Introduction
Edward
I’d never believed in idle threats. When I told someone I intended to harm them in some way, I was always prepared to back it up.
I was prepared to kill Celia.
I just hadn't decided yet that I would.
Rather, I had decided, and now I was having second thoughts.
I wasn’t a man who had second thoughts. I was a man who honored my commitments, both to myself and to others. Always. That was how I’d climbed out of the depths of poverty, how I’d risen out of nowhere, against all odds. I decided, and I did. Case closed.
There were always obstacles to overcome. Every goal worth achieving had some unaccounted for hindrance along the way, usually showing up at the most inopportune time. That was how progress worked. Steps forward, a step back. The trick was to not get caught up in the stumble. Take a breath, find balance, then proceed.
But Celia Werner wasn’t just a rock on the pathway. She hadn’t just tripped me up. She hadn’t made me simply stumble. She was a ledge, crumbling under my hold, and no matter how I dug my fingernails into the ground at her feet, I was beginning to fear I might fall.
It was possible I already had.
My mistake had been in fucking her. There, in the grip of her orgasm, when she was vulnerable and real, it was impossible not to see what could be between us. I hadn’t even topped her that first time, not really. I hadn’t probed into her psyche beforehand the way I normally liked, hadn’t brought her walls down, hadn’t taken her to ruin, and still I’d slipped in somehow. Slipped in behind her facade where she was unguarded and defenseless, and the authenticity of what I found there was overwhelming.
It wasn’t supposed to have been like that.
There’d been a plan. A scheme years in the making, an improbable scheme at that, and yet everything had fallen into place, as though even the stars believed in my operation of revenge. She’d accepted my ridiculous proposal. She’d been satisfied with a prenup. She hadn’t made a single bit of effort to redraft her will and trust.
It had been too easy. Every obstacle on the way had been met and breached without incident. When she’d shifted, I’d shifted with her. Without effort. It had been a cakewalk. Logistically, anyway. I’d known she’d be sharp and wily and fierce. I’d prepared for that.
What I hadn’t known was that I’d like it.
Like her.
Did I like her? It was hard to accept if I did, but I couldn’t deny there was something there. Something raw and out of control, yet identifiable as its own, unlike so much of what I’d grown accustomed to feeling in the near three decades that had passed since my parents’ deaths.
I hesitated to say it was a nice change, only because of what that would mean for the future of my scheme, but it was a change. And, if I were honest, I liked the change.
Before her, there’d only been blackness inside. Not because I had felt nothing, but because I felt too much. Too much anger, too much regret, too much heartache, too much love. Too much responsibility.
Too much everything.
And it all mixed together, all the individual too much of emotion until it was impossible to distinguish one from another, the same way a child’s overzealous watercolor project turned into mud with the application of too many colors.
That was how my feelings existed inside me—as mud. Darker than that, though. An inky blob. A black hole. The perception of black holes very often is that they are large areas of nothing, but they’re just the opposite. They are the densest objects in the universe. They suck at the life around them. They tear apart any matter that comes close to them because of their massive gravity.
That was what I was inside before her.
My emotions had mass.
My emotions had gravity.
My emotions were capable of tearing a person apart to ruin.
One
Celia
It was bullshit.
I called him on it too. “Bullshit.”
As terrifying as the words were coming from Edward’s mouth, “My little bird, I intend to kill you,” that’s all they were—words. He didn’t mean to kill me. Of course he didn’t. He wanted me off balance, that was all.
He stared at me for a beat, the anger he’d exhibited a moment before easing into something else. Something calmer, more controlled, yet just as vehement.
Without taking his eyes off me, he settled into the chair behind his desk. “I can understand why you’d choose not to believe me.”
“Because you’re dramatic and full of nonsense threats? Yeah. Pretty unbelievable.” Almost as unbelievable as the fact that I was standing before him half-naked, covered in his cum since only a handful of minutes before his ominous declaration, he’d fucked me, wildly, claiming my body as his as he did.
I’d loved it. I’d even loved the painful and intense spanking I’d received that had precipitated the fucking.
He’d loved it too. I had no doubt of that. He might hate himself for loving it, for whatever reason I couldn’t know, but there was no faking that he’d been into it.
Which made his stupid threat more hurtful than frightening. “You have regrets about fucking me, fine. But be a grown-up about it. Childish taunts are not your style.”
I snagged a fistful of tissues from the box on his desk and reached around my torso to wipe the sticky mess he’d made on my backside as best I could before pulling on my bottoms. Wadding the tissue up in a ball, I threw it into his lap.
So maybe childish taunts were my style. Quid pro quo and all that.
With my jaw set, I crossed my arms over my breasts and met his steady gaze.
Edward let the ball of tissue fall from his lap to the floor, barely giving it a glance as he leaned back in his chair. His lips curled slowly. “You continue to fascinate me, little bird. I’ll give you that. And you are correct. Childish taunts are not my style. Which is why you should be most assured that I mean what I’ve said.”
So he was going to cling to that then. How immature.
Unless he actually meant it.
A shiver crawled up my spine. I shook it away. He was trying to get under my skin. He’d only win if I let him.
The best move was to ignore his scare tactics and focus on what he’d given me—an admission.
“Why did you call me that?” I knew the answer, but there was a chance I could be wrong. That the nickname was a coincidence.
“I’ve just told you I plan to kill you, and you’re more concerned with the name I’ve given you. Fascinating indeed.” He was good, I had to give him that. I’d often held onto a ruse way past the time it should be surrendered, but never with such commitment.
Never so convincing.
“Just stop. You don’t mean it.”
Edward cocked his head slightly. “Don’t I?”
“You don’t. You’re trying to scare me.” But my mouth felt dry and my hands were sweaty despite the fact that I was only wearing a bikini in an air-conditioned room.
“Is it working?”
Yes.
But what I said was, “No. Now I’m just pissed off.”
His grin widened. “That makes two of us.”
He didn’t need to tell me. He’d been mad before I’d even entered the room, deservedly so, after I’d pushed him all day, openly flirting with his staff. It had gotten me what I’d wanted—him. Inside me. Unleashed and unbridled.