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I should let them invest in whatever scheme will cost them vast amounts of their wealth and then sweep in and buy up all their assets. I can use my underworld connections with those very same gangs to make their lives miserable. That’s what my father would have done before me. He would have gone so far as to have their buildings burnt to the ground and then benefited from his soiled hands. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, I have no issues with getting my hands muddy.
Patrick Stratford was a ruthless, conniving business shark before his untimely death to a heart attack two years ago, leaving me the sole heir and inheritor of the Stratford line. I wonder if he’s up there somewhere smiling today at my calculated move to expand our empire. All I have ever wanted to do was make that man proud of me. Make him see the value in me, after years of ceaseless disappointment. I was unable to do that before he abruptly passed away but I am determined to make it my life’s mission and Stella Penticton Stratford is going to help me achieve it.
“Are you even listening, Jaxon?” Ajax inquires with annoyance in his voice. I know he’s still mad I married Stella and he seems to really be enjoying my humiliation at her hands at the moment. The urge to break his perfect nose fills me and I have to restrain myself from reaching out with my fist.Some best friend, this fucker is.
“He’s too busy dreaming of his little ice queen of a wife, isn’t that right Jax?” River asks with amusement and wagging eyebrows.
“That and all the empires I’m about to destroy, maybe even yours River.” I smirk and excuse myself from the conversation. Having had my fill of their obnoxious bullshit and sly jokes at my expense.
I’m just about to walk back to the bar to grab another much-needed drink when Stella’s mother stops before me. Her large blue eyes are reminiscent of her daughter’s, but where Stella’s are arctic, Rachel’s are pools of sunny skies. “Jaxon, may I have a word, in private please?”
My eyebrow arches at her request. I watch as she steels her shoulders and determination fills her delicate features. I nod in the direction of the balcony and we make our way out to the fragrant chilly area. “What is this about, Rachel?” I inquire as I lean my body against the railing, my mind filled with curiosity.
“Jaxon…Stella…” She takes a deep fortifying breath. “Jaxon, please don’t hurt my daughter.” I go to interrupt her but she raises her hand between us indicating I should remain silent. It irks me to comply but I do. “My daughter is fearless, strong, and frighteningly intelligent. Had she been born a man in this world; she would have had all of you on your knees as your king. Unfortunately, that was not her fate, and her father could not see her worth as anything other than a pretty chess piece to maneuver on the board.”
I watch as her features darken at the thought and her small hands clench at her side.Interesting, Rachel Penticton is not the meek little thing she portrays herself to be. “She will not bend willingly and if you try to force her to her knees she will set fire to your world, Jaxon. You don’t realize it yet, but my idiot husband has given you more than a prize, he has given you an asset. If you are the intelligent man, I believe you to be, you will work with her to build the empire that you crave. Make her a willing part of the conquest, or you will never achieve what you desire without her.”
She moves closer to me and grabs my chin tightly in her delicate pink tipped fingers. I stare at her in surprise at her bold move. “If you hurt my daughter Jaxon, I will have you murdered and decapitated in the middle of the night, leaving my daughter as the sole heir to all of our fortunes. I am only weak because I have to be, but I refuse to allow you or anyone else to turn my daughter into me. Do we understand each other?”
She tightens her hold, her fingernails slightly digging into the skin just below my jawline.Holy fuck, Rachel is a little spitfire.I am not sure why I am even surprised, after all, Stella had to get her spirit from somewhere. I meet her eyes and see the sincerity blazing there. She will have me murdered; I have no doubt about it. A wealthy woman like her, I am sure can arrange a murder without much of an effort.
“Understood. I have no intention of hurting her, Rachel.”
“Good,” she releases my chin, takes a step back and turns towards the open doorway. “Oh and Jaxon, leave her wild and free. Do not try to control or contain my daughter, you will scorch yourself in the process.” She moves forward and away from me leaving me stupefied and with revolving thoughts in my head.
God damn it!Are there no meek women left in the godforsaken privileged world? Are they all secretly demented banshees just waiting to cut off the heads of the men that cause them displeasure? I wonder if Thomas Penticton even truly knows the strength his wife hides? Probably not, he would have beaten it out of her by now if he did.
I crack my neck and shrug my shoulders to try to relieve the fucking stress that threatens to drown me. I won’t be making his mistake. I know I’m a dick forcing her down the aisle and trapping her for my own ambitions. Hell, the thought of forcing her to submit to me, the ice queen of Manhattan makes my cock throb, but I’m not her father. I don’t want to beat that spirit out of her. I plan to know my wife in every way, to ensure she never hides her true self from me and that I don’t one day end up with a blade in my back. I may not love Stella or even like her at the moment, but I can respect her fierceness and determined spirit. Her mother is right, Thomas never saw Stella as anything more than a prize to hand off to the highest bidder but I see the fire within her.
She will be my queen and rule alongside me and together we will master this world and ensure my name lives on for hundreds of years. I just have to convince her that I don’t mean to break her spirit and that I see her as an equal first.Good luck with that!My mind roars.
Stella Stratford, I am coming for you and you will be mine in every way.
5
Stella
“Rage became a layer of my skin.” Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger
It’salmostmidnightanda storm is brewing both outside and in my veins. There has been no word from Jaxon since I left him at the church hours ago. Nothing from my parents either, which I don’t know whether to be relieved or concerned about. Deep seeds of resentment are building inside of me. Now that both my father and Jaxon have what they desire I am once again an afterthought, easily discarded like a pair of dirty shoes.
A part of me that I don’t understand hoped Jaxon would chase me back to the house and argue with me. The need to push all of his buttons until he veritably detonates is a humming deep in my blood.Is it just the need for spite and vengeance or is it something more?
The desire to hurt him first before he can inflict pain on me wars with my common sense. Other than agreeing to the terms that my father set out and forcing me down the aisle, he hasn’t really hurt me. If anything he just gave me unlimited power to play with.He just doesn’t realize it yet.
The thought alone of all the wealth and power that I now have lights a fire inside of me. I always wanted to take over Penticton Industries from my father. Our family dynasty started in the late seventeen hundreds when we came over from England to colonize the American east coast. My family were wealthy merchants back in England and we set up trading posts across the eastern United States, buying and leasing goods and land to all the new hopeful European immigrants. The beginning of the Penticton dynasty, take something that doesn’t necessarily belong to you and make it profitable selling it to someone else. We have never looked back since. Now most of our wealth is in real estate holdings and industrial acquisitions.
I’ve heard rumblings about how my father doesn’t have the drive or business mind of his forebears and how the company hasn’t grown at the rate expected under his tenure. I imagine that was why he was so determined to tie us to another tyrant of industry to ensure our survival and Jaxon was all too willing to be a part of it. If only my father had given the slightest thought to my worth as anything other than a piece he could bargain with, he would have seen that I have a shrewd business mind and understand how the game is played, even more than he does.
I would have led Penticton Industries into the future, growing our already vast fortune to unprecedented wealth and power. He could have been proud of having a daughter, rather than lamenting the lack of a son.
He did educate me in the finest schools, and although I have a business degree from Browns, he saw no future where I wouldn’t be just some rich man’s wife. A pretty trophy on a man’s arm, much like my mother. For that I will never forgive him. His lack of faith in my abilities has long been a wound in my soul, one that he continuously inflicts without mercy.
I watch out the window as a dark green Porsche races down the lit driveway of my new home before coming to a sudden screeching halt in front of the columns. Both doors open and my new husband slides out of the passenger side of the sports vehicle still in his wedding attire, but looking disheveled and if I’m not mistaken inebriated. That however, is not what catches my interest, it’s the blonde female with the low cut, short red dress that pops out of the driver’s side and laughs at whatever he is saying.Kalista Cain, one of the most beautiful women of the Manhattan elite and my new husband’s ex-girlfriend. By the look of their current touchy interactions, that term may not be entirely true. My teeth grind together as I watch them through the glass without a care to who their audience might be.
Kalista is beautiful in a way that puts supermodels to shame. Her features are delicate and refined with high cheekbones, deep emerald, green eyes, a perfect nose and pouty lips, finished off with a body made for sin and every man’s wet dream. By the way Jaxon is looking at her, he is no exception to that sentiment. I watch with a flash of irritation as he rounds the car, still laughing at whatever they are saying to each other. He grabs onto her elbows and pulls her into his embrace, wrapping his arms tightly around her as she tilts her head back to stare up at him. Their eyes meet and I can sense the scorching desire from my perch at the bedroom window. I watch as Jaxon licks his lips before lowering his head to the side of her neck, kissing, and dragging his tongue along its length as his hand squeezes her breast in his large palm. She digs her hands into the dark, thick tresses of his hair before arching her back and giving him further access to her sun kissed skin.
My sight is mesmerized as his lips trail a path down her neck to the low-cut neckline of her dress and kiss a path over the swell of her breasts before returning to her neck, then her jaw, and finally his lips seal over her own red painted lips in a fierce kiss, that even from a distance is giving off heat. I watch stunned with my pulse pounding in my veins as both his hands reach around Kalista’s waist and grab handfuls of her ass cheeks, lifting her off the ground, until she wraps her toned bare legs around his waist and rubs herself against his cock.
