Chapter 41
CHAPTER 41
ELLIE
L ife with Arman is certainly fast moving and after a day spent curled up on the couch in my sweatpants, I’m now dressed like a supermodel and sitting beside a man who appears to have stepped straight out of an aftershave campaign.
Arman has dark good looks that would corrupt an angel, and I am no exception. I’m still undecided if I prefer him dressed in a suit or naked. If I’m honest, I prefer him naked and inside me because then I have his full attention. He is the sort of man who commands a room when he enters it, and I doubt this evening will be any different.
“Where are we going again?” I ask, my hand clutching his with an intimacy that is alien to me.
“A fundraiser to raise funds for Charles Kenricky’s presidential campaign.”
“Kill me now.” I yawn loudly and he chuckles softly.
“You may change your mind when I tell you the name of his wife.”
“Go on.”
“Adele Kenricky, formerly known as Adele Heatherington.”
“Fuck!” I gasp out loud and he frowns.
“Language, Ellie.”
It makes me laugh. “You’re a strange one, Arman. You are so depraved in many ways and yet manners are important to you.”
“Of course. There is no point in dressing in the finest clothes, sampling the most expensive cuisine and living among the elite if your mouth betrays you. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they conduct themselves in public. In private, it’s another thing entirely.”
I roll my eyes. “A lady in public and a whore in private. Is that what you mean?”
His eyes glitter as he runs his hand along the split in my dress that stops just short of my thigh.
“You are no man’s whore, Ellie, but you are so fuckable I’m having a hard time controlling my raging libido around you.”
“Then don’t.” I swear every part of me is on fire just from one glance in his direction and he moves his hand higher, his fingers rubbing against the edge of my panties.
“Is this what you want?” He whispers, as his wicked mouth hovers dangerously close to mine and I swallow hard.
“You know it is.”
He edges my panties aside and rubs his thumb on my clit and says huskily, “Do you want me to fuck you in this car? To mess up your appearance and leave you in no doubt about my interest in you. To walk beside me with my cum in your panties, leaking down your thighs as you make pleasant conversation with senators and public figures.”
“No.” I stare at him defiantly and whisper, “I don’t want to go at all. Tell your driver to turn the car around, Arman, and fuck me senseless all night instead.”
This time he laughs out loud as he removes his hand from my underwear and leans back against the seat.
“One hour is all it will take, and then I’ll take you up on your inviting offer.”
“You’re a sadist.” I grumble and he chuckles softly.
I change the subject to calm my racing heart and say casually, “There is no mention of my father in gran’s diaries. I’m guessing Marsha never told her.”
“She was probably ashamed.” He replies flippantly, and I hate how that makes me feel.
“Ashamed?”
My voice quivers and he grasps my hand and says softly, “Think about it, malysh. Teenage pregnancies were frowned upon more than they are now and she was probably ashamed of her behavior, not of you.”
“If you say so, but I’m struggling with this whole abandonment thing. I mean–” I take a deep breath. “She didn’t want me. That’s obvious, which is why her behavior in your office was so strange. She could have shrugged and told me to go to hell, but she was genuinely afraid. Did that strike you as odd, Arman, because it did me?”
“It did.”
“So, whoever my father was, or is, could be devastating if it came out, or he might be a criminal, violent, or someone of power who wouldn’t look kindly on a bastard child sullying his reputation. ”
“It may be any of those things.” He shrugs. “My brother is investigating the school Marsha went to. I’m convinced that this entire mystery began there and somehow the women are connected. What I don’t know is where my father fits in and I hope to God he wasn’t involved with Marsha intimately because–”
He doesn’t need to complete his sentence and I gasp. “You don’t think–”
Arman grips my hand and laces his fingers with mine.
“I think of every possibility, Ellie, and the only way we can rule my father out of your life is to take a DNA test.”
“Arman!” My eyes fill with tears because his point is clear.
What if his father is also mine?
My world explodes into a million pieces as the devastating truth of my situation hits me hard. Is Arman my half brother? Because if he is, our souls have been damned to hell.