Page 86 of Owned

Isabel downed her shot with Zara following suit, then she said, “I know, let’s go rent a place in Paris.”

“Oh yes,” Zara said excitedly. “We can leave the triumvirate of assholes here, take their credit cards, and run up huge bills.”

I picked up my glass of soda water and held it out. “That’s a damn good idea. Here’s to defunding the billionaires.”

The other two were just clinking glasses with me when suddenly there was a scuffle by the door to the bar, and Atlas came in.

I froze on my bar stool.

“Everyone out!” he roared at the top of his lungs, golden eyes blazing.

“Oooh, bossy,” Zara murmured admiringly. “How did I not know that?”

Isabel rolled her eyes, and pulled Zara off the stool. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go find Dad and Cal. I think Atlas wants a word.”

The bar emptied, leaving me alone, still sitting on my stool.

Atlas kicked the doors shut then strode over to where I sat, blazing like a torch. It felt as if the jagged edges of my broken heart were digging into me, making me bleed, and I went to push myself off the stool, ready to scream at him, tell him how dare he come back, looking like that, and didn’t he know better? Didn’t he know he should have left me alone?

But before I could move, he was there, putting one hand on the bar on either side of me, caging me in. I opened my mouth, but he got in before I could speak.

“You were right,” he said roughly, without any preamble. “I let my fucking dad win and worse than that, I used him as an excuse to distance you. An excuse to hurt you, and that just makes me a fucking coward.”

Shock held me in an iron grip and I just sat there, staring at him as his scorchingly intense gaze seared me down to the bone.

“Fact is, Rowan Blackwood,” he went on. “You are too good for me. You’re stronger than me, braver than me, better than me in just about every way. But…I want to be with you. I want to try to be the better man for you, the kind of man you deserve because?—”

I lifted a finger and put it over his beautiful mouth, the shock ebbing enough to let me move, unable to bear another word of him running himself down yet again. “No,” I murmured thickly. “Don’t say those things about yourself. You don’t need to try, Atlas. You already are the better man and you always were, no matter what happened in the past. And as for what I deserve… You are the kind of man I deserve and the father our child deserves too.”

He kept on staring fiercely at me, and as I took my finger away, he said, “I love you, Rowan Blackwood.”

I opened my mouth then shut it as a sudden, rush of hot tears filled my eyes. “Atlas,” I began.

“No,” he said softly, fiercely. “You need to hear this, beauty. Mine’s not a gentle kind of love, understand? It’s raw and savage and possessive. A life with me won’t be easy. So you need to choose. You need to let me know that this is what you want. That I am what you want.”

My heart was slowly piecing itself back together, the pain sweet, closing my throat. “You idiot,” I managed, my voice thick with emotion. “I already chose you. Back there in that room, in front of all those people. You’re mine and seriously, you think I life with me will be easy? My love isn’t gentle either. It’s just as all consuming as yours, just as desperate.” I leaned forward, the urge to touch him too strong to resist, sliding my arms around his neck, my lips a mere breath away from his. “You should be afraid, Atlas Blackwood. Very afraid.”

He smiled then, the smile he saved for me alone, sexy and warm and yet somehow fierce at the same time. “Beauty, I’m fucking terrified.”

No, ours wouldn’t be an easy life, but it would be an interesting one. A passionate one. A raw, savage and all-consuming one.

And it would be ours.

And that’s all that mattered.

EPILOGUE

Atlas

I didn’t want to be dragged to Martha’s Vineyard for the Hamilton reunion, but somehow that’s where I found myself, standing on Charlotte Hamilton’s brilliant green lawn and sipping champagne with Cal and Ten.

Isabel, Zara, and Rowan were standing a little apart from us, chatting with Charlotte who was holding court like a queen. Somehow Rowan had convinced Caitlyn to come too, so she was standing next to Charlotte. She looked awkward as hell, but at least she was chatting to her mother so that was something.

Rowan had just passed the three month mark with her pregnancy and she was blooming. She stood all swathed in a gorgeous blue silk dress that I’d bought her, hair spilling down her back in an inky waterfall. Around her neck was a little gold necklace that spelled her name. It was the one I’d given her back when she’d turned sixteen, the one I’d never seen her wear.

She’d turned up wearing it as we’d left this morning and the sight of it had taken my breath away. She’d told me she’d kept it all these years, not knowing what to do with it, but that she knew what to do with it now. I’d had to kiss her senseless after that, then murmur that I was going to get her another necklace, one that said ‘Atlas’s’.

She’d only laughed.

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