CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – FINN
The door to my office creaks, and I look in its direction. Hattie is poking her head through the gap between the door and the frame, eyeing me hesitantly.
No.
Sadly.
Her gorgeous green eyes are filled with shadows, and she’s biting the corner of her lower lip as if she’s trying to keep her emotions at bay.
I put down my laptop, irritation snaking across my skin. She’s upset? What the fuck did those bastards say to her now?
I meet her melancholy gaze, my own as hard as steel. “What did they do to you, baby?”
She slips inside, pushing the door closed behind her, and whispers softly, “What do you think?”
The ruination of her family can’t come soon enough.
I want to kill them all a little more each day.
I never should have let her go alone.
Not that anyone ‘lets’ Harriet Sinclair do anything.
I push the coffee table away with a shove of my foot and hold my arms out to her.
Without a word, Hattie rushes over and throws herself at me.
She straddles my lap, burying her face into the curve of my neck, and I wrap my arms around her, cradling her tightly against me.
I press a kiss into her soft, blonde hair, and breathe in the calming scent of her strawberry shampoo.
She’s trembling. Whatever those bastards have said to her has really gotten to her, and my anger blooms to life more ferociously than before. I can feel it—it’s skittering along under my skin, prickling at every hair on my body, demanding I get up and handle the situation.
“What happened?” My voice is barely above a murmur as I stroke small circles on her lower back.
“I hate them so fucking much,” she whispers in response, her legs clenching at my sides. “It was exactly what we thought. Dad wanted to talk about the wedding.”
“Were Rosalyn and Jasmine there?”
She nods. “Rosalyn… She didn’t want to at first, but Dad kept asking.
In the end, she told me to step aside. To give Jasmine back what’s rightfully hers.
And my father said nothing. The coward just looked away and let her yammer on about how I’m so fragile and delicate and should reconsider this whole thing in favour of Jasmine, then he left me alone with them. ”
My grip on her tightens, my fingers digging into her curves, and she whimpers. “Sorry.” I kiss the side of her head, relaxing my hold as much as I can. “How fucking dare they? We’ve already made it perfectly clear there’s no chance I’ll ever marry Jasmine. How many more times must it be said?”
Not to mention I fucking warned William. I fucking told him to keep his daughter in line, and it sounds like he just sat there and did nothing while his wife gaslit my fiancée.
They’re delusional. Completely out of their minds.
“I don’t know.” Hattie’s voice thickens. “This engagement is rightfully hers, as far as she’s concerned. It’s a fucking joke. We all know the only reason anyone ever considered her marrying you is because I wasn’t here.”
The thought of marrying anyone other than my Hattie makes my skin crawl.
I’ve never liked it, but it’s my duty to marry and provide an heir—at least that’s what everyone has always told me.
I was prepared to fulfil my role and do what was expected of me, but that was as far as it would have ever gone.
Things are different now, though.
Now, if she disappeared, I’d never touch another woman.
There is only Harriet Sinclair for me.
“Or did I get in your way?” She sits up, looking down at me, an uncharacteristic vulnerability making her words shake. “Did me coming back mess things up? Did you actually want to marry her?”
Shit. They’ve done a number on her tonight. They’ve hit her in her deepest, darkest fears, ones she’s never even shared with me. Ones she knows are unfounded, because I’ve told her so many times how she’s made for me.
But she can’t believe it right now.
And that’s not her fault.
I can scarcely believe this broken, insecure shadow is the same Hattie who looked me in the eye and declared that I belong to her.
How fucking dare they hurt her this way?
“What kind of nonsense is knocking around in that pretty head of yours?” I cradle her face in my hands, drawing her lips close to mine.
“If I wanted to marry her, I’d have done it years ago.
But I didn’t. I waited for you, Hattie. I spent my whole life waiting for you.
Just you. Even when everyone said you’d never come back, even when they buried someone they said was you, I still kept waiting for you. ”
Her lower lip trembles, and tears shimmer in her eyes.
“No, no crying.” I lean up and kiss the corners of her eyes, stopping the tears before they can fall down her soft cheeks. “If you cry, I’ll have to kill someone.”
She makes a sound that’s somewhere between a sob, a laugh, and a snort, falling against me.
“I’m not joking.” I grit the words out through a clenched jaw, the sight of her tears making my heart clench uncontrollably. “Anyone who hurts you deserves nothing short of death.”
“There’s a time and a place for their pain,” she murmurs into my shoulder, circling her arms around my neck. “I can endure this for now.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“I shouldn’t have had to endure anything I’ve been through.” Her voice is so soft, so melancholy, that my entire body aches with sadness. “But I have. And I’ll keep doing it until everything that should be mine is back in my hands.”
“Like me?” I ask teasingly.
“Like you,” she whispers, pressing her body tightly against mine. “Finn, you won’t leave me, will you?”
“Never.” I sweep her hair away from her face and kiss her jaw, dotting a trail of tiny kisses to her ear. “I’m yours, Harriet Sinclair. I always have been. I would die before I ever became someone else’s.”
“Good boy,” she murmurs, pressing her hips against me with a gentle flex of her spine.
I chuckle darkly. Despite the mixture of sadness and anger flowing through me, her words light the fire of another emotion, and my cock gets hard.
Shit.
“I know what you need.” I brush my lips across her shoulder and slide my hands down her body to her arse. My fingers dip beneath the fabric of her skirt, and I tug it up to her waist, exposing her to the cool air of the room. “Sit up a sec.”
Hattie raises her hips, and I reach between us, undoing my trousers. I ease my erection out of my underwear and turn my attention to her, softly stroking along her underwear.
She’s wet, but it’s not quite enough for me to push inside her.
I tuck her underwear to the side and touch her wet pussy. My lips trace gentle kisses along her neck, my teeth occasionally grazing her sweet skin, and a tiny gasp escapes her as I push the tip of my finger into her.
“Finn,” she breathes.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say quietly, pushing my finger all the way in. “I want to make you feel better, not worse.”
“Mmph.” She clenches around me, and after I ease a second finger in, spreading them slightly inside her, I remove my hand and place the tip of my cock at the entrance to her pussy.
“Sit down,” I order her, holding her waist tightly while keeping my cock in place.
Slowly, Hattie lowers her hips, edging my dick inside her little by little. She hisses at the halfway point, but after a couple of deep breaths, she keeps going until she’s fully taken me inside.
“Are you okay?”
She nods, curling into me again. She rests her head on my shoulder and turns her face into my neck, clutching my shirt tightly in her fist.
“Good. Let me get comfortable.” I suck her wetness from my fingers and reach behind me for the throw blanket on the back of the sofa, then tug it down. Using all the cushions within my reach, I create a comfy space for me to lean back on and manoeuvre our bodies so we’re no longer sitting upright.
“That’s better,” she mumbles, adjusting her legs without letting my cock slip out of her.
There’s a hint of exhaustion in her tone, and with us covered by the blanket, I once again wrap my arm around her body and softly stroke her hair with my other hand.
“Rest now, baby.” My lips fall to the top of her head in a lingering kiss. “Nobody can hurt you here.”
She tightens her fist, clenching the fabric of my shirt a little tighter. “Are you comfortable?”
“My cock is inside you, and you’re in my arms. I cannot be any more comfortable.”
“Idiot.” She shudders, momentarily tightening around my cock. “Why this?”
“You calmed down when I was inside you after your panic attack that time. I feel as though I’ve uncovered some black magic.”
“Mm. Maybe you have.” She shifts, angling her hips slightly differently, taking me in slightly deeper. “Can we stay like this for a while? Don’t you have work to finish?”
“As long as you need. Nothing is more important than you.” I kiss her head again, and as if my words are the key to her finally letting go, I feel the moment she finally gives in and relaxes fully against me.
And neither of us say another word.
We merely lie here together. The only parts of our skin that’s touching is my cock inside her pussy, the most intimate possible parts of us.
Hattie’s breathing evens out, and a particularly deep exhale makes me smile as I work through a small knot in her hair with my fingers.
She’s asleep.
I peek down at her face. Her eyes are closed, and her dark eyelashes are fanning across her face. I’ll never tell anyone they aren’t naturally dark and that I caught her tinting them last week—apparently, having blonde eyelashes makes them invisible.
Not that I care.
She could have a mushroom growing out of her forehead and I would still think Harriet Sinclair is the most beautiful woman in the world.
There isn’t a second that I haven’t been captivated by her since I laid eyes on her in the park.
How could anyone hurt her the way her family does? Especially her father. She’s his blood—his eldest daughter—yet the way he treats her is vile. As if she’s nothing more than an inconvenience.
As if she should have stayed missing. As if he wouldn’t care if she disappeared tomorrow.
The thought makes me grit my teeth together.