Ridden By Daddies (Forbidden Reverse Harem Fantasies #24)

Chapter 1

WREN

The room is blissfully empty. Quiet. Peaceful.

Bigger than I expected for a dressing room, but I’m sure most brides have at least a few friends to help them get ready. To celebrate what’s meant to be the most important—the happiest—day of their lives.

But I don’t have any of those. Not anymore. Not for a while. Not since my dad announced my engagement to Grant Dalton at dinner one night. Maybe it didn’t happen all at once, but it feels that way.

Somehow, I’m already here. About to step into my wedding dress and walk down the aisle to marry a man I only know enough about to mix dread and fear in my belly whenever he’s around.

The Daltons have always been a name that floated around our house. Dad’s been doing business with them since before his first senatorial run when I was little. I’m sure I’d met Grant’s father a few times growing up.

I don’t remember. Most of my time was spent away from where my dad held meetings, especially when I began drawing those men’s attention at the events I was forced to attend as a teenager, where I made a miniscule number of girlfriends.

Ones that were jealous of my luck in nabbing the heir to the Dalton real estate and construction empire. The soon-to-be congressman my family’s connections would earn him.

Since I would never find another man my father would approve of, I’ve gone along with this. I ven enjoyed the way he complimented me on the dress I chose.

He shouldn’t have ever seen me in it. Not until our wedding, but he came with me to pick my dress. Allowed me to pick it. To splurge on the insane price tag when I fell in love with the lace and tulle. The way it made my waist look tiny and my hips not as round.

It made me feel beautiful the moment I slipped into it.

And the reaction in Grant’s steely blue eyes made my heart beat too fast. At the time, I’d barely met him twice—a serious, beautiful man—and it was the first time I’d ever felt so attractive.

I should never have trusted that feeling.

My fingers dance over the tulle of the skirt. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Delicate and expensive enough to turn me into a princess for a day.

A heavy knock shatters the silence and my peace along with it. Hackles rising, I clutch my robe closed and step toward the door. My muscles don’t want to cooperate.

“Wren.” He says my name like a warning, and I make the last few feet to unlock the door.

It swings open before I’m fully out of the way, and a strong, cold hand grabs me and shoves me against the wall beside the entrance. Fingers clamp around my throat, and whiskey fumes hit me before I see the glaze in those steel eyes.

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?” My voice is as weak as my argument. Nothing about this marriage is conventional, even though I’ve leaned on that excuse every time he pressed about me going to his place.

Grant frowns down at me, his gaze taking in my state of undress with a leer. The smile that curls his mouth is cruel. “That’s naive bullshit, Wren.”

My one hand clenches the front of my robe and the other comes up to his wrist. The squeeze of his fingers makes me light-headed. Adrenaline trying to combat the dizziness as Grant’s body presses in.

“The same childish way you keep trying to hide your body from me, but you’re mine, Wren.”

He snatches the front of my robe from my grip, those fingers closing around my right breast in an instant, cold through my lace bralette. I jolt, revulsion crawling up my spine, freezing me in place.

I try to shrink away, but there’s nowhere to go.

“Mine,” he repeats, voice low and predatory.

I scramble for a way to defuse, placing my palm gently over his forearm. “The timing of this isn’t right. My mom will be here any minute.”

My touch strokes down his dress shirt to his elbow, up his bicep. My voice stays soft, and I force calm into it. Soothing. Choking down my distress.

His finger and thumb pinches me, a sharp pain shooting fear straight through me.

“Grant, please. It’s less than a day to wait.”

He tightens his hold, and I’m struggling not to tremble, to hide my fear.

“What’s a couple more hours?”

Something he could easily turn around on me, but I’ve clung to the fact that I want to wait until I’m married to have any kind of physical intimacy with him.

Smirking, he releases my breast, letting me close up my robe again. I don’t hurry. I don’t want him to know how afraid I am of him.

“In a few hours, you’ll be mine.” Grant presses me to the wall by my neck, and I wait, blinking slowly at him.

“And there will be no more putting off your duty. No more of this holy Virgin Mary routine.” Releasing me, he stalks halfway out, stops to look at my dress on its hanger, and throws one last threat over his shoulder. “You’d better be worth all of this.”

The door hangs open as his footsteps echo down the hall, further into the event center. I close it softly, flipping the lock and taking my first full breath. Pain squeezes in my throat from the pressure Grant used.

I hope no bruises will form. My neckline is too low to hide any.

Rubbing the front of my neck, I fight back the tears. Panic rises hard and fast, and I stumble to my violin. It’s still in its case—my one treasured possession. The only thing I can call one hundred percent mine.

Opening the case, I stroke the strings, gleaming across a polished spruce front as it lays in its velvet bed. The scent of rosin calms my breaths, and I can almost feel the vibration of the strings under my fingers.

After a minute, the panic subsides with a lingering sense of dread. But I have the strength to put on my dress.

Mom knocks while I’m stepping into it, bustling in to help when I unlock the door. She’s got a few items in her hands—the something borrowed and blue. I attempt a smile at her, but emotion flashes in her eyes when she sees it.

She brushes the hair from my face, looks at my throat, and gives me her neutral frown before she steps behind me to begin the long process of buttoning me up. I bet it’s the only reason Grant let her in here.

“Are you prepared for this, honey?”

I suck in a deep breath, forcing her to pause her work before settling back in. I nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

My voice sounds resigned even to me, but Mom doesn’t comment on it. She’s trained me to be stoic, to fit my role and adapt. To be invisible one moment and helpful the next. Even if it means me harm.

The buttons are done, and I peer at myself in the mirror. My red hair is twisted up in an elegant swoop that was perfect when I had it done, but now…I don’t feel beautiful.

Not at all.

Not with the red mark across my throat or the pink in my cheeks.

Instead, I feel like I’m about to walk to the gallows and face my death.

Mom cups my face with a wan smile. “My little survivor. How about some liquid courage?”

I suck in a slow breath. I’ve never relied on alcohol the way my mother has. Too afraid to dull my senses. I need them to survive.

My racing heart is trying to catch up with my thoughts as I nod. Part of me hoped my mom would find a way to call this off when she saw how horrible Grant was. That she’d do something to protect me.

I should have known better. He’s a powerful man, and women are only as valuable as the partners they choose. Only I won’t stay valuable for long with Grant.

I’m pretty sure he’s going to break me the first chance he gets.

The memory of his hand around my throat, his tight grasp on my breast as I fought to be still. Is that what the rest of my life is going to look like after I walk down the aisle?

Can I give myself over to that monster?

How can anyone expect me to?

The panic returns, this time with more gusto. My instincts take over, and I give into them, lunging for my violin, locking it tight, and clutching it to my chest as I peek out of my dressing room.

The hall is empty, away from where Grant and the family gather to put the finishing touches on our wedding. I step carefully toward the back door, feet moving me faster until I’m outside, bare feet meeting rough concrete.

Shit. Shoes.

Too late.

I propel myself forward, to the sidewalk, and a line of parked cars. At the end of the street, I see a man idling, his window down and his music thumping along the pavement. I speed over to the passenger side and lean in the window to the man’s wide-eyed gaze.

“I need your car.”

“You—you, what?”

“Please.” The desperation in my voice must be magic because he takes in my dress, maybe the marks around my throat, and nods, getting out of the driver’s seat.

I slide my violin in the passenger seat, taking my earrings out and my necklace off as I come around to meet him.

“Here. For the trouble. They’re antiques. Worth more than the car. I promise.”

I shove them in his hands, and he’s backing away, blinking and looking at the old yellow diamonds that match my hair so well.

In the driver’s seat, I don’t wait. I burn out of the space and drive.

I don’t know where I’m going, but it doesn’t matter.

I can’t stay here.

The moment I make it past city limits, relief washes over me, sending tears streaming down my cheeks.

I ran.

I made it out.

I have nowhere to go.

Fear. Relief. Hope. They wash over me in a confusing mix as I watch the miles pass by.

With every one, I can breathe that much easier.

Until a thonk shakes me from my reverie. Smoke billows from under the hood of the car. And the engine rattles a final time before it dies, sending me to a slow stop on the edge of a two-lane highway in the middle of the woods.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Every last scrap of strength holding me together snaps, and I fall against the steering wheel with heavy, bone jarring sobs. They hiccup through me as desolation crawls into my soul to occupy my body with me.

I’m stranded. Lost. As good as dead unless some divine intervention finds the mercy to step in and help.

That’s not my luck though.

Once the sharp edges recede, I take stock, grab my violin, and step out of the car. I made it this far. My only option is to keep going.

The road is long and dusty, cutting up my feet as I trudge on. But I can’t stop.

If I stop, I’ll give up.

If I give up, I’ll only be worse off than I started.

A prize. A possession. A perfectly empty prop with nothing of my own.

It pushes me on until I find an old building that might have a phone. Motorcycles stand along the far end of the drive. Someone must be here. A means of communication.

But…who can I call?

A mechanic to fix the car I practically stole from a stranger?

I clutch my violin to my chest as I rock in the dirt ten yards from the door, which slaps open and makes me jolt.

A man in a vest steps out, gun extended—aimed at me. He’s tall, broad, with a shaved head and a scowl that projects danger. “Stop moving.”

I freeze in place, meeting those dark eyes past the barrel of his gun. His gaze takes me in, top to bottom, then back to mine.

“Put the case down.” He motions with his gun.

But I can’t.