The Wrong Man to Love

CHAPTER SEVEN

I woke up sore.

Not just between my legs—though there was that, a deep ache that reminded me with every shift of my hips exactly what he'd done to me, how he'd stretched me, claimed me—but everywhere. My lips were swollen from his teeth, tender to the touch. My shoulder blades carried bruises from the bookshelf digging into my back with every thrust. My wrists had faint red marks from where he'd pinned me down at the end, holding me still while he emptied himself inside me.

I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, replaying it in fragments. The anger in his eyes. The desperation in his kiss. The way he'd looked at me like I was his salvation and his damnation, like he wanted to worship me and destroy me in the same breath.

Then I remembered the end.

This was a mistake. A weakness.

I dragged myself out of bed, wincing as I stood, and walked to the mirror. I looked different. My hair was tangled, my eyes too bright, my lips bitten red. There was a hickey forming on my collarbone, dark and possessive. I pulled my sweater up to hide it, my hands shaking.

I told myself I was getting coffee. I told myself I didn't care if he was there. I told myself I was fine.

He was.

Damien sat at the dining table, newspaper up, perfectly pressed in a charcoal suit, collar buttoned to his throat. His hair was combed, his jaw shaved smooth. He looked like he'd slept eight hours and prayed at church. He looked like he hadn't f****d his best friend's

daughter on his desk last night, hadn't spilled inside her, hadn't whispered that she belonged to him.

"Morning," I said, my voice too high, too bright.

The paper didn't lower. "Isla."

Just my name. Cold. Distant. Like I was a stranger. Like I was nothing.

I sat across from him. Mrs. Bennett brought coffee and pancakes. I wrapped my hands around the mug, trying to stop them from shaking, trying not to remember how his hands had felt on my body.

"Sleep well?" he asked. The paper still didn't move.

"Fine."

"Liar."

The word was a blade, sharp and precise, cutting through the air between us. I flinched, coffee sloshing over the rim, burning my hand.

The paper lowered. His eyes found mine—dark, steady, completely unreadable. No trace of the man who'd groaned my name last night. No trace of the man who'd been outside my door, who'd been desperate and hungry and human.

"You should eat something," he said, folding the paper with precise, controlled movements. "You look pale."

"I look pale because you—"

"Don't." He stood up, not looking at me, adjusting his cuffs. "Don't say it. Don't think it. Last night was... an error in judgment. A moment of weakness."

"An error," I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.

"A mistake," he said, and this time he did look at me, his eyes hard and empty as stone. "It won't happen again. We won't speak of it."

He walked out before I could respond. Before I could scream. Before I could cry or beg or kill him.

I sat there until my coffee went cold, my chest hollow, my eyes burning with tears I refused to shed. I'd been stupid. So stupid. He'd used me. All that anger, all that possession—it was just revenge. I was just a weapon to hurt my father, and I'd handed myself to him like a gift, let him ruin me, let him fill me up while whispering lies.

My phone buzzed against the table

I grabbed it, expecting—hoping for—

Unknown number.

He slept with you to destroy Richard. Ask him about the contract he signed yesterday. The one that dissolves your father's company. The one that will leave your family with nothing.

I stared at the screen. My blood ran cold, turning to ice in my veins.

At the bottom of the message, another line:

He knew Evelyn was alive. He's known for years. Ask him why he let you believe your mother was dead while he was inside you.

The phone slipped from my fingers, clattering against the table, cracking the screen.

He'd known. All this time, while he was thrusting into me, while he was whispering that I belonged to him, that I was his—he'd known my mother was alive. He'd known, and he'd let me grieve, let me ache, let me fall for him while he was destroying my family.

I stood up, my legs unsteady, and walked toward his study.

Not to cry. Not to beg.

To kill him.