Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Her heart banged against her chest as she waited for his answer.
And when he finally spoke...his answer was not at all what she expected.
Chapter Eight
Mary couldn't believe he was hurting her all over again. "You want me to sign...a contract."
"Yes."
Her eyes were blurry as she opened the attachment he had emailed her. A contract didn't have to be that...bad. Right?
She took a deep breath as she forced herself to start reading.
There were so many pages, and her eyes became even blurrier with tears. There were so many clauses covering separation, more clauses covering infidelity, and more than a few pages' worth of clauses when it came to money.
She tried to find a way to make the words more palatable, but no matter how smart she was, all of it amounted to just one thing alone.
This contract was all about the Duke of Flanders' right to treat his mistress like a whore if he wanted to, cheat on her if he so desired...and in exchange, she was supposed to happy about the privilege of spreading her legs before His Grace.
"Did you..." Mary swallowed hard. "D-Did you read this?"
Rathe forced himself to lie. "Yes." The truth was, he had been unable to bear reading a single word...since Wilson had told him the contract he had given Rathe was the exact same contract his father had once made his mother sign.
Mary's heart broke at the duke's answer. "Why?"
"Why not?"
"B-Because this isn't how it's supposed to be—-"
"If you really love me like you said you do," he forced himself to say, "then why is it so hard for you to fucking sign this?"
All Mary could do was look at him.
That he could even ask her such a thing...
Panic gripped the duke's chest when Mary rose clumsily to her feet, but he forced himself to stay still. "I am not the type to chase after a woman."
A painful smile touched her lips. "I don't expect you to."
"Then go."
Mary bit her lip hard when it started to tremble.
Why, God, why?
Why did she keep letting this man deceive and hurt her again and again?
Rathe could feel himself growing numb as he watched Mary stumble out of the front doors, and for a long, long time, he simply stayed where he was, a part of himself unable to believe that Mary was once again out of his life.
Why couldn't she just sign it, dammit?
Had she been lying when she told him she loved him?
Rathe forced himself to check his email so he could retrieve his copy of the contract. Could there be something here that was acceptable to his parents but not to Mary? His gaze skimmed the first page, and nothing unusual leapt at him. He swiped to the next page—-
Bloody, bloody hell.
Now he knew why Mary had walked out on him, but what he couldn't fucking understand was how his mother had agreed to sign a contract that essentially labeled her as nothing but a whore.
****
Not once did Mary think of going back to the house Rathe had bought for her. Anything that had to do with the duke made her sick at the moment, and so in the end, she had no choice but to return to the source of her nightmares.
Her spare key was still where she always hid it, and Mary's fingers shook as she unlocked her door. The air had a musty smell to it, and the room empty of most of her things. The only light came from the aquarium, and she found herself smiling despite everything when she saw that her babies were still awake.
As the piranhas chomped at her in greeting, the motion-sensing spy cam that Bartholomew had paid someone to secretly install under one of the floor planks sounded an alert for its owner, and the good pastore woke all at once.
Finally.
****
Mary wasn't sure what woke her up. All she knew was that terror was lodged in her throat...and as she sat up in her bed, she saw something shiny flash in the darkness—-
No, no, no.
Her stepfather didn't give her a chance to scream, with the knife already against her throat.
It was her nightmare made real again, but there was something about the crazy look in Bartholomew's eyes that told her...
This was it.
There was nothing after this.
This was where it would all end, and one of them would have to die.
****
Rathe knew there could be only one place for Mary to go to lick her wounds, and it killed him, knowing that he was the reason she had to seek solace in the exact same room her stepfather had almost raped her.
The duke had his team contact the police on his way to the university. He didn't give a fuck if it was overkill. That fucking dorm had been a red flag for him ever since, and terror strangled his heart when he saw the shattered glass on the steps leading up to the front doors.