Page 24 of The Billionaire's Claim: Possession
If I go to prison, Dorothy will take Kristen. I don’t understand her obsession, but she seems determined to tear my family—what’s left of it—apart.
And I know she’s going to make Kristen’s life hell.
&nb
sp; I have to protect my sister.
How?
I tunnel my fingers through my hair as panic, anger and self-recrimination churn through my mind, turning everything into a mess. Think. Think!
Fuck!
I smash my fist against the cinderblock partition between the kitchen and the living room. The impact reverberates all the way to my shoulders. My hand throbs, knuckles skinned and bleeding. But it feels good to have the pain to bring my spiraling thoughts together. I have no one to turn to. The woman I love with all my soul is a viper. And I can’t even run.
Pressing my hands around my temples, I bend forward. A low groan tears from my throat.
Then, in the first time since forever, I pray for a solution.
Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth
The Civic screeches to a halt in front of Dominic’s place. I fumble with the keys he gave me, unlocking the door.
Please, please.
I can’t be late. I can’t afford to be.
Earlier today, Grandma Shirley threatened me.
No, not me.
Dominic.
“He’s twenty-one, and you were merely seventeen when you first met. That won’t do,” she said, her voice cool over late morning coffee.
I looked at her over the rim of my tea. She had another think coming if she thought she could tell me who to date. “I met him the night before my eighteenth birthday.” Besides, her real objection isn’t his age. He has no money and no influence. As far as she’s concerned, such people are beneath us. We help them through our charitable family foundation, but we don’t associate with them. And God forbid, we never, ever fuck them.
“So? You weren’t eighteen yet.” She added more sugar to her coffee. “It’s statutory rape.”
The tea turned to a thick sludge in my throat. “It wasn’t rape. I was completely willing.”
“The law sees things differently. As do I.”
“I was eighteen when we did anything. I turned legal the second the clock struck midnight.”
“How odd. I have people who can testify to the fact that that vile boy—well, man in the eyes of the law—left the bar with you before midnight.”
“He clocked out at eleven. We went to his place after that.”
She continued as though she hadn’t heard a word. “And he got you drunk to take advantage of you. That doesn’t seem like an act of an honorable man, does it?”
“He had no idea. I used a fake ID.”
Shirley sipped her coffee, completely unconcerned. “He should’ve been more discerning. What do you think I’m going to do to a man who raped my granddaughter?”
“Rape” is too vile and wrong a word to describe what I had with Dominic. I gripped the handle of my teacup harder, willing myself to stay calm since Shirley wanted me to panic and do something stupid. Like agree with her—or worse, rage at her. “You don’t even like me.”
