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If he is going to keep his walls up then so am I. I spread my legs wide. He can have the taste he wants. I will take my pleasure but that is all I can let myself give him.
The real question won’t be how did I survive my brother but how did I survive Hunter Keal? I’m not so sure I will. If he wants to slide his cold mask on I can do it too. Hunter might be good at a lot of things, but keeping my distance from people is something I’ve been trained to do my whole life. That is a game I know I can win. I have something to lose. My heart. The one thing that truly belongs to me. There is no selling it. It has to be won. He can have my innocence. I willingly gave it and I will be indulging in that pleasure again, but my heart is mine. As long as Hunter treats me as only his pretty prize he’ll never have it.
That is a vow I am making to myself.
Chapter 13
Hunter
A shutter flickers down over her eyes. She’s opened her legs but closed her heart. From beneath her lashes, she watches as I smooth my palm over her stomach. The movement of the plane tells me we’re close to landing. The plans I had for her sweet pussy have to be set aside for the moment. With a regretful sigh, I help her to her feet.
“The plane will be landing soon,” I tell her.
Silently, she moves into the bathroom. When the door is shut, I shrug into a robe and open her suitcase. A note from Chris lies on the top.
She has very few things. Perhaps a Rome shopping trip is in order.
That is an understatement, I realize as I paw through the case her brother had packed for her. Her shoes are worn. The elastic on her panties is stretched thin. The rest of her clothes look like rags used by the cleaning staff in my office. Her brother wears hand-tailored suits, custom-made shirts, and designer brands from his sunglasses to his shoes. Dressing her in these shoddy garments was one more way of asserting his dominance over her and eroding her sense of self. She wasn’t good enough to warrant the nice things.
I crumple Chris’s note in my hand, wishing it was Garrick Vandermeer’s neck instead. Growing up with him made Rose distrust men. I should be on my knees, thanking every known deity that she actually wanted me, but did I really expect that because she accepted me into her body that her heart would be open too?
I close the suitcase and turn to my own wardrobe. I need to find something simple. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable around me. I should’ve bought out Barney’s before I booked this trip. What was I thinking?
To my dismay, I find that my own wardrobe is not much different than Vandermeer’s. My suits were hand tailored in Italy, my shirts done in hundred-year-old shops in London. There isn’t a garment in my entire case that wasn’t either made solely for me or sporting a designer tag. What am I? Some Vandermeer knock-off? I jerk a white shirt and a pair of wheat-colored linen pants out of my case. Am I really any better than her brother at all? After all, I want to possess her, own her. After taking her virginity, my blood boils at the thought of anyone else laying eyes on her.
A brief internal struggle ensues before I pick up my phone and shoot off a message to Chris.
Rose needs a phone. And her own bank account. Put 1 million in it.
I drop the phone and snatch it back immediately.
Make that 5.
Chris doesn’t question it. Miller probably had him set up the account before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate, believing that I had some good luck in my dark soul. I look down at my chest. I do have a dark soul. Maybe it’s too black for Rose. I pick up my phone again.
Send her aunt over here.
This does get me a reply.
It will take some time to get her a passport.
She doesn’t have one?
No.
Why am I surprised? Of course Garrick would have wanted to restrict his family’s movements. It’s how he kept them under his scrawny thumb. Chris and I work through the details of getting everything done for the aunt ASAP. It will require money, which I have plenty of. By the time that Rose gets out of the shower, I feel marginally better.
She clutches a towel to her chest. She’s so beautiful and she’s mine and I’ve never had anything like her in my life.
“Thank you,” I blurt out even though she hasn’t done anything but walk to the bed. From the puzzled look on her face I don’t think she knows either. She’s just as baffled as I am. I clear my throat. “How are you feeling?”
