Page 5 of Owned

It was only then that I tore my gaze away, turning back to the windows and pressing my cheek against the cool glass, trying to ignore the throbbing ache between my thighs.

I was not getting turned on by this.

I was not.

After a moment, murmurs filled the room, punctuated by Atlas’s soft laugh, while I prayed desperately for them to leave.

Finally, after what felt like forever, I heard the door close and I put my hand on the curtain to pull it aside.

“You can come out now,” Atlas said.

2

Atlas

I’d known there was someone hiding behind the curtain. I’d known it the moment I’d walked into the room.

I could smell her in the air and yes it definitely was a her.

A sweet, innocent scent. Jasmine, maybe. Different to the more sophisticated perfumes women in Arcadia usually preferred.

I probably should have said something, told Tina we had a voyeur, but she wouldn’t have cared and me, well, I didn’t care either.

I liked an audience.

I’d come along to Arcadia tonight — the elite, private-members club run by my good friend Caleb Cross — with my other good friend Tennyson Fox, to watch a virginity auction.

They had them in Arcadia every so often, all strictly controlled and all above board, and it had been entertaining to watch uptight as hell Ten buy himself the virgin on offer. She’d been a pretty little thing and I’d considered buying her myself, but Ten clearly had her in his sights and he’d been the lucky winner in the end.

He’d gone to meet her, while Caleb had disappeared off fuck knows where, so I’d taken the opportunity to get to know Tina, who’d been sitting by me at the auction and who’d been up for letting off a little steam.

She’d wanted another round and I’d been tempted, but the scent of the woman behind the curtain had got me curious and because I wasn’t a man who denied myself anything, I’d sent Tina on her way.

Now, I stood and watched with some amusement as the heavy velvet hanging in front of the window quivered slightly, but remained in place.

“I know you’re there,” I said, wandering over to the drinks cabinet and helping myself to a nip of the excellent scotch Caleb kept in all the rooms. “So there’s no point in pretending otherwise. And who knows? If you’re very lucky, I might give you what I just gave the blonde.”

And why not? A little voyeur, getting all hot and bothered watching me fuck Tina…. My cock got hard just thinking about it.

Except the curtain remained tightly closed so, after a moment, I knocked back the scotch, put the glass back down, strode over to the windows and jerked back the heavy fall of velvet.

As I’d suspected, a woman stood behind it, eyes like saucers staring up at me, her cheeks flaming. She wore a black skirt and a black jacket, with a plain white shirt and she would have looked like a funeral director or maybe an accountant if she hadn’t been so remarkably beautiful.

Or so familiar.

It had been eight years, but I recognized her all the same.

Rowan James, my ex-stepdaughter.

Nothing much surprised me these days — you don’t get to be part of a triumvirate of New York’s richest and most infamous men without seeing a lot of surprising shit — yet I had to admit, I was surprised now.

Last time I’d seen her, she’d been having a teenage tantrum, screaming at me that I was an asshole before running upstairs to her room and slamming her bedroom door. And that wasn’t an isolated occasion. Rowan had not liked me one bit. I, on the other hand, thought she was a good kid. Had an over inflated sense of responsibility, sure, but with Caitlyn for a mother, who could blame her? There had been a lot of men in Caitlyn’s life and Rowan was protective, which I got.

So I hadn’t let her tantrums bother me. She was just a kid with a fragile mother, who’d had to be the parent more times than she should have, and I knew all about that. My own mother had been the same.

I felt sorry for Rowan. She hadn’t asked for any of the relationship drama that usually accompanied Cait, that included being cut off from her powerful family, the Hamiltons, then marrying a guy who didn’t love her to spite them. After that, and now with a child, she’d gone through men at a rate of knots, trying to find someone who’d look after her. She’d tried me on for size — I was another casualty of a powerful, shitty family, so I related — but it wasn’t forever and we both knew it.

I’d attempted to keep in contact with Cait after we went our separate ways, but over the intervening years, we’d lost touch, and I hadn’t thought about her or Rowan in years.

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