He pressed a little harder, right into the pressure point he knew so well, and Agatha’s knees folded, sending her back into her chair with athump.
“This is how you are going to handle your business?” Agatha hissed, turning her glare up to Damien. “Sending your guard dog to maul me into silence and keep your filthy secrets?”
Damien’s eyes shifted to Caroline as he heard her chuckle, and his heart and cock pulsed together as he saw the look of power in her eyes.
“Well, he is averygood guard dog,” Caroline practically purred.
Another shot of lust exploded in his groin at her words, and he did not have to look into a mirror to know that his eyes had darkened with need. When this was over, when the threat was gone, he was going to show her just how right she was. Caroline, to his surprise, could be just as ruthless as he was.
He watched Caroline’s eyes mirror his own desire as they locked eyes for a moment, and heat sizzled through the room. Then she turned, that lust in her eyes shifting to rage in a second, and focused on her stepmother.
“First, let us sort out this contract business,” Caroline began, walking to Agatha’s desk with clenched fists. “How did you get it?”
“As if I would tell you anything!” Agatha hissed back. “You might have your dog at my back, little girl, but remember I have your future in my pocket, and if you two do not obey, Iwillruin you both.”
Caroline lunged at once, even startling Damien as she slapped her palms against the top of Agatha’s desk and shoved her face close to her stepmother’s.
“Do you not understand?” Caroline demanded. “You cannot touch me! You have tried to ruin me from the moment my father died, and you have failed at every turn! You tried to break me, and for a while, I believed you had. But I know better now,mother,and I am not afraid of you anymore!”
“Oh, you will be,” Agatha seethed and swung back her hand.
Despite being enthralled by the moment, Damien caught Agatha’s hand with a quickness, and forced it, palm down, to lie on the desk as he bent close enough to whisper with deadly intent in her ear, “Try and strike my wife again, and I will forget you are a woman.”
Agatha’s head whirled to look at him, but through her obvious hatred, he saw the telltale glint of fear.
“Fingers are some of the easiest bones in the body to break, you know,” he stated, his tone cool and matter-of-fact as he pressed his hand down harder over hers.
“Enough!”
Damien and everyone else’s heads snapped toward the door as the new voice boomed, and he was surprised and annoyed to see that it was Lilian. He shivered at the thought of what might have happened if he had not lifted her veil all those weeks ago and discovered that it was her, not Caroline.
“Leave us be, Lilian,” Caroline warned. “I know you do whatever your mother says. I know you were as cruel to me as she was. But I do not want to blame you. You were raised to think like her.”
Lilian’s eyes burned with defiance for another moment, then her gaze cooled, and she bowed her head.
“This needs to stop,” she repeated, softer this time. “I am tired, Mama.”
For a moment, Damien felt a flicker of pity for the young woman who had stepped in. He had believed she had gone along with her mother’s plans willingly, but as he looked at her now, he realized that was not entirely true.
“Our marriage contract,” Damien said, keeping his tone neutral. “Does she truly have it?”
“Yes,” Lilian replied softly, her fingers pointing toward the desk. “It is in the bottom drawer. She keeps it locked, but the key is under the inkwell.”
“Lilian!” Agatha snarled, but everyone ignored it.
“She had me sneak into your study the night of the ball and steal it,” Lilian explained as Damien retrieved the key and opened the drawer. “While she had you cornered.”
Damien picked up the leather portfolio and opened it. Sure enough, there was their contract. He closed and folded the thing, then shoved it into his inner jacket pocket.
“What about Father’s will?”
“It is in there, too,” Lilian said. “You should… You should read it.”
Caroline moved around the desk at once, and Damien stepped aside so she could rummage through the drawer herself.
“Put that back!” Agatha all but snarled. “That is mine!”
Caroline and Damien both ignored her as Caroline drew her fingers around the document and lifted it carefully out of the drawer. An eerie silence filled the room as she walked with it over to the sitting area, where two couches and a knee-high table sat. She opened the will, spreading the large document out onto the table, and read silently for what seemed like an eternity.
