Ruin

by Laurelin Paige

  Just thinking about what he must have seen in me in that moment made my skin crawl.

  There was no way I could share those feelings with him. They were too personal. Too real, and here, under the intensity of his gaze, there was nothing I could hide behind.

  “I’m not doing this,” I said, as I stood up and turned to leave.

  “Sit down, Celia.”

  The command was sharp and sinister, a verbal lasso wrapping around my torso, holding me in place. I was only a handful of strides away from the doorway. So close to escape.

  And yet I couldn’t go.

  I didn’t generally have a problem defying him. I could now. Easily.

  Only, as blasé as I’d been throughout our conversation, I actually was scared. More than I wanted to admit, even to myself. I didn’t believe that he would kill me, necessarily.

  Just.

  What if I was wrong?

  With my chin held high, I returned to my chair, wincing as my ass touched the surface. “There. I sat down. But only because you’re going to give me answers. How did you figure out that was me on that forum? And why did you want me to go to that party?”

  Edward sat up to his full height, his eyes narrowing as he stared at me. Into me. “Let me be clear,” he said with cool authority. “You are not in a position to ask to see my cards. It’s your turn to show yours, and, if I’m satisfied after I see them, I may choose to show you some of mine.”

  I swallowed hard.

  Though his face remained perfectly composed, his hands were in fists resting on the desk, and I couldn’t help but suspect that he was trying very hard to control his rage. “Now, answer my question.”

  “And if I do you’ll give me answers?” My voice sounded weak, and for good reason, since I’d basically just been told he was in charge and stop defying him or else.

  I seemed to have a real problem with authority.

  Edward appeared to find that problem amusing. His lip twitched as though trying not to smile. “Perhaps. But I’m not answering anything you ask until I’m happy with what I hear from you.”

  “Nothing,” I said stubbornly. “I felt nothing.”

  “If you’re not going to be honest, then you might as well leave, which will not only end the discussion now but any possibility of discussion in the future.”

  Whether he meant that this was the only time he’d be willing to talk or that, later, I would be unable to talk, I didn’t know.

  Either way, he’d trapped me once again into answering.

  “It was hot,” I said, with obvious annoyance. “Okay? The way you touched her was hot.”

  “And?”

  Jesus Christ, he was impossible.

  “And dirty.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know…” I shook my head, trying to guess what he might want me to say. “Unsettling.”

  “And…?”

  “And mean. And manipulative. And exciting. And if you want something different from me, then I don’t know what it is because I haven’t read the Guide to Pleasing Edward Fasbender, and I’m going to need the CliffsNotes.”

  “I want you to be honest.” His tone said his patience was wearing thin.

  Well, mine was too. And honesty? That wasn’t something I’d been good with in a long time, let alone emotions.

  At my hesitation, he prodded. “Close your eyes, Celia, and stop trying. Just imagine I’m touching her now. I’m kissing her. My mouth is on her breasts. My hands are on her cunt. Inside her cunt. Now, tell me what you’re thinking.”

  My eyes were closed, and I could see it all like it was happening right then. I could feel the twist in my stomach, the rush of blood in my ears, the pang of envy.

  I opened my mouth and let the words fall out. “I wished it were me you were touching.”

  And with that admission, I knew in my gut that whatever answers he gave me, if any, or whatever move he made next in this stupid fucked-up game, it didn’t matter.

  I’d already lost.

  Two

  I heard his chair move before I opened my eyes, and when I did, he wasn’t sitting behind the desk anymore. He was easy to find. He’d moved a few feet away to the mini bar. I already knew that the amber-colored liquor that poured out of the carafe into the tumbler was brandy.

  When the glass held two fingers of liquor, he brought it over to me. “That was good,” he said as he held his offering toward me. “Was that so hard?”

  Was it hard to admit that I’d wanted him?

  I’d been openly trying to seduce him for weeks. But I’d been able to convince myself that my only reasons for doing so were to win. Now, with my plans exposed and The Game out of my mind, it was different. It was hard. It made me weak.

  I hated it.

  “I hate you,” I said, snatching the glass from his hand, pretty sure I meant it, vehemently, even, despite not having felt anything passionate for years. I brought the tumbler to my lips and took a long swallow. My stomach was empty, and I didn’t really want the drink, but he’d made a point to pour it and bring it over, which meant he thought I needed it, and I didn’t have the energy to argue about it.

  And maybe I did need it.

  Edward hadn’t moved from my side. He lifted his hand and ran his knuckles across my cheek, a gesture so unexpected, I almost flinched.

  “Would it make you feel better to know that I wished it had been you I was touching too, my little bird?”

  My skin felt hot, and not from the liquor. I hated that too—how my body reacted to him. How it lit up at his touch, how his words sent my stomach fluttering and my heart racing, my organs not caring that he was a controlling asshole or that he (supposedly) wanted me dead.

  Well, I wasn’t my body.

  I leaned away from his hand, wrapping one arm around myself while the other kept the glass near my mouth, a pathetic shield of sorts. “Stop calling me that. I’m not your anything.”

  “Au contraire. You are my wife.” He circled back around toward his chair, and I immediately missed the warmth of his skin against mine.

  Or my body did.

  I wanted him as far from me as possible. Him on the other side of his desk was good. It was the farthest I’d likely get him until this was over. Until he decided he was bored with the conversation and let me leave.

  If I was being forced to stay, I damn well meant to take advantage of the situation. “How did you know that was me on the forum?” I repeated my earlier question. “Even if you knew my IP address, it’s supposed to be blocked to others on that site.”

  A loud clap of thunder boomed overhead. I glanced toward the window in time to see the flash of lightning that followed it, showing a thick layer of clouds covering the sky and sheets of pouring rain.

  I was so surprised to realize it was storming that I almost missed Edward’s response.

  “...is blocked. But I had software installed directly on your laptop that captured all your activity.”

  What?

  He had my full attention now. “How the fuck…?” Quickly my mind searched for the answer to my own question. How would he have gotten to my laptop? Who would have...

  “Blanche,” I said, her name coming out like a curse word. “You used Blanche Martin. She sent that email to me with those pictures that I, stupidly, downloaded. I should have known! It was awfully convenient that she’d shown up at the same time you did.” Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  “That’s not a bad guess, but no. Not Blanche. She was a strange coincidence. When I saw you with her at Orsay, I actually thought you’d had the upper hand on me.”

  It was a relief to know Blanche hadn’t been my mistake. And I still needed to know how he’d gotten into my laptop, but now I also had to know what I should have learned from Blanche that I didn’t. “What did I miss? She couldn’t tell me anything about you, except that she’d heard rumors that you liked kinky parties.”

  “I was wondering what gave you the idea to go looking for me on those forums.”

/>   “A lot of good that did.” I realized I’d admitted more than I’d meant to. “And I wasn’t looking for you. Who said I was looking for you?”

  His expression said he wasn’t fooled. “It seems you formulated a whole plan to bring me down based on that little snippet of information. From your internet searches on consensual versus non-consensual sexual practices within marriage and the law surrounding those practices, I surmise you had intended to use what you assumed about my sexual proclivities to your advantage.”

  I was fucked, and I knew it.

  But I’d never been good about letting things go when I should, and I clung to my innocence like he was clinging to his I’m-going-to-kill-you stance. “That’s an awfully big assumption. Narcissist much? Not everything is about you.”

  “What else were you using the information for?”

  “Maybe I was researching for a friend. Or writing a dark romance book.”

  “I’m sure that’s what it was.” His mouth twitched as though he were trying not to smile. “You weren’t at all hoping to get me to, let’s see, what exactly did your digital notebook say? ‘Wives assaulted through non-consensual sexual practices have a strong case for nullifying prenuptial agreements.’”

  Yep. Totally fucked.

  My cheeks heated. I took another swallow of my drink, hoping the burn could wash down some of the humiliation of defeat.

  “I’m intrigued about just what it is you imagine that I do in the bedroom, Celia. And offended that you think I don’t require consent in my relationships.”

  “Yeah, well.” I’d never presumed anything about consent. The truth wasn’t what mattered in my games. “Your word against mine.”

  “Ah. So that's how you intended to play it. I was right on that then.”

  I mentally kicked myself. I was giving more than I was getting, and that needed to change.

  In an attempt to reassert myself, I turned the conversation back to the information I really wanted. “If it wasn’t Blanche who got you to my laptop, then who?”

  He shook his head. “It’s my turn to hear from you.”

  Cue eye roll. “You already seem to know everything about me. What do you need me for?”

  “Which was what started this conversation in the first place, wasn’t it?”

  A chill ran down my spine. I intend to kill you. His words echoed in my brain. He sure knew how to retaliate against a bratty statement. I had to give him that.

  And, as ridiculous as it was, his tactic was working. I was afraid of him. More afraid than made me comfortable.

  Why was that also a turn-on?

  And how the fuck did he get to me?

  “Renee.” The answer hit me like a ton of bricks, spilling out of my mouth on impact. “Oh my God. You got to Renee.”

  “You make it sound like I took a hit out on her. It wasn’t like that at all.” The squint of his eye said he was pleased—either with himself or that I’d guessed right, I wasn’t sure.

  Whichever it was, it encouraged me to follow down the rabbit hole. “Somehow you got her to upload something on my computer for you.”

  “No. She simply gave me access to it. I did what I needed to from there.”

  Dammit. Really? Renee? She’d worked for me for years. We’d never been close, but I’d thought we had a decent boss/employee relationship. “She just handed it over to you? Without any questions? Did she know what you did to it?”

  I wasn’t so naive as to be surprised by betrayal, but still. This discovery came as a shock.

  Edward waved a hand in the air, dismissing my questions. “It’s not important.”

  “Not to you, maybe, but to me, you better believe it is.” When he shrugged, I pressed on. “Did you pay her off? Is that why she quit?”

  He studied me again as he considered his answer, or whether he would answer at all. “Nothing so nefarious,” he said finally. “I offered her a better opportunity, and she took it.”

  “Did you sleep with her?” It was another thought that left my mouth as soon as it entered my head, and I was surprised by the gnawing in my chest that accompanied it.

  He leaned forward abruptly. “Do you care?”

  I asked, so of course I cared, and no matter what I tried to say, he knew it. It was a victory for him, but it felt like an even bigger loss for me.

  Especially because I still didn’t have the answer, and not knowing bothered me. Almost as much as the idea of Edward sharing his hands, his mouth, his cock with Renee.

  I pushed down the sudden urge to cry. I wasn’t used to losing, and I was pretty sure I had. I didn’t even know how to lose. How to act, what to say.

  And I didn’t want to lose.

  I turned my head toward the windows where the storm pressed on with torrents of rain. “What was even the point of all of it? Why did you want to see what was on my computer? Why did you care? To convince me to accept your proposal?”

  I switched my attention back to him for his answer.

  “Whatever it took to nudge you in that direction, yes.” His eyes hooded. “You should know I’d been prepared to do a lot more.”

  My breath tripped in my chest. He hadn’t meant it to be seductive, he couldn’t possibly. And yet I felt the sharp pang of desire low in my belly.

  My reaction said more about me than his statement said about him. Said things I didn’t want to know.

  I forced myself to focus. “All to get to Werner Media? You have your own company. Why does my father’s matter so much to you?”

  “It just does.”

  It was my turn to study him. His blue eyes were as set as his jaw. He gave nothing away but determination, no matter how I searched for more.

  No matter how I wished he’d give more.

  It was beyond stupid that I cared. Stupid and downright irritating.

  I crossed one leg over the other and lifted my chin in defiance of him and my feelings. “Well, it was all for nothing because you’re crazy if you think I’m suggesting my father let you helm his company now.”

  “As if you’d ever planned to do that in the first place.”

  No matter what I had to say, he had to one-up me. No matter what my hand, his was better.

  And, frankly, none of his motivations made any sense. “If you didn’t think that I would ever convince my father to select you—the whole point of our marriage, according to your proposal—then why did you put so much effort into getting me to marry you?”

  “I believe I’ve already given you that answer.” He sat back in his chair again, cool and smooth.

  I considered the answer, his threat. I was sure he wasn’t serious, because, mainly, who did that? Who schemed to marry a prominent woman and then killed her?

  But if he really never believed I could further his chances with my father, and yet he’d gone to all those lengths to make sure I did indeed marry him, then what had he hoped to gain? What had been his plan?

  There was only one answer that made logical sense, as impossible as it was to believe.

  “You can’t kill me,” I said, my voice more steady than I felt. “People would notice.”

  “I expect people to notice.” Edward picked up a fountain pen off his desk and twirled it absentmindedly. “I have a first-rate funeral planned. I expect many will attend, even though it will be held in London. I don’t have time right now to go to the U.S., which I’m sure your parents would prefer, but that isn’t theirs to decide. It will be a nice event, I assure you. I’ve even saved you the coveted spot in the family plot next to my parents.”

  No. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean any of it.

  But my stomach twisted all the same, and bile rose to the back of my throat, because even if he didn’t mean it, it was an awfully deranged scenario he’d painted.

  A scenario that I didn’t intend entertaining a minute longer.

  I stood up and glared down at him. “You’re a sick asshole, you know that? A perverted lunatic, and I don’t have to listen to this.”

&n
bsp; I set the brandy tumbler on his desk and spun toward the doors, determined to make it out this time.

  “Did I say you could leave?” His voice boomed through the room with as much fury as the thunder outside, and something in his tone, something that he’d only hinted at before, suggested very strongly that he wasn’t to be disobeyed.

  Frustrated, I whirled back around to face him. “What is it you want from me?”

  He was standing now. At his full height, I was very much aware that he was bigger than me. That he was stronger than me. That we were alone in a storm, and I was helpless, if he wanted me to be.

  And he very much wanted me to be.

  “Sit down,” he ordered, the narrow focus of his eyes daring me to defy him.

  I took two reluctant steps toward the chair, but stopped when I remembered the tender state of my ass. “I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind.” His flash of teeth told me he knew exactly why standing was my preference. And that, for the same reason, he was determined I sit.

  I paused, deciding.

  “Sit,” he said again, his voice so controlled that it sent dread coursing through my veins.

  I sat down, wincing openly this time as I did.

  Edward remained standing, peering down at me with a smug smile.

  He liked that. Having me uncomfortable. Having me hurt. The glint in his eye paired with his evil smirk gave him away. That’s how much he liked it.

  From the hint of color in his face, I would even go so far as saying that it turned him on.

  I’d maybe have feelings about that if I weren’t so rattled. If I weren’t so scared.

  “You want my father’s shares,” I said, thinly, stating the obvious so I could have time to think. “That’s what this is about. How will killing me get you that? They’re his shares. They aren’t in my name.”

  “They weren’t. But as of nine days ago, on the date of your marriage, they now belong to you.”

  My stomach dropped, and I could feel the color drain from my face. I’d forgotten that. How had I forgotten?