by Lana Grayson
He offered only a half-hearted nod to my step-brothers. The gallery applauded as he crossed the floor to greet an older man enamored by a soft painting of a nude woman tangled in flowing silk.
“He’s…friendly,” Reed said.
I pretended to be interested in my champagne. “He’s loyal to my family. He was best friends with my brothers, and he understood exactly how much trouble Darius caused the farm.”
“He has a particular style.” Nicholas admired a painted image of a naked woman captured and struggling within bands of light. “It’s a theme, apparently.”
Max pointed to his favorite—a darker canvas featuring a woman completely restrained in ropes. “I like it.”
I was certain all of my step-brothers enjoyed these particular desires. I flushed.
“Just his style. Everything is sensual with Atlas.” I bit my lip, glancing over the gallery. “I used to have such a crush on him when I was younger.”
Reed rolled his eyes. “So that’s why we’re here. Better learn how to sketch, Nick.”
I said nothing, avoiding the conversation to search for the commissioned painting. It wasn’t hard to find. In a room filled with carnal poses and vibrant, passionate murals, the lone landscape reserved a place of honor.
“That’s your farm,” Reed said.
I stared at the brushes of green, strokes of gold, and bursting reds. The corn, the barn, and house. It was all there, in picture perfect quality. Despite the hundreds of thousands of acres spread over California and the cattle ranches in Nevada, that farmhouse, that little section of soil, crop, and sky was everything my brothers and I believed our family was.
It wasn’t about the money or the governmental lobbyists or the charity events.
It was about the land.
The painting showed a simplicity that no longer existed. My family was destroyed. My future threatened. My innocence stolen.
It wasn’t an end, just another challenge. My family didn’t thrive because it was easy. My ancestors tilled every acre by hand, harvested crops in hail storms, and drew strength from the sun-parched, drought-stricken dirt. Every hardship was an opportunity to survive.
My life was suddenly one hell of an opportunity.
Max’s graveled question wasn’t meant as a warning, but my body laced with a chilled sickness.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
I didn’t look.
After that night, I now felt when the monster entered a room—as though the lights dipped, the temperature plummeted, and every sound, every movement focused the attention on me.
I imagined everyone knew. That they could see me, through me, imagine me without the dress and picture me bruised, bloodied, and covered in a man’s sweat.
A part of me begged to run.
I denied it.
No more cowering. No more hiding. No more clinging to the shadows and praying he wasn’t stalking me in the darkness.
“We’re leaving,” Nicholas said. “We’ll find another exit.”
No, we weren’t. Not until I faced him.
I expected tooth and claw, horn and hoof, but his true evil was veiled in secrecy. The greying, older man cloaked himself in a raw dignity earned at the expense of those he humiliated. He wasn’t ugly—not physically, but it was only because I saw so much of his sons in his features.
Reed’s nose. Max’s shoulders.
Nick’s…everything.
The strong angles and hard jawline that drew me to Nicholas mirrored in the mask of humanity his father wore. Both men were dangerous. Only one vowed to hurt me.
And he did. But it was over. I’d make sure it never happened again.
Darius Bennett raped me. He left me bruised, terrified, and sick with dread. The baby I carried might have belonged to him.
But now? He could do nothing else to me. I hit rock bottom, and landed on my feet, prepared to fight, kick, and claw my way out of this shame. Darius thought he won. The bastard didn’t realize the strength he gave me. I was beyond their evil now. I endured it. Every beat of my heart, every shed tear, every last scar I bore would forever damn him in his own arrogance.
I carried a Bennett heir. If he harmed me, he’d only hurt his own blood and ruin the Bennett legacy.
I was no longer the Sarah Atwood fretting over coursework and mourning her lost family. I wasn’t the captured girl denying her pleasure. I wasn’t the lost victim huddled in dingy hotels while hiding the truth about the life inside me.
The terror, pain, and suffering hadn’t destroyed me. Darius Bennett could do nothing to me that I hadn’t already survived.
I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.
But he would forever fear me.
I clutched the untasted champagne flute with fingers clenched white. My voice lowered, strengthened with a newfound confidence.
“Let’s go greet Daddy.”
I stormed the gallery with my step-brothers rushing to my side. Darius saw me before I reached him, those loathsome brown eyes meeting mine with utter vindication.
He was more intimidating within arm’s reach, but I dared him to force me to my knees in the middle of the crowded gallery. He didn’t touch me. But he looked.
His stare drank over my body, like he savored a rich wine. I waited for him to spit it out, used and wasted, like every other tasting he had of me.
He didn’t.
He enjoyed me. His prickling attention lingered over my plumped chest.
“Sarah, my dear.” His voice sliced me, flaying my skin like the belt he used to subdue me. “What in the world happened to you? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I’ve been traveling,” I said. Nicholas edged me into the safety of my step-brothers’ reach. “What are you doing here?”
“You don’t call, you don’t write...” He tore his gaze from my chest. “Your mother was so concerned that poor Atlas Chase would have no Atwoods to collect his painting. She sent me. I’m glad I came for you.” He nodded to Nicholas. “I suppose I should thank you for returning your sister home?”
“I returned on my own,” I said.
“Did you?” His words thickened over his fat tongue. “What a brave little whore.”
Max attempted to pull me away. Reed stepped between us.
Nicholas and I stood still.
And I waited as the nausea swelled.
He wouldn’t tell them what he had done. Not here. Not now. Darius meant to keep the assault secret until it benefited him, just as I’d keep my silence to protect the men it’d drive to madness.
“I’ve missed you, Sarah,” he said. “It was not my intent for my only daughter to run away from her family.”
“I never doubted any of your intentions.”
“Then you should know how much I regret letting you slip from my grasp.” His lips twisted into a smile. “I should have broken your legs when I had the chance.”
He tried. It took weeks for the bruises to fade.
“We’re leaving.” Nicholas’s warning would chill my champagne. “This is over.”
I refused to let another Bennett seize my hand and force me after them, even Nicholas. “We have a few matters to discuss.”
Darius agreed. “Let’s go home then. We’ll have a nice conversation before your punishment.”
“I am not selling my shares of the Bennett Corporation.”
Max and Reed swore. Nicholas didn’t react.
“If you refuse to sell, I can no longer protect you,” Darius said.
“You never protected me.”
“I left you alive, didn’t I?”
“Hardly.”
“A testament to my restraint.”
“You have none.”
“Why would I use brute force with you, my dear?” His voice hardened. So did other parts of him. “A pillow does quite nicely.”
Too much. I trembled. My step-brothers frowned, but they didn’t know the pleasure Darius took siphoning my breath and suffocating me within the same sheets where Nicholas and
I tangled in beautiful passion.
I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. Not within a roomful of strangers, not in front of my step-brothers.
“I will retain my control of the Bennett Corporation,” I said. “Though my schedule is quite inflexible. I won’t return to the headquarters and will instead require a web connection during all board meetings. My votes will cast via the internet or by Nicholas’s proxy.”
“Why, of course. Anything to make you more comfortable.”
I didn’t blink. “And I will expect your resignation as CEO before the end of autumn.”
My step-brothers tensed. I wasn’t done.
“It’s over, Darius.” I held his gaze. Every second lost in the stare of his decay-brown eyes rotted me from the inside out. “You forced me into this war, and now I’m ending it.”
He sipped his drink. “How so?”
“I plan to destroy the things you value most. Your family. Your power. Your company.”
“Ambitious.”
I gestured to my step-brothers. “I’ve taken your sons. I’ve inherited a stake in your company. I will seize complete control of the corporation before claiming every corner of the Bennett Empire for my own.” I lowered my voice, smiling so the suits and gowns mingling between paintings wouldn’t decipher my threat. “And after? You will have nothing to protect you from me.”
Darius arched an eyebrow to Nicholas. “She’s feisty tonight.”
I owned it. “I’m far more challenging when you don’t have me bound and gagged.”
“Pity we have no gag tonight.”
“You never will again.”
Darius stilled, his leer chasing the shivers along my spine. My stomach twisted, but I didn’t dare let the sickness take me. Not now.
I needed this moment. This closure. This pride.
And Darius existed only to crush it.
“My little Sarah. You seem so different from the last time I saw you. No tears. No screaming.”
I stiffened. Nicholas didn’t react.
“Now here you are, poised and graceful. You’ve really changed during your travels.” Darius words slithered over me. “Something gave you this confidence to confront me, to punish me for all those terrible things I did. It does make a father proud to see his daughter with such spirit. Such glow. So full of…life.”
Nicholas took my hand. I swallowed the bile.
“Celebrate your momentary freedom. I won’t tolerate this insult in public, but I assure you…” His words penetrated and pained. “I will reclaim what is mine.”
He reached for me but took only the champagne from my grasp.
“So good to see you again, my dear.”
I trembled. “The pleasure was entirely yours.”
“It always is.”
He brushed past us. I couldn’t wait. I refused their guiding hands and escaped from the gallery to dart into a supply closet and let the sickness pass, undignified, in a janitorial sink.
It wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t have been possible.
No one could tell. Not yet.
I heaved into the darkness. Nicholas rubbed my back as Reed and Max covered the entrance, ensuring no wayward guest crossed my moment of weakness.
I recovered, but the dread coiled in my emptied stomach.
Darius knew.
My morning sickness sucked more at night. I wasn’t sure how that was possible.
I flopped into my third bed of the week, too exhausted to even wrap the blankets over me. That was fine. Less to untangle when I inevitably got sick.
It was like the baby tried to escape from my mouth. That was a more horrifying proposition than what would happen in seven months.
In six and a half months.
When we wouldn’t be able to run anymore.
My family hadn’t visited our summer home in Santa Barbara since before Dad’s chemo. I hardly recognized the beach house—though it wasn’t like we spent much time here. Dad forced Mike and Josiah to work even on vacation, and Mom had an irrational fear of jellyfish, rip tides, and whales. When I was little, most of the vacations ended early from arguments, harvest crises, and sunburn.
But I’d missed the beautiful house. What was intended to be a multi-million dollar home-away-from-home stood empty and hollow without Dad’s tirades from the kitchen or Mike and Josiah testing their boogie boards on the staircase.
It was hardly a home without a family.
Nicholas knocked at my door. I claimed my childhood room with the pink walls, a queen bed, and a bay window—Hamlet’s preferred seat. Nicholas didn’t question the posters or books on the shelves. I rose before he poked through the antique dollhouse in the corner.
“Max will stay with you tonight.” Nicholas buttoned his suit jacket. “Reed will be back in the morning. I’ll fly in from San Jose tomorrow afternoon once I meet with a prospective client.”
He tried to reassure me, as if I’d be worried without him close.
And I was.
But every night I pushed him from my bedroom as my world tore apart. I couldn’t let him stay. I’d only fall back into his embrace. Surrendering to that desire would end in our disaster.
I loved Nicholas Bennett with every shudder of my breaking heart, even if it was his cruelty, greed, and ambition which first trapped me within his captivity.
I had bound myself to a monster and imagined I was safe.
I trusted the demon while praying for salvation.
I was a fool.
Nicholas delivered on his promised evil, and yet his hand guided me into a perfect submission that soothed my fears and crumbled the defenses that shielded me from his control.
I loved him, and, because of my own weakness, I made him the most dangerous man to my unborn child.
“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he said.
“Because you think I need protection, or because you think I’ll run?”
Nicholas wasn’t insulted. “Because you need me. Because our baby needs me.”
“Please don’t talk like that.”
“Sarah, nothing in this world will stop me from loving you. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do to keep me from my son.”
“Nick—”
“The pregnancy changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
“Only if you let it.”
I squared my shoulders, though my full height was nothing compared to Nicholas’s strength, his poise, the solid force of his authority. “Don’t pretend to understand how I feel.”
“Then tell me how you feel. Talk to me, Sarah.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true.”
“For us, it has to be.” I stared into his eyes. “I’m pregnant. I’m six months from losing everything my family ever built. My future is ruined because Darius Bennett lusted for more wealth.”
“You think I would take your farm from you?” he asked. “Sarah, you still hold the entirety of the Josmik Trust. You have more influence over my company than I hold over your fields.”
I closed my eyes. “I won’t have this same fight with you.”
“Then stop fighting and start trusting me. For once. This will be over soon, and then you and me…” He touched my cheek. “You, and me, and our son can start our family, and I can give you every comfort and security you deserve. Sarah, I’d give my life to keep you two safe.”
I pressed my finger against his lips, marveling in the warmth and memory of how they once memorized every inch of my body. Now they murmured dangerous possibilities.
“Please don’t say that,” I whispered. “It might come true.”
“I have too much to live for. So many depending on me.”
His hand slipped low, touching my tummy.
Nicholas and I once swore to reveal all our secrets. No more hiding contracts or assumed infertilities, vengeful boards or family tragedies. We promised, we vowed it to each other, and our fragile bond frayed as every lie was revealed.
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br /> It wasn’t secrets separating us now. It was that truth I couldn’t give, and the honesty that bore only pain. What would happen if the baby was a product of hatred and violence?
If it wasn’t Nicholas’s son?
If it wasn’t a male heir?
“Get some rest.” Nicholas reluctantly pulled away. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”
He closed the door behind him, and I collapsed on the bed.
My hand trembled, but I lifted my shirt, only above my navel, only high enough to reveal little more than a puffy flatness. Still secret.
I rested my hand over the warmth. I wished it hadn’t been the first time I was brave enough to touch.
I curled into bed, napping even though the sun had barely set. I woke halfway between a wave of nausea and an intense craving for something salty.
Gross.
I rested, head in my hands as the sweat poured off of me.
Equally gross.
He knocked on my door. I wasn’t in any condition for visitors. Max entered anyway.
His silhouette filled the entire doorway, but his size and strength reassured me. Despite the tattoos, penchant for using belts in unconventional applications, and adopting a sullen silence since I revealed the pregnancy, Max was my perfect teddy bear.
A very large, very temperamental teddy bear that happened to spank instead of cuddle.
“Hey, baby,” he said. “Can I come in?”
I flipped on the bedside lamp. “Since when do you ask permission from me?”
“Times change.”
“Yeah. There’s a Bennett in one of my childhood bedrooms.”
“Soon to be one more.”
Apparently. I cradled a pillow from the stash on my bed. Pink pastel and shaped like a sand-dollar, the pillows were early 90s hideous, but Mom ordered them for every room.
“Mike and Josiah hated these pillows.” I picked at a loose string. “But they were great for pillow fights. Josiah and I would gang up on Mike.”
“Cute.”
I squeezed it tight. “It’s weird here without them.”
Max’s words edged hard and impatient. “Look, I’m just checking to see if you need anything.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
A pause. I arched an eyebrow.
“So…goodnight?”
He turned, but his hand gripped the door frame. Too hard.