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“Stella…” Her beautiful arctic blue eyes lift and meet mine and I watch as she schools her features, hiding her thoughts from me. “Stella…about yesterday…our wedding, and then what happened afterwards.”
A perfectly sculpted dark eyebrow rises as my words tumble awkwardly from my lips. She’s not going to give me an inch here, making me work for this apology.Would you have so quickly forgiven her, if the tables had been turned?The question slithers across my mind, bringing with it an unfounded rage at the mere thought of Stella bringing a man back to our home and kissing him.God damn it, I am a fucking hypocrite.Here goes fucking nothing. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t knee me in the balls again. Fuck, I should have asked Mrs. Pox to remove all the knives from the room.
“Look Stella, I am a giant fucking ass. What I did yesterday was uncalled for and unconscionable. I know I have no right to ask for your forgiveness, but I am here asking for it nonetheless.” I don’t know what to make of her expression. Is she pensive, conflicted, or enraged? She hides her thoughts so well from me. Her perfect mask on display before me. The picture of a beautiful ice queen.
“You’re right Jaxon, you do not have the right to ask for my forgiveness, and not only for your activities last night, but for all of it.” She breaks our connected gaze and takes another sip of her coffee, her fingers clenched tightly around the cup. “Regardless, I will not grant it without penance.”
“Penance?” I question with a raised brow of my own, the word feeling like acid as it leaves my lips. My hellion of a wife it seems is out for blood. “What type of penance, Stella?”
She places the cup down carefully and crosses her hands over her plate, her expression stern and her lips in a grimace. I have a feeling whatever my little ice queen is about to say is going to have me losing my shit and probably flipping this fucking table over. How can one small woman have such volatile emotions traveling through me without the slightest hesitation. Does she not fear for her safety, constantly provoking me?Remember the knee to the groin and the smack you still feel the heat of on your face? Yeah, she doesn’t fear you fuckhead.My mind laughs sarcastically at me.
“The way I see it, Jaxon. You have two options. Two ways that you can make it up to me.” She leans forward towards me on the table. “And you will repay me Jaxon, one way or the other.”
My eyes are riveted to the smirk starting on her pouty red lips. Stella Stratford is sitting here prim and proper, dressed immaculately with not a stitch of makeup on her stunning face, but she’s a shark underneath all that beautiful exterior. All of it is a facade, one she uses to disarm others into thinking she’s emotionless, an ice queen without a heart. My wife is out for red hot blood and I am the idiot that put myself in her shark infested waters to begin with.
“Firstly you can pay in blood and sacrifice, Jaxon, or you can pay in sacrifice and wealth. The choice is yours, but choose wisely, there will be no refund on your pound of flesh.”
I lean forward towards her, tempted to wrap my hands once again around her slender neck and choke the fucking life out of her for sitting there and threatening me. Her exterior is calm and unfazed but I’m watching the pulse in her neck jump. She’s aware that she’s pushing my buttons and the restraints on my limited patience. She should fear me, my control is precarious at best, violence is always my go to answer when pushed to the depth Stella is closely reaching. “Explain, Stella. What are the terms for your pound of flesh?”
“Let’s begin with blood and sacrifice, shall we?” She doesn’t wait for my response before licking those delectable lips and proceeding without caution. How fucking amazing would they look wrapped tightly around my cock while I choked the life out of her? I shift my throbbing cock at the image my mind provides me with and try to focus on her words.
“The blood will be yours, husband, and any women that you come into contact with. I will actively destroy any female that you try to cuckold me with by any means necessary. You will remain faithful to me, regardless of whether I allow you in my bed or not. If you don’t, you will suffer my wrath each and every time and I will repay you in kind with your closest friends and business acquaintances.” She watches as my hand tightens on the breakfast knife before me at her threat. “The sacrifice part will be easier to bear. You will relinquish all the shares of Penticton Industry and the seat on my father’s board to me, that you just received as a dowry for marrying the Penticton heir.”
Rage fills my blood and heats it with her threats. How dare she try to strong arm me into giving away my prize. Those shares and the seat on the board, were spoils won for marrying her. Her little threat about fucking my friends in retribution is another matter all together. I will murder any man that touches her and make sure their bodies are never found.She is mine. “And the other option, wife?” The word “wife” leaves my lips with venom. I drop my hold on the knife and it clatters on the fine china before me, loud in the tense and silent room. Her eyes never leave mine, she doesn’t even acknowledge my little threat to stab her.The balls of fucking steel on this woman amaze me.
“The other option is no less daunting husband, but perhaps my favorite pound of flesh. The sacrifice perhaps at this very moment is not as harsh to bear but will have lasting consequences for your empire. The one you are so desperate to build and expand, that you would trap me into marriage against my will. You will forfeit the right of an heir. I will give birth to none of your children, Jaxon. None. Your name will die with you and me. I will guarantee that I have my ovaries medically removed to ensure you can’t get me pregnant ever. I will never willingly lay with you, but you can keep your little whores. The wealth part, perhaps harsher to stomach. All of the assets and fortune that I entered into this falsehood of a marriage with will be signed over to me alone or I will divorce you. You will not benefit from this marriage financially, Jaxon.”
I’m out of my seat in a flash, the chair tumbling behind me with a large thud. My hand wrapping around the column of her swan-like neck and squeezing the delicate organ as she stares at me with no fear in her conniving, spiteful eyes. “You think to play with me, Stella, to threaten me? You belong to me now; you are a possession.” I tighten my grip until her color starts to rise on her creamy skin and her nails dig into my flesh. She doesn’t fight me though, she doesn’t try to force me to release her.My brave little viper of a wife.
I release her and stand back, watching as she takes a gasp of air, her eyes never leaving me. “You hurt me first, Jaxon. You put all of this in motion, forcing me to marry you, then daring to humiliate me. What did you think would happen? That I would be some weak little wife, bending over for you and looking the other way while you had your cake and ate it too?” She stands from the chair abruptly and it falls backwards as she stands unafraid before me. She is the image of pure power and strength. It’s startling in the sunshine streaming through the window, how much I misjudged her and this situation. Here I thought a few words of platitude, some declarations of faithfulness and maybe some new jewelry would have her giving her forgiveness willingly.How fucking wrong I am.
This little ice queen of mine will never bow or bend to me. I will be fighting the daggers in my back everyday of my goddamn miserable life. That’s if she doesn’t slit my fucking throat in my sleep. How could only an hour ago, she have been so warm and inviting with her perfect little body and now be coiled and ruthless? Which one is the real her?Are they both, each one a different side of the same coin?
Her threats echo in my mind, each threat harsh and punishing in its own way.How could this have happened?Are you seriously questioning that fuckhead? My mind seethes.Fucking hell!I could just disregard her threats, believe them idle and wait to see if she will make good on them. If she will destroy my whole world. I close my eyes tightly, trying to get my harsh breathing under control and to stop the desire to murder my wife not twenty-four hours after we have just been married.
Stella isn’t threatening me lightly, every cold and punishing word out of her mouth was well thought out. She didn’t just randomly come to these consequences. The little viper probably stewed on them all night, coming up with the harshest way of repaying me for my offenses. She won’t sit back and not retaliate; I can feel it in my bones.
Can I have her locked up somewhere so she can’t cause harm to herself or my empire?Are we going to chain our new wife to a cell?My mind questions with rancor. Stella wouldn’t even hesitate hurting herself, knowing it would hurt me in turn. Her threat about having her ovaries removed carries terrifying implications. Would a woman really do that to herself just for vengeance?Stella would, she won’t back down.She means to take away the one thing of true value to me, my empire and legacy. Without an heir, the Stratford line will end with me. I will be the downfall of the Stratford’s legacy just like my father predicted and feared.Fuck, what do I do?She really has left me no choice here, backing me into a corner, like the cunning cold snake that she is. Instead of being my beginning, she will be my end and she will do it with that malicious cold smile on her face.
Molten anger rolls through me and the desire to throw the table into the wall fills me once again. With a sweeping arm gesture, I send all the china flying off the table and crashing onto the floor. I bare my teeth at her like a fucking wolf that would love nothing more than to rip her apart. She’s standing there unafraid and sewing seeds of resentment between us, as if her very life and our future doesn’t hang in the balance.
I don’t believe for one miserable second that her threats can be taken idly. I will have to swallow my pride and choose the lesser of the evils she has proposed, if I want to keep her and have some semblance of a future and a marriage. One that I very much doubt right now can ever truly formulate when both parties have nothing but disdain for each other. Fuck this vindictive cunt for making my life harder than what it needs to be.
9
Stella
“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.” Samuel Johnson
Iwatchcaptivatedasvarious emotions trail across his handsome features. The most prominent being rage. I can still feel the ghost of his hands squeezing tightly around my neck. I swallow and the tightness in my throat tells me I will have the imprint of his hand as a bruised necklace within hours. He could have done further damage to me at my threats, but instead he relinquished his hold as if my skin seared him. Does he hate me now? Does he regret his moment of passion in the bedroom?
His flash of rage decimated our breakfast but the look he just gave me indicates he’s holding himself back from doing me further physical harm. He looks like a predator, his lip curled back in a snarl, his jaw clenched and teeth bared. His neck is corded and his body tense, on the verge of springing towards me. Does he want to hurt me? Perhaps slam me into the table or the wall and take me by force, to show me that he is in charge here? That he is a man and I am just a weak and fragile woman. My eyes glance down at the sharp knife near my foot. If he tries to force me into anything I will stab him in the fucking eye. He has no idea of the fury that lives within me, the abuse I have already suffered at the hands of a man that thought he owned me. One that was supposed to protect and cherish me, yet sold me to another monster.
I wonder what is going through his mind at rapid speed. Does he think my threats are idle? They won’t be. I have every intention of hurting him the way he has hurt me. I spent a large part of the night going over my options and the weapons at my disposal. Part of me hopes he doesn’t choose at all, so that I can make good on all my threats, taking the choice away from him.Jaxon Stratford needs a reckoning and I mean to be the weapon.
I’m enthralled as I watch him begin to pace back and forth in front me, periodically raising those stunning eyes and stabbing me with the malice I don’t doubt he’s feeling towards me. The memory of his touch this morning on my skin brings heat to my flesh. Have I just forsaken that forever with my threats? Will he always look at me from this moment onwards with hate? Will I be able to live in the falsity of a marriage without ever feeling the warmth and pleasure of his touch?
Part of me wants a repeat immediately, knowing that sex with Jaxon will be mind blowing. The other part of me is screeching that I keep my wits about me, not letting this man corrupt my intentions for my future. Too many men have now laid claim to owning and controlling me. I will stop at nothing to be the master of my own fate. Jaxon Stratford is an obstacle I mean to steamroll right over if he gets in my way.Fuck him and thinking he owns me, no one owns me.
