by Lana Grayson
Controlling Interests (The Legacy Series #2)
Copyright © 2015 by Lana Grayson
Published by Tika Lake Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover Design: Rebecca Berto
http://bertodesigns.com/
Cover Images Purchased from: http://www.periodimages.com
Other Works By Lana Grayson:
Legacy Series
Takeover – The Legacy Series #1
Anathema Series
Warlord – Anathema MC Series #1
Exiled – Anathema MC Series #2
Knight – Anathema MC Series #3
Coming This Fall!
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And you can email me at [email protected].
Please Note:
This story is a continuation of a dark step-brother romance which will include scenes of captivity, physical abuse, sexual encounters with multiple partners, and non-consensual situations.
The series will end with a Happily Ever After, and will not feature themes of cheating/adultery.
All of the characters are over the age of eighteen and are of no blood relation.
No Hamlets were harmed in the writing of this manuscript.
However, certain scenes and descriptions may be uncomfortable for some readers. Please read with care.
Thank you!
To My Husband...
A novel in two three weeks!
…Yeah, I know. I’ll relax once it’s done. ;)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Acknowledgements
I expected abuse, rage, and violation from Darius Bennett.
Instead, he offered me a pink sundress and white strappy sandals.
Darius asked me to join him for dinner. It was more likely I’d claw his damned eyes out.
The gifted outfit rested over my unmade bed. I regretted leaving the comforter tucked and the pillows so neatly stacked. The message was clearer than if Darius had caught me within Nicholas’s arms.
I didn’t sleep in my own bed last night.
Then again, I hardly slept at all.
“I’m not having dinner with that man.” I faced my step-brothers and dared them to argue. “Not after he attacked me.”
Nicholas remained silent though no words spoken in his caramel cadence would sound as satisfying as the crunch of his fist against Darius’s jaw. His hand bruised. Neither of us cared. I kissed every last scape on his knuckles.
Then I kissed more than his hand.
I shivered. The sensual memory threaded with apprehension. The dread wasn’t nearly as bad as the lingering sense of utter helplessness which remained long after Darius’s assault. Fear didn’t lash me. Humiliation, frustration, and rage humbled me in ways I didn’t know I could be humbled.
I made a promise to myself then and there.
I would never be that helpless again.
I tossed the dress into the corner before Reed tumbled on the bed. He grinned. The flashed dimple meant trouble.
“Dinner?” He folded his arms behind his head. “There’s only one thing I want to eat now.”
I fully anticipated reliving the passionate and bewildering night in bouts of blushed awkwardness, but Reed wasn’t helping. I tangled my fingers in the buttons of Nicholas’s suit jacket as I lingered before my step-brothers half-nude with mussed hair and puffy lips. Reed had no sense of propriety.
Or modesty.
Or tact.
“There’s a limit to your puns,” I warned.
Reed was immune to shame. “Make you a deal. I’ll stop making puns when I knock you up.”
“Great.” I tugged at a fresh towel from my linen closet. “Then the Bennett Estate just turned into a comedy club.”
Max reached over my head, slamming the closet door and nearly taking my fingers with it. His shadow loomed, menacing. I weighed my options. If he wasn’t carrying his flogger, I had more wiggle room to oppose him.
“It helps to have a little optimism, baby,” he said.
“Optimism?”
Max was more predator than hero. “We’re doing this for your own good.”
“How magnanimous.”
“Just doing as we’re told, right, Nick?”
The air thickened.
And I was still very exposed.
Nicholas said nothing. Max retreated, and I clutched the towel against my body. Nicholas’s jacket hung over my curves, but it offered no protection.
All three of my step-brothers had touched, tasted, and tempted every last bit of me.
And I enjoyed it.
All of it.
Christ. Life wasn’t easy before, yet I handled my illness, school, the funerals, my mother, and the company with a smidgen of grace. It wasn’t neat and tidy, at least I wore clothes for most of it.
Now?
Well, I wasn’t wearing much of anything, and everything I thought I had under control twisted in the Bennetts’ shadows.
How was I supposed to confront the tattooed, muscle-bound behemoth who ordered optimism just hours after rutting me over the arm of a couch?
Was I just supposed to ignore the green-eyed charmer who winked before he ripped me from the floor to take his turn with my spent body?
And what defenses did I have against Nicholas Bennett?
He dominated me. He protected me. Then, he gave me to his brothers.
And I obeyed him. I accepted every touch and kiss and caress. But, even as Nicholas and my step-brothers enthralled me with pleasure and conquered me in lustful savagery, we all understood our places.
I owned him.
I owned them all.
The stock my family bought and the influence they garnered guaranteed me a controlling interest in the Bennett Corporation. In less than a year, I could ruin them for the virginity they stole, the skin they bruised, and the life they destroyed.
They planned to rape me. Imprison me within their home. Impregnate me.
They thought they�
�d control me.
Except, in the best and worse decision of my life, I fell in love with Nicholas Bennett, and I allied myself with Max and Reed.
My controlling interest in the Bennett Corporation was nothing more than a sword without a hilt. I could swing it, but was I willing to slice off my hand just to strike down Darius Bennett?
That answer was easy.
Yes.
I’d spill every last drop of my blood to destroy Darius. No punishment existed that suited a villain more snake than human, but I’d invent a torture fitting for the venomous fiend, if only to prevent the worse sin of all.
He terrified me.
And I’d never let him frighten me again.
I kicked the dress and ground the silk into the carpet with a satisfied twist of my heel.
No way in hell I was wearing any clothes he picked out.
“You guys deal with Darius,” I said. “I want to take a shower.”
Reed tensed the same as his brothers, but only he dared to question me. “A shower? Already?”
I wouldn’t detail the particulars of my current situation. I flushed. “I’m…sticky. Yes, I want a shower.”
“Shouldn’t you…” He really shouldn’t have pointed. “Keep your legs up?”
“I think my legs have been up for long enough.”
Bennett pride was truly a marvel to behold. My step-brothers shared an unrelenting arrogance which only amplified after a night of demonstrating their virile masculinities.
They smirked.
There’d be no living with them now.
Hell, I’d be lucky if I ever got a full night’s sleep again.
And the warm shudder that rocked me was the first thread of the tangled emotions that strangled me.
Max stated the obvious. “Dad’s gonna want you there for dinner.”
“I don’t give a damn what Darius wants.”
“You want to get hurt?”
Reed frowned. “Max, come on.”
“Honest enough question,” Max said.
After spending my last few hours getting slammed, gripped, and tossed man to man, brother to brother, I both loved and loathed the newfound aches within me. But no matter the gentle touches and pleasurable nibbles, my step-brothers couldn’t ease the stinging bruise on my cheek. They couldn’t kiss away the strikes only now fading from my sides, and they’d never heal the tightness in my chest—either an unfortunate fracture or the lurking asthma threatening what Darius hadn’t fractured.
I didn’t want any more pain. I agreed to Nicholas’s plan. I’d stay silent about the secret trust and offer my body for whatever heir they thought they could create. But that sacrifice was enough.
I deserved a little protection.
“Don’t let him hurt me,” I said. “Simple as that.”
Max had the least patience of my brothers, but even he was silenced.
“I don’t care how you do it, or what you tell him.” I held each of their gazes—Max’s dark intimidation, Reed’s gentle green, and Nicholas’s golden vow. “I won’t let him hurt me again. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. I…don’t want to lose you guys.”
Nicholas nodded toward the door. They hesitated, but, ultimately, his brothers obeyed. As always. Reed winked before they gave us privacy.
Privacy.
A strange word for a girl who just had sex with three men.
Three brothers.
Her step-brothers.
I tossed the towel away and faced the only man capable of delivering such depravity. Under the heat of his honeyed gaze, the whisper of his velvet voice, and the brush of his secret touch, I’d have surrendered again.
“What can I do?” Nicholas drew too close to me.
I faked confidence and pretended his approach hadn’t twisted me around his finger, will, and command.
What could he do?
An excellent question, only it had no answer. Nicholas veiled his secrets and forged a path to his desires by using whomever and whatever he needed to get what he wanted.
And that was me.
But what could he do against Darius? What would he do when his attempts to create an heir failed?
What could he do when falling in love bound us to a world of pain, sorrow, and danger?
Nothing.
And everything.
My life would either end in a splash of blood or suddenly begin with a newfound wealth. I could topple the Bennetts with a whisper and be destroyed with my next breath.
“Are you okay?” He asked. It was a simpler question.
“Are you?”
He didn’t answer. He abandoned his tie sometime during the night, and I wore his jacket. Nicholas was never so untended. I teased the buttons protecting my nudity.
He noticed.
He studied my fingers. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“You rescued me when your father tried to rape me only to hand me over to your brothers.” A button opened. “Then you watched as they took me, again and again.”
The memory darkened him, but not into rage. He leaned close, and his breath warmed my baring skin. I stilled, trapped within the intensity of his golden gaze.
“They might have taken you, but you are in my possession.”
He unfastened the second button.
“Never forget, Ms. Atwood. My brothers are permitted a taste, but, ultimately, you belong to me.”
The jacket slipped from my body. I stood naked, trembling in his heat, so very tiny before such a proud man. Nicholas dressed once more, feathering the jacket over his shoulders as he admired me with a victorious arrogance.
“You should stay with me,” I whispered. The suit composed him, but it did little to hide his excitement. I edged to the bed. “We could rest for a while.”
“Are you really thinking of resting?”
No, but I needed it. “Well, we’ll…get some champagne.”
“What are we celebrating?”
Did he have to ask? I grinned. “My victory, of course.”
“Is that so?”
“We should drink to my newfound stock portfolio. Or maybe my family’s foresight in securing the shares necessary to bring down the Bennett Corporation.”
I tempted him with the destruction of his life and the tease of my body—probably the most dangerous way to antagonize a Bennett. Nicholas never took the bait.
“Get your shower,” he said. “And then please come to dinner.”
“No.”
“Concessions, Sarah.”
“I don’t know what’s more ridiculous—you and your concessions or Max and his optimism.”
A quick whip of the terrycloth wrapped the towel over my body. The material was too short and Nicholas’s quiet dignity too intimidating.
“How can you even look at that man?” I said.
“There’s not a part of me that doesn’t wish a thousand hells on my father.”
“Then why?”
“Sarah, no matter what I do, he’ll drag you to that hell with him. I won’t give him that chance.”
Nicholas brushed a hand on my cheek. I let him linger too long, but he had already seen me at my most vulnerable. He held me when I cried and comforted me as I broke down after his rescue.
Part of me hated letting a Bennett see that weakness. The other part of me, the part not soured by the name Atwood, wanted nothing more than to be consoled by the man I was beginning to love.
“Don’t be afraid of him,” Nicholas said.
“I’m not.” It was a lie.
“We won’t let him hurt you.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
I spoke too quickly. Nicholas pulled away. The frustration crackled around him, a charge of simmering anger and disappointment. I didn’t deserve the guilt for his regret even if he didn’t blame me for acknowledging their failure.
I groaned. It should have been simple.
Get kidnapped. Endure the rape. Gloat when my infertility thwarted their plans. Find evidence of
my father’s murder.
The plan had crumbled.
I became a willing prisoner, they never raped me, and my infertility would force Darius to kill me to save his company.
And my father?
My father wasn’t murdered. Even if he was, he was too evil to avenge.
Nicholas reached for me. It didn’t matter where he touched, just as long as he did. His finger traced where my neck hollowed into my shoulder.
“I have the takeover,” he said. “They wait for my signal. Once it happens, I’ll have control of the company. He won’t be able to touch us.”
“When will that be?”
“No more than a couple months.”
“I could be dead by then.”
“You could be pregnant.”
I rolled my eyes. “Good luck.”
“You as well.” Even Nicholas’s patience had limits. He paused. “Sarah, I’m asking this as a favor. Come downstairs and eat, be quiet and polite, and don’t give my father cause to hurt you.”
“It’s not my fault that I’ve been abused.”
“No. It’s my fault. It always will be.”
His kiss did nothing to chase the remorse from his words. I welcomed the nibble of his lips, but, like all our time, we existed in stolen moments and dangerous secrets. What should have connected us in quiet peace was only the reminder of the war to come.
Nicholas had his responsibilities. His expectations of his own duties and the tasks his father forced upon him. The invitation to dinner was not one we could refuse.
I preferred starvation.
“You can do this,” he said. “But don’t let him think anything has changed. He can’t know you’ve allied with my brothers or that you’re unable to conceive, or that you are aware of the Josmik Trust.”
Nicholas forbade me from speaking the very secrets I longed to scream. If Darius realized how badly I already cracked the foundation of the Bennett Estate, he’d slit his own throat instead of mine.