Page 96 of Auctioned

“Fuck you and fuck the Hawthorne name.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Another glass smashes into pieces. No one yells at him for breaking shit.

“I’m getting her back. You have to help me get her back.”

“Getting her back?” His confession is a shock to the system. “You never mentioned wanting her. You can’t have her back. You can’t”—my teeth gnash, and I force my jaw to loosen—“get her pregnant. It’s a done deal.”

“N—Not like that, either.”

I’m losing my patience. My respect for him is dwindling by the second.

My possessiveness, that side of me, grows tenfold. Doubles and quadruples in size.

She isn’t his. She’s mine. Until I decide I’m done. Even then, she won’t be his.

“I want to own her. Me.”

My hand that’s not holding the phone clenches into a tight fist. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“This entire time, I’ve been pretending,” he shouts at me. “The stupid lineage! That’s why I’ve been pretending.”

Shouting.

At me.

“Lower your fucking voice.” I’m more than pissed. Anger, hot and consuming, pounds inside my chest. “You can’t own her. You can’t keep acting like a spoiled brat. For God’s sake, pull yourself together.”

“There’s more to life than your goddamn legacy.” He has lowered his voice, but he’s no less indignant. “I lied when I said that she meant nothing to me. I can’t stop thinking about what I did to her on that stage. I want more of it. Fighting her. Humiliating her. I want to ruin her and make her mine. I got off on her pain.”

“She’s not yours,” I say before I can catch myself. “She was never yours to begin with.”

“We can change that. You and me, Dad, we can have women to torture instead of giving the best ones away. We don’t need the money. And yes, Oliver is obsessed with the auction house and the tradition. Fuck him. We’re stronger than him and Camden. Smarter. You know this.”

I do. I also know that no one will have Ophelia. No one will own her but me.

Only me.

“We don’t torture women.” As a rule. I wish he’d get it through his thick, sadistic skull already. Ophelia and me, that’s a different story. Not what he has planned for her. “You’re young. It’ll pass.”

“Were you ever in love with Paisley? Or Faye?”

My sacrifice. His mother.

The women I never loved. The ones I saved anyway.

“That’s beside the point.” My nostrils flare. My heart pumps blood to my veins, preparing for war. “You don’t love her. You said so yourself.”

“How is it beside?—”

“You’re going to enjoy your time off, Topher. Then you’ll come back here. You’ll forget about Ophelia.” The woman who was about to end things between the two of you. The woman who’s mine. “You’ll have a son.” From a consenting woman, or you’ll go down too. “Life will go on.”

“No, it won’t.”

“This conversation is over.” I’m done listening to him, a man challenging my claim onmyOphelia. “Go take a cold shower. Drink some water. Sleep it off. Do not call me until you grow the hell up.”

He huffs. Groans. Something crashes. This time, it sounds like wood splintering.

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