Page 19 of Owned

Still, I couldn’t help wondering if I should have made more of an effort to keep in touch with her and Rowan after the divorce. Cait had assured me that she and Rowan would both be fine, but maybe they hadn’t been.

The thought was an uncomfortable one. I’d thought about them on occasion, but I’d also been knee deep in growing my company, and at the same time, making my way around Blackwood Bank’s clients, sowing as much dissent as I could, spreading hints about Dad’s links to the crime empire run by the crime lord known as Old Nick, undermining their trust in the bank. Making sure the family business that was my father’s pride and joy plummeted headfirst into insolvency. Which is was exactly what happened and exactly how I’d planned it.

My mother had lost everything and so had he, and I didn’t regret it. Not one single bit.

“What’s the problem with my money?” I asked, trying to keep a lid on my temper, which wasn’t normally an issue so why it should be now, I had no fucking idea. “I’m offering it to you, no strings attached.”

Rowan only snorted, a look of disdain on her face as she turned to Charlotte once again. “So, why him?”

Charlotte, who’d been watching the pair of us argue with a faint smile on her face, said, “As I already told you, Mr. Blackwood very generously volunteered his ‘services’.”

I gave a low, humorless laugh at that. As if there’d been anything ‘voluntary’ about it.

“That’s not an answer,” Rowan said.

“It is for now,” Charlotte responded without heat, yet also making it very clear that she was not going to say anything more on the subject. And of course she wouldn’t, not without revealing how she was blackmailing Ten.

I should tell Rowan straight out what her grandmother was up to, but that was Ten’s secret, not mine.

“Why did you volunteer?” Rowan turned to me, her gaze very direct.

It was Charlotte’s turn to laugh now, and she sounded genuinely amused. “I like your spirit, Rowan,” she said. “Never take no for an answer.”

I ignored her, keeping my gaze on Rowan’s. “ None of your business.”

“Since you’re having to marry me and supply your DNA for the baby that I’m going to carry, then I’d say it’s definitely my business.”

Fuck, she was stubborn. I would have admired her for it, if it hadn’t been such a pain in the ass.

“Again, not your business,” I said, the edge in my voice pronounced now.

Her chin jutted, the sign of a temper I remembered well. She’d been sharp, wary of me, and deeply suspicious back then and it seemed she still was. Which was going to make me trying to protect her from Charlotte’s machinations very difficult indeed.

What I wanted to do was lay out for her all the ways in which this was a bad idea, but with Charlotte’s sharp gaze watching, I didn’t want to give the damn woman any more ammunition to use against us. The only thing I could do was try to discourage Rowan from signing up for Charlotte’s project any way I could.

“If you need money,” I began.

“No,” she said, turning away and looking back at her grandmother. “I’ll do it, Charlotte. Now, where do I sign?”

7

Rowan

I hadn’t known what to expect when I’d first turned up at the unbearably swanky La Chouette. The decor was all white so I felt as if I was walking through a snow globe as I joined Charlotte at her table.

She was stunningly beautiful and honestly, I felt like a dowdy little hen beside her in the black and white skirt and blouse, my favored work clothes. She’d been easy to talk to, though she didn’t want to talk about the whole reason we were there until my ‘groom-to-be’ arrived.

I’d had no idea at all that the groom would be Atlas Blackwood. So to say it had been a shock to come back from the bathroom to find him standing at Charlotte’s table, all six foot four of him, towering over everyone else in the restaurant, would be to drastically understate things.

I’d thought I’d seen the last of him in Arcadia two weeks ago, yet here he was, the last person I expected or wanted to see at this meeting with Charlotte, and as impossibly beautiful as he’d been the last time I’d laid eyes on him.

Then Charlotte had told me why he was here. And now I was furious. Completely and utterly furious with my grandmother for not telling me a single damn thing about Atlas Blackwood’s involvement, and with Atlas for knowing that I was part of the situation already, and knowing before I did myself.

It wasn’t fair of me to be angry with him about that — he couldn’t have told me about it, because he didn’t have any of my contact details for a start — but too bad. I was. And him offering to pay me double what Charlotte had to not take her deal hadn’t helped either.

I knew he was trying to protect me, but I was long past needing his help or protection, and I was angry at his apparent assumption that all he needed to do was his wave his magic money wand in my face and I’d do whatever he asked.

There was no way I was going to take a man’s money, no matter what he said about no strings, because there were always strings. Always ways for people — and by people, I mean men — to exercise their power over others.

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