32. Bel
My head feels like a fish bowl, and I’m greatly confused but there is no way that I just heard him say what I think he did. Marry me? I give the room we’re in a glance over. I’ve never been in his room before, but the style reminds me of Drew’s family home, and if Drew’s father standing there scowling is anything to go by, at least I know where I am.
I run my hands down to my neck, further stopping when my fingers meet the edge of lace. Lace?
“Did you undress me?”
He gives me another smirk that I want to smack off his face. “Nothing I haven’t seen before. If it makes you feel better, I changed too. We want to look good for a couple of pictures, right?”
There’s something in his tone that I don’t understand. Something telling me to play along. Except even if I were playing along, then I wouldn’t just sit here and stand by while his psychotic father marries us.
I put steel in my tone when I speak again. “What the hell is going on, Drew, and give me a straight answer this time.”
Drew’s father or what-the fuck-ever his name is, Lucian, Lucious, something sinister sounding for sure, speaks instead. “Why, my dear, we are welcoming you to our family, as my son says.”
My gaze catches on the hospital bed across the room. Drew’s mom is still unconscious. At least one of us is. I wouldn’t put it past this asshole to force me into this thing even if I were knocked out.
I let out a long breath before I push off the couch to stand, and then I glower down at Drew who”s somehow in the seconds I’ve been sitting there had slouched into the couch, looking every bit the villain. “Take me home, now, and we’ll forget this ever happened. I won’t even tell Sebastian, so you won’t have to worry about him coming in guns blazing.”
Not that I’ve seen Sebastian with a gun on him. I spotted a couple in his desk drawer once, but I’d never seen him actually hold one. Even when he had murder in his eyes. My statement is more of a means to scare them, which isn’t really working.
Drew stands, buttons his black tuxedo jacket, and smooths his hair back away from his face. “Relax. Let me grab the contact. You can read it and know you’ll be well taken care of.”
He’s joking, right? “You call this charade well taken care of?” I shake my head. “After everything, you’re really going to stand here and force me to marry you?”
His eyes go a little wide as he studies me, and I have no idea if he knows that I’m only trying to sell this. Whatever the fuck this is.
In the car the other night, he asked me to trust him, and I realized I already did. I already do. So this situation must be some kind of plan. I just wish he’d trusted me enough to reveal it in the first place instead of drugging me.
At the reminder of the drugs, my stomach roils. I force out a long breath and place a hand against my stomach. Yep. Going to need a minute. Maybe if I puke on Drew’s dad, then he’ll let me walk out of here.
Something tells me it’s not me he wants but Sebastian’s money.
When Drew crosses the room to the other man lurking near the door, he opens a small envelope and passes over a thick folded stack of paper. I barely spare the paper a glance because at that moment I spot the outline of something at Drew’s back. The glint of metal is barely noticeable, but I see it. A gun. He’s got a gun?
My breath stalls, my lungs starving for oxygen. What the hell does he want me to do here? Fight, play along with the ceremony? I assume he won’t let things get far enough that we are actually hitched for life. There’s no way he would want that. Right?
As I’m thinking about it, Drew returns to my side and holds out the papers. “Take a look at it, read it, front to back, and we”ll sign it before the actual ceremony.”
I’m not sure what he sees in my face, but his mouth turns down, the slick grin slides away, and he studies me. “Bel? Take it.”
I snatch it out of his hand, glaring now. I might trust him, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed as hell. The memory of the jab in the neck returns slowly, and I remember calling him out the same way. Asshole. As soon as we’re done here, I’m kicking his ass.
I snap the papers folded in thirds open and skim the first page. It seems to be a standard marriage contract except all the stipulations about what is mine is Drew’s and what is Drew’s is his family’s. Ridiculous. I’m not signing this bullshit.
He kneels in front of me, his tuxedo pants stretching across his muscular thighs obscenely. I can’t help but stare, and his smirk this time is real. “Bel?”
I lean in, and he tugs me forward, pressing a kiss to my mouth. It’s so quick it’s over before I can comprehend it’s happening and those wicked lips of his skim from my own across my jaw, stopping at the shell of my ear.
“Stall for time,” he whispers.
When he pulls away, I glare and then turn the contract page as if I’m reading very, very slowly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s a marriage contract. There’s no need to review every page. Now get your ass up so we can do this,” Drew’s dad grouses from across the room.
I’m about to give this man a run for his money.
I slap the contract at Drew’s chest hard enough to send him back on his ass on the fancy carpet. There’s a flash of a grin, then his eyes harden. “Is this you telling me you want to play? Because I can fuck you right here on the carpert for the world to see. Or you can be a good girl, get up, sign the contract, and marry me.”
When he’s distracted trying to stand in his fancy clothes, I scoop up the full skirt of my dress, relieved he at least put my Converse back on my feet, and I race toward the door. The man standing near it watches with a smirk but does nothing to try to stop me as I reach the open double doors. The rubber soles of my shoes slap on the marble floor in the foyer. I don’t get far before an arm circles my waist, dragging me backward. My back crashes into a hard body, and I know without even looking back that it’s Drew.
“Bel,” he whispers. His hands come around me, and it’s all I can do not to lean into him, fall into him, and let him carry me out of this.
He might not have trusted me enough to be a part of his little plan, but he needs me to do something now, right? I can’t let him walk back in there alone. Knowing what will happen if he lets me run. His father will take it out of his hide, and I don’t know how that will go, seeing as he’s armed. Yes, I imagine he’s going to kill his asshole father very soon, but I don’t want things to go wrong for him. I don’t want to make it worse.
I allow myself one blissful second of soaking up his strength and his force of will. Then I turn around, pull my hand back, and slap him hard across the face. There’s a stinging in my hand, but it’s a welcome sensation. It reminds me I’m alive.
“I hate you,” I growl.
His lip quirks, and I spot the other two men watching from the study doorway. “That’s okay. You don’t have to like me to fuck me or even marry me. Plus, we both know how much your hate turns me on.”
There’s so much conviction in his tone I have to really meet his eyes to see underneath. Damn. He missed his calling on the stage or with his stupidly good looks in movies. Maybe this plan needs whatever level of devotion he’s now bringing to pull it off. I move to slap him again, but he grabs my hand and tugs it down to his chest, then spins me and lifts me, all in seconds, carrying me back into the study, my body bouncing on his shoulder. “As much as I love a good chase, I want to get this done and over with,” he says, passing his father and the other man.
He sets me back on my feet near the open space off to the side of the room. “Don’t do this,” I plead with Drew. Then to his father and the other man. “Don’t do this.”
His father sees my request as a weakness, I can tell, as his lip curls. “Stop begging, girl, or I won’t let you enjoy your wedding night. There has to be some consolation prize, right?”
Him speaking about his son that way, like something to be used and discarded, makes my already queasy stomach clench harder. Yup. Definitely might puke on one or both of them.
The absolute disgust refuses to leave my face, and Drew’s father must notice this as he steps toward me, the same predatory slow walk that Drew has sometimes. “You will learn your place, Bel, or I’ll make sure that place is six feet under the dirt.”
“Don’t fucking threaten her,” Drew snaps from a foot away now. “I did exactly as you asked, and while this is me following your directions, don’t think for a second that I’m letting you touch her. She will be my wife, and she will be respected as a member of this family. Let me know if you have a problem with her, and I will take care of it. That’s my duty as her husband.”
I hate how Drew speaks about me as if I’m a disposable object, but I also know this is part of the plan. He’s got to play the part and walk the line.
Drew’s father has no respect or regard for women besides what they can offer him. It’s obvious from the way his wife lays in that hospital bed, barely alive while he sleeps around with women half his own age. It’s disgusting, and creepy. I might think Drew is a villain, but his father is evil. Pure evil through and through. He deserves to die. And that brings me some measure of solace as I stand toe-to-toe with him.
I hold the trust I have in Drew tight in my hands. I have to believe he will interfere if things get out of hand, so I take this chance to say what I’ve been dying to say since I first saw the bruises on Drew’s skin. “You’re nothing but a bully. And eventually, the bully gets bullied by someone who is bigger and stronger.”
He grins now. “Oh, I like it. She has teeth now. How cute. I’m glad you’ve steeled up that spine of yours. The last time we talked, you were a weeping, pathetic mess. At least you aren’t crying this time.”
I clench my hands into tight fists. What would happen if I punched him in the face?
“And I’m far worse than a bully. I’m a monster, sweetheart, and I will destroy you without even blinking if you try to fuck any of this up. I’d much rather be the person who does the stepping than be the one who gets stepped on. So far, things have been working out just fine for me. He waves at the room and the opulent furnishings.
“Yeah, I’m sure life for you has been fucking peachy,” I growl, barely recognizing the venom in my own voice. “It says so many wonderful things about you when you take your anger and frustration out on your son. Hoping that one day he will turn into a version of you. News flash, he did. A better version. A man I’d be proud to take as a husband, but only when we decide to do it on our own, and not when we’re forced at the hand of some psychopath.”
Drew’s father holds his hands wide and smiles a slimy smile. “Well, in a perfect world, sure, but you can thank your bastard brother for forcing our hands. If he didn’t make such stupid choices, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
He reaches out to touch my face, and I jerk back, stumbling. Drew’s there, his chest against my back, keeping me upright. I can feel the anger rolling off him, the energy in the room laced with malice and intent.
The mention of Sebastian has me on pins and needles. I know he’s part of the plan, but I can’t determine in what way.
“Stop bickering with each other. Can we get this done and over with so I can get out of this fucking suit?” Drew says over my shoulder. “Shall we?”
Drew’s dad smiles, and this time, I have nothing to say to stall things further. Fear of the unknown slithers up my spine. I glance back at Drew, hoping to see something, anything that might give me a hint on how far this is going to go, but there’s nothing to be seen. His mask is firmly in place.
He won’t actually follow through with marrying me, will he?