Page 10 of Owned

A fucking lie. He knew exactly what was currently going down.

A complicated little tale concerning his erstwhile in-laws the Hamiltons, one of the country’s richest families, and the manipulative grande dame who ruled them — Charlotte Hamilton.

Ten had married Charlotte’s daughter, Juliana, years and years ago, and against the wishes of her family. Then Juliana had died unexpectedly, but not before giving Ten a daughter, whom the Hamiltons tried to claim custody of. Ten, at that stage only eighteen and not rich enough to take on one of the country’s most powerful dynasties, had basically spent the past twenty three years hiding her from them. Only, a couple of weeks ago, they’d found her and had tried to make contact with her.

They were a bunch of scheming assholes that Ten was rightly worried about, but to cut a long story short, Isabel, Ten’s daughter, finally got in touch with them, and it had been her decision, not Ten’s, and all’s well that ended well, you would have thought.

But sadly things had not ended well.

Charlotte Hamilton, grief-stricken and incensed at the loss of her daughter and the hiding of her granddaughter, had demanded that Ten give her a child she could raise as some kind of weird stand-in for Juliana.

Ten, meanwhile, had been falling for the virgin he’d bought that night in Arcadia, and was in no mood to give the Hamiltons anything. Unfortunately for him, they knew he’d killed the old man who’d taken him in as a destitute street kid — the guy was a fucking pedophile and I helped Ten cover it up like a good friend — and they’d threatened to go to the police with the proof.

Ten was a good man and Charlotte a manipulative bitch, and we both knew the real reason she wanted a kid of Ten’s. She wanted a nice little hostage so she could keep Ten in line. Currently, none of us saw any way around the snare she’d trapped him in, which was a problem.

Caleb, who’d once ruled a crime empire back in the day, had an in with the police, but Ten would never condone using those contacts to get him out of a murder charge — he was an uptight prick like that.

The only option I could see was for one of us to give Charlotte the kid she wanted, so that she’d get her hostage and Ten got to keep his freedom. Caleb wasn’t an option, not now he’d gotten together with Ten’s daughter Isabel (the less said about that the better), so the only one left was me.

Hence Caleb’s question about my sanity since Ten and I had just informed him about what was going to happen.

“So you’re going to marry this woman and have a kid with her?” Cal was looking at me like I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. “Seriously?”

I’d texted Charlotte a couple of days earlier, offering her my DNA, which had then led her to send me a smug little reply with the name of my wife-to-be.

Rowan fucking James.

I hadn’t told either Ten or Caleb about Rowan because neither of them knew about my short-lived marriage to her mom, Caitlyn. It had only been a little under two years that we were together and I’d married her purely to give her some legal protection from one of her exes at the time. In return, she’d promised me the seed money I’d needed to make my construction firm one of the biggest in the city.

I was good with finance, so it hadn’t taken me long to expand Blackwood Construction, and eventually I’d had the power I needed to turn the screws on the motherfucker who’d dared to call himself my old man.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to tell either of my friends about Rowan right now, because I still couldn’t get over it myself. The timing was too uncanny just two weeks after I’d run into her at Arcadia. Then again, I understood why it had to be her.

Charlotte was all about blood, and I’d known Caitlyn was a Hamilton, just as I’d known she’d repudiated the family she’d grown up in. Caitlyn had never told me why and I’d never asked, because it wasn’t any of my business. But obviously Charlotte had somehow tracked her down and gotten in contact with Rowan. Who’d accepted her offer.

Christ.

Every so often these past couple of weeks, I’d find myself thinking about Rowan and our meeting in Arcadia, thinking about the anger in her blue-violet eyes and those little barbs she’d flung my way.

Little Rowan James, all grown up and stunningly beautiful in her plain black and white office uniform.

She’d always been suspicious of me and I got that it was because Caitlyn had been badly treated by the stream of boyfriends she’d had, assholes who didn’t know how to treat a woman and didn’t care about her kid, either.

Rowan had come by her suspicion honestly.

Then again, the fact that she’d still been pissy with me all these years later was interesting. She’d been embarrassed about being discovered behind the curtain, sure, getting all flustered and irritable at me, and fair enough.

But she hadn’t stopped us when Tina and I had come in. She hadn’t said a word when Tina had dropped her dress, or when I’d bent her over in front of the mantelpiece. No, fiery little Rowan had stayed quiet and still behind that curtain, watching us?—

“Atlas,” Caleb snapped. “Are you listening?”

I blinked, realizing I’d been staring into space silently for a good minute. Fuck, what the hell was I doing thinking about Rowan now, when I hadn’t thought of her for years?

Fucking Charlotte Hamilton.

Well, it wasn’t going to be an issue. Charlotte had only demanded a legal marriage, so I was assuming it was an on-paper deal, no living together required. And as for the baby stuff, a small sperm donation on my part would be enough while the doctors did the rest.

“Yes,” I said to Caleb, deciding not to acknowledge my moment’s inattention. “And yeah, I’m going to marry this woman and have a kid with her. It’s no big deal. I don’t give a shit about marriage and sperm donation won’t be a problem.”

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