Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Yes, sir. Please not the cold.”
Her tears were falling down her face now, and she seemed more worried about being cold than homeless. Whatever worked to keep her in line.
“Good. Now, what do you say to your sir?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good girl.” I stood back up and went to get dressed, standing next to the bed, and letting her watch me. I liked the feeling of her eyes on me. I liked knowing that a woman who was around half my age was still so enthralled with my body.
“What happens after?” she asked.
“After what?”
“After you figure out what went wrong with my father’s finances. Do I just get everything back when I’m twenty-nine, like the judge said?”
There was a hopeful lilt to her words that was actually adorable.
She was hopelessly naive if she thought she was ever going to see a fucking dime of her estate. Her father really did leave her too sheltered.
“No, we will be married by then.”
“What? You said after a respectable amount of time. I thought that would be a few years.”
There was no fucking way I was waiting years to make this treasure truly mine. Another man would snatch her from me before then.
“In six months,” I repeated more firmly, “we will announce the engagement, and you will start planning our wedding. You will be married to me by the end of the year.”
“Why would you want to marry me? You said I don’t have any money. There was nothing of value…”
“Because I have plenty of money. I have power, and I have influence, and it is well past time for me to take another wife. You are destitute, but beautiful and well-bred. So if you can prove that you can be a good, obedient ward, then I will turn you into my perfect submissive trophy wife.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. I want you to be mine, so you will be mine. You will behave, you will follow the rules, and you will spend every night showing me how grateful you are in this bed. In return, you will have access to whatever you need. Whatever you want, I will have new black Amex cards made with an allowance that I deem appropriate. Currently, you’re at two hundred a month. Prove to me in the next week that you’re a good girl, and I’ll increase it by one hundred percent. Keep behaving, and you’ll get more money.”
“So you’re paying me to sleep with you?”
“No, I don’t pay for sex. I’m incentivizing you to follow the rules. I’m being far more gracious than I have to be. The fact of the matter is that you are going to marry me because that’s what I want. And I always get what I want.” I tucked my shirt into my pants and grabbed the belt, folding it in half and cracking the leather.
She jumped as the loud, sharp snap cut through the early morning air.
“If you misbehave, not only will your cards be taken away, but I will show you what happens to bad girls. Or was one lesson not enough?”
“No, sir. I understand.”
“Good,” I said as I looped the gray and navy-blue silk tie around my neck and slid it under my collar.
“But, what if…” Stella’s words trailed off, and I turned to face her as I tied my tie on with nothing more than muscle memory.
“What if what?”
“What if I’m not ready to get married?”
“You’re twenty-six years old. You’re plenty old enough.”
“I know I’m old enough, but what if I’m just not ready? What if I want—”
“What you want is irrelevant when it contradicts what I want. Now get dressed and meet me downstairs for breakfast. You are to be fully dressed and at the breakfast table by 7:00 a.m. every morning, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she said with a bite to her tone.
“You want to try that again?” I asked, looking back in the mirror at my perfectly tied Windsor knot.
“Yes, sir. But what am I supposed to wear?”
CHAPTER 18
STELLA
This had to all be some deranged fever dream.
Or maybe I had died in that car, and this was my hell.
Was this all punishment for making fun of Mitzy Buller’s braces in the third grade? I had apologized for that.
I stared at Lucian’s back as he walked out of the door, closing it behind him.
If looks could kill, I would have set his gray suit on fire with my eyes alone.
Not that he cared. Not that he asked what I wanted at any point. The only thing he cared about was that I called him sir. And didn’t break his rules.
I didn’t know which I hated more, the fact that he made me do it, and it felt so demeaning, so embarrassing, and just wrong, or the fact that every single time those words came from my mouth, there was a pulse of pleasure between my legs.