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JAMES

I ’m lying here in my bed. Staring out the windows at the trees in my backyard.

Ophelia’s sleeping in my arms. Sometime over the night, I moved to lie on my back and brought her close to me. She’s so soft, so sweet. Her leg is draped over mine; her hand is resting on my heart. Claiming me.

For the first time in my life, I’m genuinely perplexed.

No idea where to go from here. What to do with her.

Wait, I do. I know.

She’s mine. I’m keeping her.

She’ll be pregnant by next month. She’ll stay right here, even after our child is born.

I’m done lying to myself about it.

Moreover, after Topher called and forced me to face the truth.

I have feelings for her. Deeply rooted ones.

She’s not going anywhere.

My hand runs through her soft hair. I look down at her. The sunlight golden on her skin. Dark eyelashes on rosy cheeks.

The woman who drives me insane. Who complicates everything.

It should’ve been simple. Eliminating the Morgan men. Sending the virgins and the would-be mothers off to unknown destinations. Tearing everything down.

Starting anew, just me and Topher. Or just me.

Now I need to consider how I’ll handle this new situation. When I was obsessed with Ophelia from afar, I thought I could let her go. Those days are gone.

She’s mine. She’ll be safe here.

Topher won’t.

I stroke her hair some more, watching her soft lips, and listening to her softer breaths.

I stretch this moment for as long as possible.

This space in time where I’m not a lawyer. Not a father. Not a glorified extortionist. Not a man forced to follow in his family’s footsteps.

I let myself be James Hawthorne around her.

Whoever that person is.

My heartbeats are unusually erratic. It’s bothersome.

Four days.

Things will fall into place after that. Once I’m back in the office, I’ll get my shit together and figure this out.

Or this illusion will end, and I’ll send her off.

Until then, it’s fine. After forty-three years of being exactly what everyone’s been expecting of me, what I’ve been expecting of myself, I can be this.

Sick. Obsessive. Seduced.

Making all the wrong decisions.

Ordering items that don’t belong in this house. Items that’ll be gone when she’s no longer here.

A break. I deserve this goddamn break.

“James?” Her voice is hesitant. Her muscles flex. Pulse rising. She’s woken up, noticing the change in me.

I feel it too. The adrenaline flooding my veins, it’s there.

I’m not a good man. She’ll do well to remember it.

“Sonnet.” Wrong. So fucking wrong of me to dive my hand deeper into her hair. To yank on it so her face tilts up. This need to look her in the eye. “Hello.”

“How long have I been out this time?” She searches my eyes, hoping I might be less of a bastard after last night, I guess.

“Just the night. Which you needed. You look well-rested.”

Lies.

Ophelia is far more than that.

Her large dark eyes stare at me. Her lips are full, pink, and swollen.

The fear reverberating from her is intoxicating. The wonder. The need.

Well-rested. What a fucking understatement.

“Thank you.” When she sees I won’t hurt her, she relaxes against me. “How’d you sleep?”

I stare at her without saying a word. I’m out of my depth here. I don’t do intimacy. I can’t give it to her.

“James.” Ophelia laughs, the sound joyous even though I’m tugging harder on her hair now. My cock hardens at that. “It was a simple question. Unless you didn’t sleep tonight.”

“I slept well.” Her deep gaze is fucking with my head. With my soul. “If you think small talk will make me spare your life, think again.”

She flinches. Her lips pinch.

A moment later, she presses her hot body closer to mine and rearranges her features. Her lips curve into a smile.

“No one can tell you what to do. Fully aware.” A chuckle escapes her, then her hand slaps on her mouth. “Can I brush my teeth before we continue this conversation, owner?”

I don’t tell her that I couldn’t care less that I brushed mine and she hasn’t. That her morning breath is as sweet as the rest of her.

That I’m a sick bastard who has a sick addiction.

Her.

I don’t say a damn thing.

I pull her closer to me. Remove her hand from her mouth.

Goddamn it. That brush of her lips against mine. Her huge pupils. How her first instinct is to move her head back in an attempt to resist me.

I kiss her harder for that. Coax her lips open, groan when I rub my tongue against hers.

When she melts into me, I can’t help but feel a growl reverberating in my chest. I bite her lips. I dig my fingers into the soft flesh of her waist. I hurt her.

Ophelia should punch me. Bite back. Kick me until I let go.

A monster like me has no business kissing a sweet, beautiful woman like her. Or keeping her.

Instead of slapping me, her hand finds my neck. She follows my lead, leaning into the kiss. Moans for me with each swipe of my thumb along her cheek.

Huffs when I pull her off me.

“There are new toothbrushes in the bathroom.” Her eyes go wider than before. “You’ve proven you can be out of the cell without trying to escape. So. Go, brush your teeth. We can do this thing after that. This talking.”

Her mouth forms an O shape.

“Don’t give me that look.” Nothing makes me as uncomfortable as her craving for intimacy.

“You’re not a good man, I get it.” She nods, a smile curving on her lips. “Could you be nice enough to get me coffee, though? Please?”

This woman. The best course of action would be to sling her over my shoulder. Throw her back in the cell where she can’t pull at my nonexistent heartstrings.

“Peanut butter sandwich too?”

“You’re pushing it,” I warn her, and she laughs.

Then, while she’s in the bathroom, I put on my sweatpants and go to make her coffee. That and her damn sandwich. She can have a real meal this afternoon.

What am I going to do with her until then?

Talk to her. Fuck her. Lock her up.

The water from the shower turns off as soon as I step back inside the room.

This isn’t who I am, this man who places the plate and mug on the bedside table, then enters the bathroom.

Can’t be me, this man who wants to do everything for her.

No.

“Let me.” I stand behind her, whipping a clean towel off a shelf on the wall.

Ophelia stares at me through my reflection in the vanity. She’s so tiny compared to my height and size. So defenseless.

This is her best opportunity to escape this hellhole. She could break the glass of the mirror. Grab a shard and go for my jugular.

I know I would.

Not her.

A small smile plays on her lips as I tie a towel around her body.

She stands very still as I attend to each knot in her hair. The brush is new, has only been used once. On her.

Just like the blow dryer I use to dry her hair.

It’s embarrassing that I watched a YouTube video to figure this hair-blowing thing out so I could tend to Ophelia.

It is what it is.

“What would you do if you weren’t…” she trails off. I’m done drying her hair, dipping my chin, indicating for her to go on. She gestures with her hand in the air around the room. “This.”

“A man who brushes your hair?”

“Ha!” She barks a laugh. Me, joking. Who would’ve fucking believed it. “Well. That and an attorney. Owning the auction house. Owning me.”

The question is a personal one. A disturbing one.

“What would you do?” I ask her, refusing to open up. To give her more power over me.

Her eyes go blank. She blinks, huffing, and turns her head to the corner of the room. “Forget it. You’re right. It was better when we were strangers.”

Pressure builds inside my head. This isn’t right. Isn’t what I’m after.

I’m after her secrets. After what lies hidden deep inside her.

And I have a way to pull it out of her. I leave her there, stalking out of the room to my walk-in closet.

“James?” she calls out.

“Stay where you are.”

Ophelia does as I say until I return. I have a pair of lace panties and one of my T-shirts in my hands, and this isn’t right.

Undoing the knot in the towel wrapping her body. Helping her into the clothes is worse. It’ll give her false hopes. Make her think I’m normal.

A calm, comfortable life isn’t in the cards for me.

I wasn’t born for that. I’ve been programmed to do one thing. Be this one person.

Somehow, my hand finds the small of her back, and I guide her back to bed.

“Talk.” I’m under the covers, next to her, watching her sip on her coffee. My muscles tense at the strangeness of this. I’m used to meetings in the office. Meals in the dining room. She’s destroying me, and I’m unable to stop it. “What would you be doing if you weren’t here.”

“This doesn’t sound like you’re asking anything.”

“That’s because I don’t. I demand answers. That’s what I do.”

She smirks behind her mug, her cheeks flushing. When she lowers it, I see a thin layer of foam has remained over her lip. I press my thumb to it, wiping her clean.

Shoving it in her mouth.

“Suck.” After she does, I take my thumb out, watching her. Holding back from fucking her. “Talk.”

She licks her lips. “What about asking instead of ordering me?”

“No. I hold the power. Over Topher. Oliver and his son, though they’re unaware of it. The associates in the law firm. Our clients. Even the witnesses on the stand. They owe me answers, and they give them to me.” It should disturb me, these words that slip out of my mouth. “So do you. Now, talk.”

“You’re going to get me pregnant. Then take my child.

Then kill me.” She mimics my voice. Cold and authoritative.

In the little time I’ve shown her a side of me that isn’t a complete asshole, she’s grown accustomed to me.

She might not even believe I could actually hurt her.

Hell, I don’t believe that either anymore.

“You’re not getting anything else from me.

I won’t tell you a single thing about myself. ”

“The fuck you will. I’m your owner.” Anger flushes through me. This is all wrong. We’re all wrong. I’m still hungry for the information Topher couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. “You dropped out of college. Why?”

Any semblance of humor has been wiped off her face. Her grip on the handle of her mug tightens. Her arm trembles. The hot liquid sloshes in the mug. “Fuck. You.”

“Put the mug away.”

“Fuck. You,” she repeats, her chin wobbling.

“Put the fucking mug away.”

Ophelia’s nostrils flare. As indignant and upset as she is, she places the mug behind her.

As soon as she does, I grip her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “Why?”

“You people.” Her lips twist, eyes narrowing. “You have it all figured out. You look down at people who still struggle. Who are still searching.”

“You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“And you put a dick in mine.”

“So this is how it’s going to go?” I’m miles away from what you’d call an empath. But I would’ve been a lousy defense lawyer if I couldn’t figure out people’s motives. How to read a jury. “I hit a nerve. You’re hurt, and you stay silent.”

“While you stay condescending, sadistic, and cruel.”

“I’m not being condescending.” I flip her on her stomach and lock her wrists behind her back with one hand. “I’m curious.” I shrug my pillow out of the pillowcase, using the latter to bind her wrists. “But you’re being obstinate.”

“Let go of me.” The fighter she is, she wrestles beneath me. Her hair falls over her beautiful face. “Sharing goes both ways, James. When I’m out of these binds, you owe me some truths, too, or I’m binding you.”

“Is that a threat?”

The knot around her wrists won’t cut off her blood flow. She won’t be able to free herself from it, either. I bend so my face is close to hers, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She snarls at me. “It’s a promise.”

“It doesn’t work that way. You belong to me. I’m the one who calls the shots here. Understood?”

“I’m lost. Okay? O-fucking-kay? Is that what you wanted to hear?

” Her shouting at me is jarring. The volume of it doesn’t bother me.

It’s how visceral it is. How hurt. How have I missed it?

“I’m lost. Ever since my parents died, I’ve been struggling to survive.

Not everyone in foster care was nice. A few screamed and slapped and mocked me.

My parents were broke when they died, so I had to fight to get good grades, be in the goddamn drama club for the goddamn scholarship for college.

I had to be better than everyone. But I wasn’t living. I was surviving.”

The speed at which she spits it at me. The pain in her voice. Like she’s been dying for someone to listen to her. Really listen.

There wasn’t anyone who would.

I listen. To her aching heart. Her battles.

And I’m fascinated. I soak up every little detail. I’m furious at my son for keeping this from me. Or more like it—for never asking her just how badly she had to fight to become the person she is today.

“Then, when I finally made it to college...” She growls, and it’s hot.

Her anger is hot. Her humiliation is as well.

My heart keeps twisting for her, needing to go back in time and make everything right for her.

“I started questioning myself. I couldn’t find any major I was drawn to.

I was disappointed in myself. My parents are probably rolling in their graves.

I hated that thought more than anything.

So I dropped out. Is that a good enough answer for you?

That I’m a quitter? That I have no idea where to go from here?

That I left everything behind just so I wouldn’t have to ask myself what would make me happy for another goddamn second? ”

I’ve never been this impressed with anyone in my life. Never this attracted to such a feral, perfectly broken person.

“You’re resilient. Bright. Young. Not a disappointment. You will find out what it is you want out of life.” Her eyes shimmer when she realizes I’m genuinely curious. I’m making a vow to her. I promise her life instead of death. “Until then, you’ll learn what it means to belong to me.”

Nothing. She gives me the silent treatment.

Silence works for me if she lets me feed her, which she does.

Then she stays put while I head over to my closet, grab a tie, and, in complete silence, bind her ankles.

She stays there, her wrists and ankles bound, for the rest of the day. It hurts, this distance. This floor separating us.

It’s necessary. For me as well as for her.

She needs to remember who I am. I need a clear head to figure out how to fix it.

I only return to my room when she needs to use the bathroom. For lunch and dinner.

We don’t talk throughout the entire day.

But when she falls asleep, when I watch her in my bed late at night with the soft light from the lamp at my bedside table kissing her face, that’s when I can’t take the silent treatment for a second longer.

I’m coming for her.