Page 29

JAMES

L ight flashes from my phone on the bedside table. The one on Ophelia’s side.

Her side.

Her bedside table.

Hers.

Ridiculous.

Hers isn’t a concept that exists in this house. In my world. Even if it feels so good to have her in my bed. Like this, huddled in my arms, her body wrapped around mine as I lie on my back.

The phone isn’t on her bedside table.

It’s there. Just there, exactly where I put it before I drew her a bath this morning. I didn’t mean to put it on one table or the other. I took it out of my jeans pocket. Placed it there. That’s it.

When I carried her to the bath, and settled her on top of me, and washed her, I forgot about it altogether. When I ran my hands through her hair and stroked her soft skin with a washcloth and soap, I didn’t remember that there was a world outside of this one.

What I did do was try to make sense of why I took such good care of her.

For a moment there, I had it. If she got sick because I neglected her hygiene, I couldn’t use her.

I kept telling myself that as I massaged her neck. Worked on the knots in her shoulders. Rubbed her breasts, her stomach.

I just needed her to be in top shape so I could breed her.

That was why I was taking such good care of her.

That’s a lie.

Because I’m over here, watching her sleep and not doing the one thing that’d actually get her pregnant.

I’m not fucking her.

Ophelia murmurs my name in her sleep. Her breath hitches. Nails digging into my chest. Her forehead is warm against my skin.

She breathes faster still.

She’s having a nightmare about me.

Good.

She should always remember that.

I’m her monster.

The screen of my phone flashes repeatedly. It can’t be Griffith since his job is done. The rest of the people who work for me wouldn’t dare call me this week. I gave them strict orders not to do so.

“James.” Ophelia clings closer to me. “Stop. Stay. Oh God. Please.”

The memory of making her cry on my cock is burned into my head. I’m instantly hard, my hands flexing on the back of Ophelia’s head, her waist. I won’t wake her.

Sleep is essential for a person’s overall health.

And besides, she’s beautiful like this. Unconscious and scared.

The light from the phone stops.

Lights up again.

Motherfucker.

Gently—fuck, what’s wrong with me?—I slide Ophelia off me. Her dark hair is spread out on the charcoal gray pillowcase, her body curled into a ball beneath the sheets.

I climb out of bed, pull on the gray sweatpants I left on my armchair, and swipe the phone from the bedside table.

Topher.

I haven’t called him back yet.

I’ve been busy watching Ophelia while she slept in my bed.

Then I fixed her meals for the rest of the week. Decent ones, like the ones I cooked her over the last two days.

Not that garbage peanut butter sandwich that I’d fed her on that first night. I’d meant to torture her, and she’d gotten off on it.

She thanked me for saving the other women too. I got hard from how gratitude sounded on her lips. From her I hate yous.

While I’ve been neglecting my son. The one to carry on my life’s work when I’m no longer around. That is, if I keep him around.

Until then, he’s my responsibility. I have to look out for him so he won’t go to Oliver or suspect anything. Just until I get my shit together and figure out what the hell I’m doing with Ophelia.

I won’t use her and cast her aside, that’s for sure.

Anyway. Topher.

He doesn’t stop calling. Suspicion and concern rise inside of me. They quicken my steps. I close the door behind me and walk down the hall.

I’m not concerned about Ophelia leaving me or getting out of bed. Or this house. Physically, that’s impossible.

She can steal my clothes. Or she can find the ones I stocked and organized for her in the adjacent room while she’d been in the cell downstairs. Everything was ordered through my personal shopper the morning after I bought Ophelia.

I had no intention of keeping her. No idea what I was going to do with her. How to fix this part of the convoluted plot that was my life.

Regardless, I had it stocked. I hung and placed every piece of clothing on the hangers and drawers myself.

So yeah. She can grab something from there.

But she’ll never make it out of the premises. The farthest she can get is past the round driveway and toward the gates. If she ever gets that far.

Over the years, no one has been in or out of this estate without my permission. And not for lack of trying.

I descend the curved staircase to the main floor, taking the call in the privacy of my den. It shouldn’t take long. He’s a grown ass man, capable of taking care of his own problems.

And I need to be with her.

“Topher.”

“Dad.” It’s early morning in Spain. There’s music surrounding him. Muted, though. He’s stepped away from the party. “We have to talk.”

He sounds worn out. Different. His confidence is missing. I didn’t raise him to be like this. It grates on my nerves that after the initiation, while he’s celebrating, I hear weakness in his voice.

He’s keeping me from Ophelia because he can’t hold it together without me for a week?

“What’s wrong?” Darkness stares back at me from the window. “I told you I’d call.”

“Ophelia.”

Her name on his lips. He pushes it out as if he didn’t mean to say it. I sure as fuck didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t see it coming.

“What about her?” Possessiveness slithers into my voice. I clear my throat. “The auction went well if it’s my approval you’re after. The buyer hasn’t returned her.”

The other one, Miss Johnson, hasn’t complained about Baylor’s mysterious kidnapping. Despite the millions she’d shelled on the girl. She might be ashamed that she’d gotten away. Might be scared to bitch and whine and ask for a refund.

Who cares.

“The buyer,” he hisses, sounding less pathetic than before. My hackles rise. I listen carefully. “Ophelia doesn’t belong to him.”

The urge to shout the fuck she doesn’t is intense. Demanding.

She’s mine. Mine. Mine.

I shove it down. Soon, the secret will be out. When I decide it’s time. When the new plan that’s forming in my head is foolproof.

“He bought her, Topher.” I run a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. “That means she’s his. Is that why we needed to talk? So I can explain to you how auctions work? Did Oliver leave something out?”

“Always so cold, aren’t you, Dad?” A glass breaks on his side.

“Tantrums are beneath you.” If I sound disdainful, it’s because I feel it. Even Ophelia’s sobbing wasn’t so…pathetic. Truthfully, she wasn’t pathetic at all. “Beneath every Hawthorne man.”

“Fuck you and fuck the Hawthorne name.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Another glass smashes into pieces. No one yells at him for breaking shit.

“I’m getting her back. You have to help me get her back.”

“Getting her back?” His confession is a shock to the system. “You never mentioned wanting her. You can’t have her back. You can’t”—my teeth gnash, and I force my jaw to loosen—“get her pregnant. It’s a done deal.”

“N—Not like that, either.”

I’m losing my patience. My respect for him is dwindling by the second.

My possessiveness, that side of me, grows tenfold. Doubles and quadruples in size.

She isn’t his. She’s mine. Until I decide I’m done. Even then, she won’t be his.

“I want to own her. Me.”

My hand that’s not holding the phone clenches into a tight fist. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This entire time, I’ve been pretending,” he shouts at me. “The stupid lineage! That’s why I’ve been pretending.”

Shouting.

At me.

“Lower your fucking voice.” I’m more than pissed. Anger, hot and consuming, pounds inside my chest. “You can’t own her. You can’t keep acting like a spoiled brat. For God’s sake, pull yourself together.”

“There’s more to life than your goddamn legacy.

” He has lowered his voice, but he’s no less indignant.

“I lied when I said that she meant nothing to me. I can’t stop thinking about what I did to her on that stage.

I want more of it. Fighting her. Humiliating her.

I want to ruin her and make her mine. I got off on her pain. ”

“She’s not yours,” I say before I can catch myself. “She was never yours to begin with.”

“We can change that. You and me, Dad, we can have women to torture instead of giving the best ones away. We don’t need the money. And yes, Oliver is obsessed with the auction house and the tradition. Fuck him. We’re stronger than him and Camden. Smarter. You know this.”

I do. I also know that no one will have Ophelia. No one will own her but me.

Only me.

“We don’t torture women.” As a rule. I wish he’d get it through his thick, sadistic skull already. Ophelia and me, that’s a different story. Not what he has planned for her. “You’re young. It’ll pass.”

“Were you ever in love with Paisley? Or Faye?”

My sacrifice. His mother.

The women I never loved. The ones I saved anyway.

“That’s beside the point.” My nostrils flare. My heart pumps blood to my veins, preparing for war. “You don’t love her. You said so yourself.”

“How is it beside?—”

“You’re going to enjoy your time off, Topher. Then you’ll come back here. You’ll forget about Ophelia.” The woman who was about to end things between the two of you. The woman who’s mine. “You’ll have a son.” From a consenting woman, or you’ll go down too. “Life will go on.”

“No, it won’t.”

“This conversation is over.” I’m done listening to him, a man challenging my claim on my Ophelia. “Go take a cold shower. Drink some water. Sleep it off. Do not call me until you grow the hell up.”

He huffs. Groans. Something crashes. This time, it sounds like wood splintering.

The longer I’m on the phone, the more territorial I become. The worse the pressure in my head is turning into.

“Be a good son, Topher,” I say, my rage barely contained. “Be my son. When you remember how to be that person, you can call me back.”

“You’re right.” He sighs. “You’re right. Talk later.”

“Goodnight.” I end the call.

I stay in the den a while longer. But I’m not here to look at the oil paintings hanging on the walls. I don’t pick one of the books on my bookshelves. The folders I have, which hold incriminating photos, contracts, and emails on my heavy wooden desk, I ignore just the same.

What I do—despite my better judgment—is place an order. A gift for both Ophelia and me.

The confirmation that it’ll be here first thing in the morning comes through, and I return to my bedroom.

Where Ophelia is sound asleep, exactly how I left her. I get under the covers, fold her into my arms, press her back to my front.

Despite fearing me, she knows this one thing.

This is where she belongs.

For now. At least for now.