Page 22 of Owned

“There’s nothing wrong with it. I just don’t like being in debt to people.”

“Fair. What if I told you that it could be a gift?”

“No, Atlas,” I said firmly. “I don’t want to be given money.”

“But you’ll take Charlotte’s.”

“I’ll be earning that,” I pointed out. “And it will set me and Mom up for life.”

“So this is all about your mom?”

I didn’t want to get into everything with him, not here, and certainly not now so I only said, “Look, I don’t want to have a discussion about it in the ladies’ bathroom, so if you don’t mind, could you get away from the door?”

He didn’t move, but his gaze was disturbingly sharp, moving over my face as if committing it to memory. “You do know that you don’t have to sleep with me, right?”

Oh God, did he really have to say that?

“Yes, yes.” I turned around to the sink and ran the taps again, washing my hands even though they didn’t need washing. “If I had to sleep with you, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

He was silent, but I could feel his attention on me, boring into my back. It had a weight to it, that attention. Heavy and warm somehow, like a hand pressing there.

His hand gripping the back of her neck, her fingers gripping the mantelpiece, the sounds she made as he fucked her from behind…

My mouth went dry and my hands trembled beneath the stream of water. Damn. Why did I keep thinking about that?

“Kid, you’re going to have to tell me what it is that you don’t like about me sometime,” he said at last.

“Why?” Forcing that particular memory away, I pulled a paper towel from the dispenser near the mirror and dried my hands carefully. “We’ll get this stupid marriage thing done and then I’ll never see you again.” I turned back to him, tossing the paper towel into the bin provided, then smoothing my skirt. “Shall we?”

He pushed himself away from the door, but he didn’t turn to open it. Instead, he stalked straight over to where I stood.

I wasn’t expecting it, my breath rushing in on a gasp as he came closer. Then his hand shot out, his fingers gripping my chin and tilting my head back.

“No,” he said, a strange edge in his voice, his golden eyes glittering. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what your problem with me is, Rowan.”

8

Atlas

I shouldn’t have done it. I knew that the moment my fingers touched her skin. Her eyes darkened into violet and they were wide as she looked up me.

I was still angry, firstly at that bitch Charlotte for manipulating Rowan, and not telling her that she’d be marrying me, which I didn’t like one fucking bit. Then there had been Rowan’s fury in response, that she was absolutely entitled to. But I didn’t like how she’d directed that anger at me.

Clearly she’d found my offer of money offensive enough to get up from the table and disappear off to the bathroom, but I couldn’t let it slide.

I wanted to know what her issue was, because if she’d been forced into this then that made the situation a whole different ballgame, and one I’d be fucked if I played. My father had been an expert at playing games and he’d taught me, back when I still loved him. When I still thought he was a hero. He showed me how to play on people’s emotions, how you could manipulate them into giving you whatever you wanted. Oh, he’d couched those lessons in business terms, as if that made using people better, but in the end I saw them for what they were. He was manipulating me just as he manipulated everyone in his life.

Now, I didn’t play any kind of games. They hurt the wrong people. Those who were too straight up, too honest, or too genuine to even realize they were playing, let alone know the rules of the game.

Rowan certainly didn’t know the rules and I wasn’t going to let Charlotte fucking Hamilton involve her in whatever shitty game she was playing, but first I needed to know why Rowan kept sniping at me constantly, because it was getting old. I needed an answer so I could help her, that was all.

Yet, as soon as my fingertips touched her warm, silky skin, I knew I’d been lying to myself. As soon as I looked into her eyes, caught the simple, sweet scent of jasmine and saw the pulse at the base of her throat racing.

It all became suddenly clear.

A part of me had known it two weeks ago, back in Arcadia, when I’d pulled back the curtain and seen her standing on the other side with her cheeks red as apples, unable able to meet my eye. It was obvious and for some fucking reason, I just hadn’t noticed. No, that wasn’t exactly true either. I hadn’t wanted to notice, because now I knew…

Something inside me clicked like a key in a lock. Something dark. The beast that lived inside me, that loved my father and his attention. That had liked his games. That had liked learning how make people adore him in turn, liked the power it gave him and he wanted more.

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