was just me.
“Why are you doing this?” Something had to be wrong. Something had to be forcing him to be this man with me.
He swallowed but held strong to the shield blocking me out. “Because it’s what must be done for the company, and that is your job.”
“I can marry someone else. There has to be a balance between what is good for the company and what is good for me. There has to be.”
“There isn’t because Camden is who I’ve decided is the best fit, and you will marry him.”
I slid my eyes closed and remembered the scowl on Camden’s face as he promised to own me. I remembered the way his fist dug into my hair, the way he touched me without my permission.
I never truly talked back to my father. I never had to beyond a few petty arguments. I was the good girl. The obedient daughter who never complained about the future set out for me, even if it wasn’t what I wanted.
But that was because he’d always been in my corner, standing behind me.
Pulling my shoulders back, I stood tall. I couldn’t afford to be the good girl who never talked back right now. No one else stood in my corner anymore but me.
“And if I don’t?” I asked, my voice strong but quiet.
“Th-then I’ll cut you off,” he stuttered, flustered a moment with my response.
“Fine. I don’t need you, anyway.” While he stood shocked with the turn of events, I stood taller—more confident. “I’d rather be poor than forced into a marriage with that monster. I’ll leave and never look back.”
He collected himself quickly at my challenge. His already dark eyes grew darker, but I saw the indecision that lurked in the depths. I hesitated for a moment, thinking that maybe it hinted that my father was still there, not this stranger.
I was wrong.
“Verana…” he barely said my name and prowled the last two steps until he looked down his nose at me, all signs of a father gone. “There is nowhere you can go that I won’t find you and drag you back kicking and screaming. You will marry Camden.”
I’d heard about this side of him. The shark in the business world. The man who conquered all and rose to the top even when it meant being hard. But never with me.
Why? Why was this happening?
Feeling the loss of his support took more wind out of my sails than anything else. Unable to stop them, tears burned the backs of my eyes and slipped free.
For a moment, Papa softened. He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and sighed. “Maybe I can talk to him. Maybe if you make him happy, he’ll allow you to work, and you can be a part of the company.”
He’d allow? Like it was a privilege to work at the company I was qualified to work at? The company that had my family name on the building.
This wasn’t what was promised. This wasn’t what was explained at bedtime. This didn’t end with us dancing in the kitchen one day. This was selling myself for anything, and anywhere in the hopes he’d maybe allow me some basic decency.
My father finally softened, the dangerous challenger from a moment ago fading to reveal that one I’d been searching for. But it was too late.
A
llow.
Allow.
Allow.
Each time I thought the word, the fire grew inside me. It exploded like a bomb, heating every inch until I was sure I’d combust myself.
“Fuck him,” I snarled, leaning in so he could feel the rage pouring off me. “And fuck you too. Mama would be ashamed of you.”
I heard the smack before it registered. It rang out in the hallway, the perfect preamble to the burning sting of the back of his hand across my cheek.
The pain didn’t only stay on my cheek. It sunk into my chest and squeezed so hard I was sure I’d stop breathing. I covered the hot spot and looked at the man before me. Maybe he was a monster just like Camden, wearing sheep’s clothing as well.
His chest worked overtime; his jaw clenched tighter than his hands. But his eyes swirled with their own battle. Rage, regret, sadness, frustration. I saw it all, and none of it mattered. We’d both gone too far.
“Get out,” he ordered—pleaded.
Still holding my hot cheek, I stumbled back the way I came, not stopping until I cleared the door.
Tears clouded my vision as I fell into the backseat of the car.
“The liquor store, please,” I choked out. I didn’t have enough alcohol at my house to go back to. I wasn’t sure there was enough alcohol in this city to help with tonight.
I opened my phone and tapped the group message with Raelynn and Nova, but I couldn’t begin to find the words to explain the night. So, I locked my phone and slid it in my purse. I’d talk to them eventually, but everything was too raw tonight. I could barely process it myself.
I ran into the liquor store and saw the bottles of champagne. It hadn’t been what I wanted but seeing them reminded me of the last time I felt free, the last time I considered myself in control of my future.
The last time I felt pleasure.
With Nicholas.
Realization hit me like a tidal wave. I wouldn’t get my chance to keep working at Rush and prove to him what an asset I was. With my engagement party in a month, the cat would be out of the bag. My name would be revealed when Camden, no doubt, shouted it from the rooftops and got the most publicity he could out of it. I’d have to quit before I could even get started.