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I wished I could be a bitch, but she was being so nice to me and seems to be genuine. “Did you not believe before?”
“Being left at the altar will do that to you.”
Her chuckle is dry and without humor, and I feel a wedge of emotion stick in my throat. Reaching for her hand, I squeeze gently. “I’m sorry.”
Arabella shakes it off and forces a smile, ever the socialite. “Don’t be. He never looked at me the way Lincoln looks at you. You can practically feel the love he has for you spilling from him. I want that and I won’t give up on it now I’ve seen it can happen.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that what she thinks is love spilling from him is good old-fashioned lust.
“It will. Just remember your worth.”
Arabella leans and hugs me unexpectedly and I hug her back. I sense that a part of me has healed in some small way by taking the time to hear her out. “Good luck, Arabella.”
“Thank you.” I watch her leave giving myself a few moments to regain my equilibrium.
I walk out of the bathroom in a daze, my thoughts on the conversation I just had, which is why I don’t see the snake of a man who corners me.
“Well, look who it is. The whore that spread her legs for my son a second time.”
Charles Coldwell wraps his hand tightly around my arm as he drags me into an empty room. My heart is hammering like a runaway train as I smell the booze on his breath and see the wild slightly unhinged look in his eye.
I’m immediately thrown back to the past, terror clawing at my skin as the room around me falls away and I’m in my old room at Kennedy House. The walls feel like they’re closing in, and I have to fight to draw breath into my lungs and keep my head. I physically shake off the memory and look at the man who was leering at me like I’m a fresh piece of meat.
“Get your fucking hands off me.” I step back yanking my arm from his grasp and put some space between us and feel my back hit the door knob.
“What? You don’t want to dance with me like you did Lincoln? Rubbing that body up against him in public like a little slut.”
I turn to leave even as my legs feel like they’ll give way after a few steps but find my face shoved against the door, Charles’ pillowy body behind me, his erection pressed to my spine. Bile crawls up my throat and I swallow it back, trying to stay calm when all I want to do is scream.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to fuck you. I don’t want sloppy seconds and that cunt of yours is probably gaping from the dicks it’s had inside it. Although your mother was pretty tight for an old girl.”
My fury gives me a strength I didn’t know I had, and I stamp down hard on his foot with my heel and when he releases me with a cry, I push him away. “Don’t you ever talk about her like that again.”
Charles looked furious as red blood vessels seemed to pop on his skin. “I’ll do what the fuck I like, and you know what else.” He pauses and sneers, and a dread goes through me that’s bone deep. I want to run, to hide and turn back time, but I can’t. “I want custody of my son.”
My world implodes at his words.
“Eric needs a role model, and I’m going to show him the ways of the world.”
“You stay the fuck away from him or I’ll kill you myself.”
“Now, now don’t be dramatic, Violet. We both know I have the money to hire the best lawyers and take that boy away from you.”
My shoulders sink because he’s right. He can hire the best and even my three million wouldn’t be enough against his unending funds.
“How do you think Linc would take it to know he’s living with his own brother and you didn’t tell him or my darling wife? How hurt would she be to find out you duped her?”
I want to say not as hurt by what he’s done and the destruction he’s caused but I know they’d both be devastated. I also know Charles doesn’t want Eric. He’s using him as leverage.
My shoulders sag again for a second and he sees it, smiling in triumph.
“What do you want?”
“I want my company back and if you help me, I’ll forget about Eric and leave him for you to raise. If not, I’ll take him and everything else you love from you.”
I don’t give a shit about me but losing Eric to this monster willnothappen. It’s my job to protect him when I hadn’t protected my mother. And I meant what I said, I’d kill him first. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Not my problem but find a way to make my son see reason and resign from his position and re-instate me or the world will find out about Eric.”
