Chapter Ten — Blood is Definitely Thinner than Water
1011 Words
The knock on the grand double doors of Rhys’s estate was unexpected.
Naomi barely had a moment to breathe after last night. After him.
After the way he’d kissed her, taken her, ruined her.
Her body still ached in places she shouldn’t have let it. But worst of all—she still wanted him.
And she hated herself for it.
She’d spent the morning pretending she wasn’t shaken. Pretending she didn’t feel the phantom heat of his touch. Pretending she hadn’t given in to the very man she was supposed to hate.
But then—her father arrived.
And everything changed.
Naomi was at the top of the grand staircase when she heard his voice.
"Where is she?"
It was commanding. Sharp. The way it always had been when he owned her.
For a moment—a single, fractured moment—she froze.
He came for me.
The thought was so absurd, so impossible, that it almost choked her.
But then, she saw him.
Her father stood in the grand foyer, not alone.
Two men flanked him—the Williamsons.
And then she understood.
Her stomach dropped.
It wasn’t about her.
It was about money.
Again.
Always.
She gripped the railing, pulse hammering against her ribs, as her father stepped forward.
"I’ve come to take Naomi home."
Liar.
The Williamsons stood behind him, their eyes assessing, already calculating.
Rhys was standing by the fireplace, still, silent.
But his presence was a storm.
Dark. Unforgiving.
Naomi’s father smiled. Like he had any right to.
"I appreciate you taking her in for the time being, Mr. Kain. But we’ve received a more... lucrative offer."
Naomi’s fingers curled into the polished wood of the banister.
A more lucrative offer.
That was all she was.
A deal. A commodity. A f*****g price tag.
The anger hit her like a violent wave, swallowing the fleeting, ridiculous thought that maybe—just maybe—he had come to save her.
He wasn’t here for her.
He was here to sell her again.
Rhys’s voice cut through the room like a blade.
"You’re mistaken," he said smoothly.
Naomi shivered.
Not at the sound of it.
But at what was underneath.
Her father gave a polite chuckle. "I don’t believe I am."
Rhys lifted his gaze then, slow and deliberate.
And the room froze.
The air thickened with something dangerous.
"You sold her," Rhys said, voice low. "To me."
The words were calm.
But Naomi knew better.
It was the kind of calm before something lethal.
Her father didn’t flinch.
"Nothing is final."
Naomi didn’t breathe.
Rhys did. But barely.
"You're saying," he murmured, stepping forward, unhurried, measured, like a predator cornering its prey, "that after trading your own daughter, you're now standing in my home—"
Another step.
"—on my property—"
His voice lowered.
"—telling me that you're taking back something that already belongs to me?"
Naomi's father squared his shoulders. "She is not yours."
A mistake.
A dangerous, fatal mistake.
Rhys laughed.
But it wasn’t amusement.
It was lethal. Cold. Like a blade dragged over skin.
He took another step, stopping only inches away from Naomi’s father.
"Say that again," Rhys murmured.
Naomi’s breath hitched.
Because she saw it now.
The restraint in his muscles. The violence barely held back. The promise of what would happen if her father so much as breathed the wrong way.
Naomi had never seen anyone speak to her father like that.
But Rhys?
Rhys wasn’t afraid of him.
Her father lifted his chin. "I don’t see a marriage contract. Just a temporary arrangement."
Naomi saw it before she heard it.
The movement—swift, brutal, precise.
And then her father was on his knees, Rhys’s hand fisted in his collar.
"Do you think I need a f*****g contract?" Rhys breathed, his voice a low, merciless growl.
"Rhys—" Naomi started.
His head snapped toward her.
And for the first time, she felt it.
His rage. His possessiveness.
And his eyes—**those dark, merciless eyes—**pinned her where she stood.
"You think he gets to come here?" His voice was a raw, dangerous snarl. "To take you from me?"
Naomi’s lips parted, but nothing came out.
Rhys’s grip tightened.
"Your father sold you to me. You are mine."
The words hit her like fire.
Mine.
She shouldn’t have liked it.
She shouldn’t have felt it curl in her stomach, dark and molten.
She shouldn’t have felt warmth instead of fear.
But she did.
Rhys turned back to her father.
"You think I won’t kill you for this?"
The Williamsons stepped back.
Naomi saw it in their eyes—they weren’t going to fight for her.
Not against him.
Rhys let go. Her father collapsed onto the marble floor.
And then—Rhys was in front of her.
She gasped, stepping back. He didn’t let her.
He backed her against the wall, hands braced on either side of her head.
"You thought he came for you," he murmured.
Naomi squeezed her eyes shut. "Rhys—"
"Open your eyes."
She did.
His face was inches from hers.
"You’re mine," he said. "Say it."
She shook her head.
Rhys caught her chin, tilting her face up.
"Say it."
Her breath caught.
He lowered his head—his lips barely grazing hers.
Her stomach clenched.
God, she hated him.
She hated the way he smelled.
The way his voice dragged over her skin.
The way her entire body betrayed her every time he was near.
"You belong to me," he said against her lips.
She shuddered.
And then he kissed her.
It wasn’t soft.
It wasn’t gentle.
It was claiming.
Like he was branding her with his mouth, making sure she remembered who owned her now.
She hated herself.
For the way she melted into him.
For the way she kissed him back.
For the way she let him take her all over again.
And this time—there was no illusion.
No denial.
Because she had chosen this.
And there was no turning back.
- Writer
