Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
I rode him. Pure and simple, I gave into the instincts that were running wild through me. I leaned forward, releasing my nails from his shoulders, bending my knees and arching my back and curving my hips and fucking his cock until I couldn’t anymore.
Until sweat slicked me from head to toe and the orgasm was on the brink of my consciousness and I stilled with exhaustion.
Adrian slid his hands down my back—up my sides, over my breasts, down my stomach, over my hips, to cup my ass. My skin lit on fire as the heat of his touch dissipated.
He didn’t just cup my ass.
He gripped it—hard. Grabbed it. Owned it. Possessed it. All the time, he held my hips in place against him and thrust his own. He fucked me into oblivion, until I couldn’t focus clearly anymore. Until all I could see were stars and darkness and the thumping of my heart as it told me I loved the man beneath me.
***
Six a.m.
It was no fun.
I sat alone in my kitchen, at the table. The debit card with my name on sat in the middle of the table. Slowly, I pushed it back and forth, up and down the table in front of me.
Swish.
Swish.
Swish.
Swish.
That was the noise it made as the plastic scraped against the wood.
That was the noise it made as it seemed to scream, “Money! Money! Money! Money!”
Like, every push back and forth said that.
Mon-ey.
Mon-ey.
Mon-ey.
I pushed the card away and left it on the last one.
Yesterday, before I’d left, Damien told me the contents of the account.
Nineteen million dollars.
That was what I, Perrie Fox, heir to the Fox business, single mom, and ex-prostitute was worth.
Nine. Teen. Mill. I. On. Dollars.
It was a joke. It wasn’t real. Damien was messing with—I hadn’t accessed this account for so long, I was terrified to attempt it. He’d even given me all the security details I needed.
Nineteen million dollars.
That wasn’t bad for a bastard baby.
I touched the card, only to recoil from it again.
The money…It changed my life. It was the life I was always meant to have. But that didn’t mean it felt right. No, it felt strange. Weird and wrong. This little blonde girl was never meant to be this rich. It was a fact I’d accepted the moment I’d understood Benedict hated me.
But, what I did know what was that my mother loved me.
My mom loved me with everything she was. She’d been a beautiful person, inside and out. Golden from her hair to her very soul. She was impossible to hate, and her heart knew no bounds.
I was her double. I was the one with blonde hair. The enigma, the odd duck, the black sheep.
And ever since her death, I’d lived in the shadow of my adoptive father’s hatred.
I’d allowed his beliefs of me to pollute my own confidence.
I picked up the card once more, holding it between my finger and thumb.
“Perrie?”
I turned my face toward Adrian, full-clothed in what he was wearing when he showed up yesterday. “Hey.”
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” I set the card back down and returned my attention to it.
He took the chair opposite mine. “What are you looking at?”
I pointed at it.
Adrian picked it up and studied it. “It’s a bank card.”
“It’s my bank card.”
“I’m confused.”
“Damien gave it to me yesterday. It’s the card to the inheritance I’ve been blocked from since Lola was born.” I slid the card in front of me. “It feels weird. Knowing that Benedict is away in rehab and Damien is in control, and this card—this little plastic square, holds the part of me my mom always meant me to have.”
“I bet.”
“Nineteen million dollars.” I moved my gaze from the card to him. “That’s how much is in that account. He showed me the statement. And that isn’t all of it. There’s shares in Mom’s trust until I turn thirty. I’ve literally gone from nothing to everything, and I have no idea what to do with it.”
“Must be terrible,” he said dryly.
I snapped my eyes up. “You think I wanted this? Any of this?”
“I think you wish you’d never left your life,” Adrian said. “I think you wish you’d found a way to keep Lola and the life you once had.”
“Yeah?”
“I wish you had. I wish you’d never crossed the great divide between rich and poor.”
A lump formed in my throat. “You wish you’d never met me?”
“No,” he said gently. “Not for a second. I’m glad I met you, Perrie. I just wish I’d never fallen in love with you.”
I froze.
Time stopped.
Everything around me stilled.
Except Adrian.
He moved, full-speed, to stand from his chair. He gave me a small smile before he disappeared through my hallway, then my door. He even took the time to lock my door and put the keys through the mailbox before he left.