Chapter 18
This had to all be some deranged fever dream.
Or maybe I had died in that car, and this was my hell.
Was this all punishment for making fun of Mitzy Buller’s braces in the third grade? I had apologized for that.
I stared at Lucian’s back as he walked out of the door, closing it behind him.
If looks could kill, I would have set his gray suit on fire with my eyes alone.
Not that he cared. Not that he asked what I wanted at any point. The only thing he cared about was that I called him sir. And didn’t break his rules.
I didn’t know which I hated more, the fact that he made me do it, and it felt so demeaning, so embarrassing, and just wrong, or the fact that every single time those words came from my mouth, there was a pulse of pleasure between my legs.
It was so messed up.
This man, this gorgeous, older man.
I was friends with his daughters and daughter-in-law, for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t be serious. The rules he had given me were completely asinine, and I didn’t believe what he said about my father’s money for a second.
Lucian had told me to get dressed, but I had no clothes here.
I hadn’t been allowed to take anything from the hotel suite. Everything was being held until I could figure out a way to pay my bill.
What was I supposed to do? Fashion a dress out of his bed linens? God knew after the way he was with me last night that they were not fit to wear. He had done things to my body that left large sticky white stains over the black satin.
Heat burned my cheeks again as I thought about last night.
About how good everything was. The pain, the pleasure, and how they swirled together in a way that was intoxicating, and so warm. Last night I had slept in his arms, and I wanted to feel like I should be sick about that. I wanted to feel like that was something horrible, but the only thing I felt was warm.
The truth was that it had been the best night of sleep I’d had since the accident.
It was the first time I had slept through the entire night without those dreams haunting me. The first morning I had woken up to the feeling of his cock sliding inside of me, my muscles aching from soreness, and it still felt exquisite. It was far better than waking up to the echoing, pounding sound of the flask hitting the roof of that limo, or having the image of my mother’s lifeless eyes seared behind my eyelids when I first opened them.
I thought back to how he’d touched me, expecting the revulsion to hit any minute, but it still didn’t. Instead of that, a slow creeping warmth glowed in my core again, and I couldn’t help the way my fingers slid down my body, stopping to pinch my nipples like he had, thinking about the way his hot mouth pulled at them before my hand slid down further to my wet, aching, and very messy pussy.
My finger had only barely touched my clit when the doors slammed open, and a parade of staff came into the room. Grateful that I was still under the blankets, I held them to my body and demanded to know what the hell was going on.
“Mr. Manwarring is having us deliver your wardrobe. We are to put it into the spare closet in this room so that you may get dressed. Mr. Manwarring has insisted that while we prepare your closets, we are also to draw you a hot bath so that you may cleanse yourself,” a man with slicked back hair and a tuxedo with a bow tie and tails said, while looking down his nose at me.
“Excuse me?”
“Suzette is already drawing your bath. You have fifteen minutes before breakfast is served.”
He turned his back on me but didn’t leave the room.
Instead, he continued, directing the never-ending parade of other maids and butlers and what looked like a like a few gardeners as they brought in garment bags, hat boxes, and even the Vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunk that my grandmother had given me.
It was everything that I’d had not only in the hotel room, but also in my rooms in my parent’s estate.
He’d sent people to my home. Invading my private space, my parent’s private space, without permission.
Lucian really had moved my entire life without my consent.
Then again, my consent didn’t really seem to factor in on his list of concerns.
It was clear the staff was not going to leave. By the way the butler lifted his wrist out and tapped on his watch, I knew I was on a countdown clock.
This was ridiculous.
Tightening the sheet around my body as much as I could, careful to cover every inch that needed to be covered, and not give the help a free peep show, I made my way into the large ensuite bathroom.
Sure enough, there was a maid there in a traditional maid’s uniform, with the ruffled hat clipped into her hair and everything, leaning over the bathtub and filling it with hot water and some of the most delicious smelling oils.
“What is that?” I asked her. “It smells amazing.”
“Mr. Manwarring had it brought specially for you. It’s a bath oil designed to sooth your muscles and accentuate the scent of the perfume he got for you.”
“What perfume?”
“Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl. It really is a very fetching scent.”
Of course, it was Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl.
I took a deep breath in slowly through my nose and out of my mouth, stopping myself from screaming at the poor maid.
This wasn’t her fault, and I did not take things out on the help. I found it tacky and gauche and refused to be one of those overprivileged, entitled women. I mean, I was overprivileged and entitled, or at least I had been, but my situation had nothing to do with the maid.
“Is there anything else that you need help with, miss?” she asked.
“No, I can bathe myself.” The words may have come out a little too harshly, so I immediately followed them with, “Thank you so much for your help.”
“Of course, miss,” she said and dropped into a short curtsy before leaving the room.
That was odd.
I’d had a maid my entire life, and none of the staff had ever curtsied to me. Then I thought back to the butler and realized he had an accent and was an actual legitimate English butler.
Even the suit Lucian put on I was pretty sure was English. There was something about the subtlety of the check pattern in the dark gray, and the cut not only hugged his body perfectly so that it looked tailored, but there was also something in the way it was cut closer to his body, and how the shoulders seemed larger and yet still tapered perfectly to his waist.
He was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but his suit still gave him a sleek silhouette.
I shook those thoughts out of my head.
If he was an anglophile, that was the least of my concerns. His other quirks like making me love the things that I should hate and making me feel warm when everything else left me frozen—those were the things I should be more concerned about.
He’d only left me a moment ago, and the cold was already starting to creep in.
As soon as Suzette left, closing the door behind her, I dropped the ruined sheet to the ground and went to step into the steaming water.
Just as I feared, I didn’t feel the warmth.
The water was hot. I could see how it pinkened my pale skin, but I couldn’t feel anything but that icy grip starting to enclose my body again.
As quickly as I could, I scrubbed my body clean of his touch, hoping that ridding myself of his fingerprints would somehow clear my mind of the fog of hormones and lust.
I leaned back in the water. Even if I couldn’t enjoy the warmth, I could at least enjoy the luxurious scents of the oils. The notes of vanilla, tonka bean, and jasmine floated around me, and I tried to focus on those luxurious scents. I ignored the fact that he was the one who had picked them out for me.
“Ten more minutes, miss,” the butler called from outside of the room, his accent more pronounced now that I was listening for it.
“I will be out when I am ready and not a moment before,” I responded.
Suzette may not have earned my annoyance, but the butler could deal with it. He huffed something under his breath, but I sank beneath the water so I couldn’t hear it. I needed to block him out, I needed to block everything out and think.
Lucian Manwarring wanted to marry me.
He hadn’t asked, he’d informed me.
Just like he’d informed me that my father was broke, that I was broke, and that I had to live reliant only on his goodwill.
I couldn’t believe it. I knew people with our status could easily lose fortunes. I knew people like my father could hide the loss of money for a certain amount of time, but I just couldn’t believe it.
My father was shit at keeping secrets.
Whenever he had a surprise for me or my mother, we knew something was up. Granted, he didn’t talk to us about business situations, but if he was broke, he would be worried about it, and we would know.
I didn’t understand how I was in this situation.
Could it be my fault? Should I have started working?
Or could I have done something of value instead of waiting for my life to begin once I got my inheritance?
I was twenty-six, one of the only girls in my friend group who wasn’t already married.
Maybe that was my big mistake.
Waiting around to inherit my trust. Assuming I had plenty of time to choose an influential husband who aligned with my vision of the future. One who could help me get the right charity board appointments. One with the right political connections to influence legislation. One who was willing to become a power couple for change.
When I was eighteen, I should have insisted that my father set up my own corporation. That my trust fund be transferred into my name so I had assets of my own that couldn’t be touched by anyone else.
That was always the plan, but I thought I had time. I should have had time. That time was taken from me by that drunk limo driver, and I would hate him forever.
Hating him wasn’t going to get me out of marrying a man who was literally my best friends’ father.
It wasn’t going to get me out of this situation where I was forced to sleep in his bed every night, facing the dirty things that turned my body on. That made me feel hot, euphoric, and then so dirty.
There had to be options for me.
I still had to do something, I couldn’t just sit here and let this happen.
Getting out of the tub, I stretched, letting the water slide off my body before I stepped into the cobalt blue kimono silk robe waiting for me. I wrapped it tightly around me as if that could somehow stop the chill that I was pretty sure had to be coming from within my body and went out to the bedroom.
It was blissfully empty, the entire parade of staff having left, and it looked like they were never here.
The room was immaculate.
The bed had been stripped and remade to perfection. The closet that was opposite where Lucian had grabbed his suit had been left open.
The closet was at least 15x15 feet, with a large set of drawers acting as an island in the middle of the room. The shelves and bars were full of my clothes, hat boxes tucked neatly at the very top, and even the shoes laid out in the individual little cubbies, all perfectly displayed.
This was not the clothing of a girl whose father was on the verge of bankruptcy. This was the clothing of a girl whose trust fund could fund a small country for her lifetime without ever running dry.
No, I needed to know what was really happening.
I needed to know what my options were, what was realistic, and how I was going to be able to get free from all of this mess without a ring on my finger, or worse, a bastard growing in my belly.
My parents had spent hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education. I had excelled in courses that other girls struggled in. I was accepted to a top university and graduated top of my class.
It may have been general education in general business courses since I was going to need to play the part of a perfect wife, but that didn’t mean that was the only thing my degrees could be used for.
My parents had raised a strong, educated woman, and I could do what I needed to do to survive without them.
I could be independent.
I just needed a little help.
There had to be some way to get me out from under Lucian Manwarring and his theft of my family’s legacy.
Pushing my shoulders back, I grabbed my own pink power suit that completely channeled Elle Woods energy and paired it with the perfect pink crystal Jimmy Choos.
I was a badass, stylish woman who planned to take her future by the balls.
First, I needed to talk to my lawyer to figure out my next steps.