will hurt me more than my own guilt. I want you to be mine. I’m asking you to be mine.”
“You can’t give me a choice now . Not after everything that’s happened. Not now that you’ve gained everything you and your father wanted from me.”
“I have an heir,” I said. “And my name will live on, but Sarah, my life is meaningless without you.”
Her words echoed with heartache. “Why do I wish we’d never met?”
I encroached again, tipping her chin, taking a kiss salty with tears from lips numb with sorrow.
“I wish I hadn’t either,” I said. “If only so I could start again, right here, right now, and love you the way I should have loved you from the beginning.”
I released her, giving her the space she needed. She should have been held, warmed, caressed. Instead, she cradled herself. Alone.
“I’ll take care of my father. Trust me. You’ll never have to think of him again.”
Her hand covered her stomach. “I won’t let you take this revenge from me.”
Taking a life while nurturing a life. She thought it was her right. I would never let it happen, never let the blood stain her hands or that final innocence be lost.
Once my father was gone, nothing would prevent me from earning her trust, rebuilding our love, and beginning our family.
Sarah carried my son.
And soon, my father would never again haunt her.
Sarah Atwood didn’t go to war. She scorched the earth, salted the ground, and stained what remained with blood.
Even her most devious plan encompassed solid business sense and a practical eye for details. But she hadn’t the experience to know when to slice the throat instead of gutting her target for pleasure. If I had it my way, she’d never learn.
But her revenge was plotted long before she called Reed to bring her home. I hadn’t expected it. I didn’t approve of it.
I didn’t have a choice.
The Bennett Board of Directors assembled under the pretense of a quarterly fiscal report. They stayed for the beginning of their end.
If they suspected anything, they didn’t speak of it. We discussed the upcoming quarter and hid the soured profits within promised terminations and restructuring.
As we had done for the past five quarters.
The board was beginning to notice.
And that made our meetings…complicated. Even more complicated when the woman I loved willingly antagonized the men who needed no reason to end a problem before it cost them more money. Sarah was an expensive mistake.
Worse, her absence made a fool of my father.
And yet, his temper hadn’t lashed. He never troubled himself with the lost Josmik shares. And Sarah no longer feared his retaliation.
Why ?
The board room silenced as a secretary set up the screen to display Sarah’s fatal mistake.
My father’s attention fixed on me rather than the press release from Atwood Industries. His chosen board members grumbled as this inconvenience interrupted their tee off time.
“Nick, can’t you just fill us in?” Peter Hannigan checked his watch. “Christ, we’ll miss lunch.”
I said nothing. For the past two months, I endured their every humiliation. They mistreated my name, rank, and power within the company to award pet projects, fully expensed yacht parties, and terminations of employees to ensure a greater profit for the next quarter.
Worse, they showed no remorse for how they treated Sarah. They voted on her life as though it were a decision to buy a smaller competitor or break for lunch.
It would end soon enough.
“What the hell is this, Darius?” Bryant Maddox was a rat-bastard who turned on my father and cast the final vote to murder Sarah. I never met a man more slime than skin and bone, but he’d bleed like any other board member. “I thought we had this problem under control.”
My father waited as the secretary closed the door behind her. He didn’t dismiss the two security guards poised in the corner, waiting for another shot at my kidneys.
“It’s been brought to my attention that
“You can’t give me a choice now . Not after everything that’s happened. Not now that you’ve gained everything you and your father wanted from me.”
“I have an heir,” I said. “And my name will live on, but Sarah, my life is meaningless without you.”
Her words echoed with heartache. “Why do I wish we’d never met?”
I encroached again, tipping her chin, taking a kiss salty with tears from lips numb with sorrow.
“I wish I hadn’t either,” I said. “If only so I could start again, right here, right now, and love you the way I should have loved you from the beginning.”
I released her, giving her the space she needed. She should have been held, warmed, caressed. Instead, she cradled herself. Alone.
“I’ll take care of my father. Trust me. You’ll never have to think of him again.”
Her hand covered her stomach. “I won’t let you take this revenge from me.”
Taking a life while nurturing a life. She thought it was her right. I would never let it happen, never let the blood stain her hands or that final innocence be lost.
Once my father was gone, nothing would prevent me from earning her trust, rebuilding our love, and beginning our family.
Sarah carried my son.
And soon, my father would never again haunt her.
Sarah Atwood didn’t go to war. She scorched the earth, salted the ground, and stained what remained with blood.
Even her most devious plan encompassed solid business sense and a practical eye for details. But she hadn’t the experience to know when to slice the throat instead of gutting her target for pleasure. If I had it my way, she’d never learn.
But her revenge was plotted long before she called Reed to bring her home. I hadn’t expected it. I didn’t approve of it.
I didn’t have a choice.
The Bennett Board of Directors assembled under the pretense of a quarterly fiscal report. They stayed for the beginning of their end.
If they suspected anything, they didn’t speak of it. We discussed the upcoming quarter and hid the soured profits within promised terminations and restructuring.
As we had done for the past five quarters.
The board was beginning to notice.
And that made our meetings…complicated. Even more complicated when the woman I loved willingly antagonized the men who needed no reason to end a problem before it cost them more money. Sarah was an expensive mistake.
Worse, her absence made a fool of my father.
And yet, his temper hadn’t lashed. He never troubled himself with the lost Josmik shares. And Sarah no longer feared his retaliation.
Why ?
The board room silenced as a secretary set up the screen to display Sarah’s fatal mistake.
My father’s attention fixed on me rather than the press release from Atwood Industries. His chosen board members grumbled as this inconvenience interrupted their tee off time.
“Nick, can’t you just fill us in?” Peter Hannigan checked his watch. “Christ, we’ll miss lunch.”
I said nothing. For the past two months, I endured their every humiliation. They mistreated my name, rank, and power within the company to award pet projects, fully expensed yacht parties, and terminations of employees to ensure a greater profit for the next quarter.
Worse, they showed no remorse for how they treated Sarah. They voted on her life as though it were a decision to buy a smaller competitor or break for lunch.
It would end soon enough.
“What the hell is this, Darius?” Bryant Maddox was a rat-bastard who turned on my father and cast the final vote to murder Sarah. I never met a man more slime than skin and bone, but he’d bleed like any other board member. “I thought we had this problem under control.”
My father waited as the secretary closed the door behind her. He didn’t dismiss the two security guards poised in the corner, waiting for another shot at my kidneys.
“It’s been brought to my attention that
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