by Lana Grayson
“Do you think I’d let you leave me? Do you think I wouldn’t spend every dollar to my name, call in every favor my family is owed, and slit any throat to track you to the ends of the earth?”
“You sound just like Darius.”
The accusation was meant to hurt, and it did. I clenched my teeth. “I was taught family was worth more than any stock, land, or company.”
“We aren’t a family.”
“We could be. You and me and the baby.”
“It will never work.”
I leaned down to feel the warmth of her body. God, I missed this woman. “How do you know?”
She squirmed against the wall. “Please, let me go.”
“No.”
“Damn it, Nick. You didn’t kidnap me because you wanted to start a family. You raped me to get an heir to my family’s farm.”
“I never raped—” The memory struck both of us. I buried the truth. “I never intended to hurt you. It’s not the same now as when we first took you. We’re meant for each other.”
“We’re not.”
“We’re both broken. The only time I feel remotely human is when I’m with you. My heart stops when I’m near you, but it’s because of you I even have this empathy. You saved me from becoming a monster like…”
I couldn’t say it. Neither could she.
I continued, dragging a breath just to smell her sweet scent. “I could spend every day for the rest of my life trying to earn your forgiveness, and you’d have the right to hate me. I only ask that you let me try. Let me be part of this. Let me…”
I reached for her, gently brushing the back of my hand along her stomach, pressing just enough to feel her warmth through the shirt. Somewhere, deep inside her, the greatest miracle and the most dangerous complication to our lives snuggled safe and warm.
I couldn’t live without her.
I wouldn’t live without the child.
She let me touch her only because she had no other escape, but I wasn’t losing the chance to feel her once more.
I leaned in. Her breathing hitched. She stilled as I pressed my lips to hers. That was honest. That was genuine. The swelling hardness and her wavering sigh wasn’t a reaction we could deny.
Her kiss answered with the same ragged desperation—two months of loss and struggle and exhaustion shattered in the shared heat that drew us together. The nibbled pleasure strengthened me. Her touch, her shiver, every supple quiver of her body belonged to me and me alone.
I lost her to fear, but she wouldn’t push from my arms. Not when she promised more in the reluctant brush of her lips than any words she had spoken since she returned to us.
I might have pressed hard against her. Held her against the wall and cupped her thighs, her ass, her breasts. In another time, without the hesitance and uncertainty, I wouldn’t have waited. Sarah would’ve landed on the bed, spread beneath me in a murmur of protests and the relentless heat of a vixen waiting to be taken.
But my hand rested on the vulnerable, quiet part of her. I wouldn’t jeopardize her or him, not when they were both so fragile. I savored the kiss but pulled away, holding her pale, widened eyed gaze.
She hid secrets and fears and pain from me. It tore me apart.
“Let me love you,” I whispered. “Let me show you that I can protect you and pleasure you and be a father to my—”
The touch was too much. Or maybe it was the promise.
Sarah cried out, batting my arms and rushing to the center of the room.
Away from the bed.
She fought the harsh coughing that stole her breath and shoved me away when I wanted nothing more than to help her.
“Don’t. No.” She closed her eyes and murmured the words once more to herself. “I can’t.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to go.”
“Ask me anything else.”
“There is nothing else, Nick. You know what we have to do to free ourselves from this nightmare.”
“It’s not a nightmare with you. Not for me.”
“That’s the difference then, isn’t it?” she hadn’t cried yet, but the tears slipped now. “I’m living in the hell you caused. The only thing you can do for me is to help punish the one responsible and then let me go…” Her words broke. “If you cared for me at all, you won’t have me say it again.”
“It’s because I care for you so much that I’d make you say it, again and again, every minute of the day, until you realize the mistake you’re making.”
“It will only hurt you.”
“I’m in love with you, Sarah Atwood. And nothing you say or do will hurt me more than my own guilt. I want you to be mine. I’m asking you to be mine.”
“You can’t give me a choice now. Not after everything that’s happened. Not now that you’ve gained everything you and your father wanted from me.”
“I have an heir,” I said. “And my name will live on, but Sarah, my life is meaningless without you.”
Her words echoed with heartache. “Why do I wish we’d never met?”
I encroached again, tipping her chin, taking a kiss salty with tears from lips numb with sorrow.
“I wish I hadn’t either,” I said. “If only so I could start again, right here, right now, and love you the way I should have loved you from the beginning.”
I released her, giving her the space she needed. She should have been held, warmed, caressed. Instead, she cradled herself. Alone.
“I’ll take care of my father. Trust me. You’ll never have to think of him again.”
Her hand covered her stomach. “I won’t let you take this revenge from me.”
Taking a life while nurturing a life. She thought it was her right. I would never let it happen, never let the blood stain her hands or that final innocence be lost.
Once my father was gone, nothing would prevent me from earning her trust, rebuilding our love, and beginning our family.
Sarah carried my son.
And soon, my father would never again haunt her.
Sarah Atwood didn’t go to war. She scorched the earth, salted the ground, and stained what remained with blood.
Even her most devious plan encompassed solid business sense and a practical eye for details. But she hadn’t the experience to know when to slice the throat instead of gutting her target for pleasure. If I had it my way, she’d never learn.
But her revenge was plotted long before she called Reed to bring her home. I hadn’t expected it. I didn’t approve of it.
I didn’t have a choice.
The Bennett Board of Directors assembled under the pretense of a quarterly fiscal report. They stayed for the beginning of their end.
If they suspected anything, they didn’t speak of it. We discussed the upcoming quarter and hid the soured profits within promised terminations and restructuring.
As we had done for the past five quarters.
The board was beginning to notice.
And that made our meetings…complicated. Even more complicated when the woman I loved willingly antagonized the men who needed no reason to end a problem before it cost them more money. Sarah was an expensive mistake.
Worse, her absence made a fool of my father.
And yet, his temper hadn’t lashed. He never troubled himself with the lost Josmik shares. And Sarah no longer feared his retaliation.
Why?
The board room silenced as a secretary set up the screen to display Sarah’s fatal mistake.
My father’s attention fixed on me rather than the press release from Atwood Industries. His chosen board members grumbled as this inconvenience interrupted their tee off time.
“Nick, can’t you just fill us in?” Peter Hannigan checked his watch. “Christ, we’ll miss lunch.”
I said nothing. For the past two months, I endured their every humiliation. They mistreated my name, rank, and power within the company to award pet projects, fully expensed yacht parties, and terminations of employees to ensure a gr
eater profit for the next quarter.
Worse, they showed no remorse for how they treated Sarah. They voted on her life as though it were a decision to buy a smaller competitor or break for lunch.
It would end soon enough.
“What the hell is this, Darius?” Bryant Maddox was a rat-bastard who turned on my father and cast the final vote to murder Sarah. I never met a man more slime than skin and bone, but he’d bleed like any other board member. “I thought we had this problem under control.”
My father waited as the secretary closed the door behind her. He didn’t dismiss the two security guards poised in the corner, waiting for another shot at my kidneys.
“It’s been brought to my attention that Sarah Atwood has reappeared.” My father met my gaze. He baited me to anger. He didn’t deserve any reaction.
Bryant chuckled. “The whore needed another taste, huh, Nick? I thought the last time the Bennetts got their fill she wasn’t very happy.”
My father’s lip twitched, a cross between satisfied smile and irritated scowl. “Oh, I can assure you, Sarah Atwood…suffered.”
“Good,” Bryant said. “That slut cost us millions of dollars. We need to earn it back.”
The Board nodded. Stanley, our oldest member, had a heart weakened with age and blackened with power. His voice cracked, choked on his salivating thoughts of what we’d forced Sarah to do.
“Bryant,” he said. “I’m sure she has her reasons for reneging on our arrangement. If she wants to live, she’ll provide the promised shares. A fair trade, I should think.”
My father taught us never to retreat from a challenge. We punished the fool who dared to flex instead of bow.
It wouldn’t be a fair trade until she bled.
He pressed play on the recording emailed to the executives of both Atwood Industries and the Bennett Corporation. Only I noticed Sarah also uploaded the video to YouTube.
She did it without consulting us. Without considering the implications.
What might have been a push for power would become her Last Will and Testament.
The video began with a bright, smiling, beautiful vision of the woman I loved, grinning at the camera with a feminine grace laced with her family’s thorns. She sat at a desk, palms folded, in a perfectly professional blouse. She had curled her hair, dabbed modest makeup over her cheeks, and disguised the flush of her nausea with raw enthusiasm.
She fooled everyone but me.
Everyone but my father.
“Good morning.” The recorded Sarah spoke delicately, sweetly, and as if the teeth she bared in her smile wouldn’t bite and punish. “I wanted to issue this announcement myself, as head of the Atwood family and company.”
The board shifted, eying the screen and wishing they could rip her from the recording just to bind her at the table.
“I wish to thank you all for your patience and compassion during these past few months as I’ve recovered from various health issues. I’m pleased to say, thanks to the loving support of my step-family, I am completely rejuvenated. They’ve offered me a new outlook on life, this company, and how best to secure our futures. I am eager to return to work.”
I steeled my expression. It wouldn’t save me. Either the board would believe I organized Sarah’s disobedience, or they’d assumed the truth—that I had absolutely no control over the woman who owned a significant portion of the company.
Neither scenario endeared me to the board.
In fact, it endangered me more than Sarah. I possessed enough of the company to challenge my father, but I was an easier, less volatile target than Sarah. If I died, my shares reverted to him.
Sarah spoke to the camera with a smile of genuine confidence. Her speech rolled with ease. She assumed everyone, everywhere listened, as if her words were the most important in the world. It was a trait she inherited from her father.
“My first order of business will be a…challenging one.” Sarah breathed deeply, to prove she had no lingering symptoms of the asthma attack we had claimed forced her from her position. “For years, Atwood Industries has strived to maintain a positive, wholesome, and family-oriented business plan. After the tragedies that stole my father and brothers this past year, I’ve been searching for a reason to end the mourning. I found it, finally, right where it always was. With family.”
Goddamn it. I remembered this speech, though it wasn’t first delivered by Sarah Atwood. Months ago, my father spoke of family as we attempted a takeover of Atwood Industries. We offered Sarah far more than the company was worth, and she answered a perceived insult with a clause.
Only a male heir could control her company.
And so we made it happen.
“The Atwoods and Bennetts are united in marriage.” The artificial cheer forced through her words. “It’s time we extend that unity beyond our families and into a mutually beneficial business plan. It’s no secret that I am now a large stockholder in the Bennett Corporation. Like my step-father and step-brothers, I am committed to ensuring continued profits for both our companies.”
Bryant snorted. “What the fuck is she doing?”
Stanly waved a wrinkled hand. “Hush.”
“I am pleased to announce, for the first time since the founding of Atwood Industries, we will be using Bennett agrochemical products in all of our fields and for all of our crops.”
My father paused the recording. The board erupted into a rage.
“Why would the little whore want our products now?” Bryant swore. “Her family has consistently slandered our company.”
“She’s doing it for the money.” Peter Hannigan was the least likely of the board members to be an accessory to murder. He shrugged. “She has her investments in the Bennett Corporation, and she’ll do whatever she can to maximize profits.”
“That’s not it,” Bryant said. “The Atwoods valued their feud over money. Mark Atwood spent millions to sabotage us.”
“Mark Atwood is dead.” Jacob Fisher heaved his bulk into his seat as he poured another cup of coffee. He added too many sugars for a man already diabetic. “And his troublemaking sons are also dead. This girl has their spirit, but she’s foolish and impulsive. A liability to the Bennett Corporation and Atwood Industries.”
“Screw her farm.” Bryant slammed a hand against the table. “Nick, what the hell is your whore doing? Why does she want our products?”
My father waited in silence. I offered him nothing. “It’s a sound business decision.”
“Bullshit,” Bryant scoffed.
“And it’s a great deal for us.”
I measured my voice with talk of profits and fortunes. My father passed a proposal to me, dragging his fingers across the table as though he’d claw through the wood like her flesh.
“Atwood Industries owns hundreds of thousands of acres,” I said. “Her proposal names us sole agrochemical supplier for the entirety of her farms—corn, alfalfa, almonds, plus the rest of their cash crops.” I paused, waiting for their full attention. “Tens of millions of dollars every harvest, and an end to the slander. It’d be an entirely new facet to the Bennett/Atwood relationship. We’ll earn more customers and money than if we had simply taken over Atwood Industries.”
“You’re not seriously considering this proposal, Nick,” Bryant said.
“Atwood Industries has always been the dream customer. We built this company to capitalize on the mega-conglomerate farms, and now we might take on the biggest in the country.” Christ, I hoped Sarah understood how much she risked making this offer. “If you want her to give the accounts to Montgomery Petrochemicals again…”
The board grumbled. Now they understood.
I continued. “If you want to secure our stocks, forge a profit, and open the company to more customers by virtue of the Atwood name, then you see the opportunity we have here.”
Bryant practically snarled. “What’s her real plan?”
Jacob chuckled. “She thinks she can buy us off.”
“That time is passed
.”
Stanley coughed, his frail form wavering under the weight of his amusement. “The girl is bargaining her farm for her life. She won’t give up the land or her body, but she’ll insult the memory of her family to save her own hide.”
Peter took the proposal from my hand and whistled. “This is…substantial. We can’t afford not to bid on this project.”
“No,” Bryant said. “Absolutely not. The little whore is wasting our time. We should have found her the day after she skipped town and ended this. I don’t want her as a customer, I want her dead.”
“Easy.” Stanley tisked his tongue and looked to me. “There are those among us who would disagree.”
I said nothing. Bryant didn’t meet my gaze.
“Now,” Stanley said. “Let’s consider our options. The girl is frightened. She’s ensuring she’s visible within her company to discourage anyone from taking her life while she is so public. So let’s be reasonable for a moment. Nicholas, does she intend to sell her stock?”
No. The lie came easily, for both our sakes. “She’s waiting on the right price and terms.”
“There now. She’s negotiating for a better deal. She’s offered us the contract for her farm which will generate millions in new revenue for us, and she wishes to secure her future.” Stanley nodded. “I am willing to look beyond the events of the past. Mistakes were made, and our plans were executed without the…attention to detail they required. We hadn’t planned for certain contingencies.”
Contingencies being my love for the woman they intended to exploit, harm, and rape. I stayed silent. His words attempted to cleanse the sin of their planned murder as though they could simply wash their hands of whatever evils they committed.
“The only way we protect the Bennett Corporation is if we kill the girl and take the stock,” Bryant said. “We don’t need another customer. We need our liabilities secured. If she dies, the problem resolves itself, right, Darius?”
My father said nothing, watching over the table with mild amusement. He stared hard at the image of Sarah paused over the screen. I hated his expression.
Lust.
Sadism.
Cruelty.
He hadn’t his chance to attack Sarah, despite his promises of horror and pain and suffering. He’d never have the opportunity. His end was near, and then Sarah would be free of him. Forever.