He Won’t Let Me Go

Chapter 4: Claimed

IVY’S POV

“You are going to marry Malachi Cross.”

The words didn’t make sense the first time, so I made him say them again.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me, Ivy.”

“Say it again. I want to hear how insane it sounds coming out of your mouth twice.”

“You are going to marry Malachi Cross.”

“No.”

“Ivy….”

“I said no, Dad. Are you even listening to yourself? You’re talking about me like I’m a line item in your debt spreadsheet.”

“This is bigger than you understand.”

“Then make me understand! Explain it to me instead of just deciding my entire life over breakfast!”

“The company is finished. The house is finished. Everything is finished unless I do this.”

“So sell something. Sell a car. Sell your watch collection. Don’t sell me.”

“There’s nothing left to sell!”

“Then let it go! Let the house go, let the company go, I don’t care anymore …. just don’t hand me over to some stranger like I’m collateral!”

“Ivy, watch your tone with me.”

“Watch my tone? You just told me I’m getting married to a man I’ve never met in my life and you want me to watch my tone?”

That was when Lilith’s voice cut in from the doorway, sharp and unexpected. “Are you serious right now?”

Both of us turned. She was leaning against the frame, arms crossed, looking at our father like she’d never actually seen him before.

“Lilith, this doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns me when you’re selling my sister to pay off your mistakes.”

“I am not selling her….”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing. You ran the company into the ground and now you want her to clean it up with her whole life. That’s disgusting, even for you.”

“Mind your business, you dimwit.”

“She is my business. She’s my sister.”

“Get out of this room.”

“Make me.”

I stared at Lilith, stunned. She never took my side. Not once, not in twenty-five years, and yet here she was, standing in the doorway like a wall between me and our father.

“I don’t need you defending me,” I said quietly, though I didn’t entirely mean it.

“I’m not doing it for you,” she snapped back. “I’m doing it because this is disgusting.”

Our father’s face had gone red. “Both of you, enough. This is happening whether either of you likes it or not.”

“You can’t force me to marry someone,” I said.

“I can force you to lose the roof over your head. See which one you prefer.”

I didn’t have an answer to that. I just stood there, shaking, until the tears came …. not sad tears, angry ones, the kind that burn on the way down. I stormed up to my room and slammed the door so hard the pictures rattled on the wall, and I cried into my pillow until my throat ached, furious at him, furious at the situation, furious that once again nobody in this house had asked me what I wanted.

By evening, he brought him to the house.

I’d heard the name before …. Malachi Cross, twenty-seven, obscenely rich, the kind of ruthless that made grown businessmen flinch in meetings. Women wanted him. Everyone wanted him. But I knew exactly what wealthy men like that usually were, underneath the tailored suits and the charity galas …. my own mother had died mysteriously years ago, and I’d learned early not to trust anyone whose money came with that much silence around it.

I watched him from the top of the stairs before he saw me.

He was tall. Dark hair, sharp jaw, a build that filled out his suit like it had been made for exactly this purpose. Blue eyes. And a beauty I had never known before. He was…insanely gorgeous.

My type, if I was being honest with myself, which I hated. I shook my head, disgusted with my own reaction.

This is the bastard who drove your family into debt just to buy you. Just another rich pervert who thinks women are something you acquire.

It didn’t help that I was a redhead, and that half the men I’d ever met treated that like an invitation for whatever twisted little fantasy and fetish they’d built in their heads. I wasn’t going to be another one of those fantasies. Not for him. Not for anyone.

I came down the stairs with my spine straight and my jaw set.

“So this is her,” he said, and something in his voice wavered, just slightly, just for a second …. like he’d seen a ghost.

“I’m right here. You can talk to me directly.”

“Mr. Cross can save this family, Ivy.”

“You are going to marry him.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“Ivy, just listen….”

“No.”

“Please….”

“I’m not marrying you.”

“That’s not really your decision to make," the man said.

“Excuse me?”

He extended his hand to shake me.

“You heard me.”

I picked up the coffee cup off the side table without thinking and threw it directly into his face.

SPLASH!

The room went silent. Someone gasped …. Renata, maybe.

“You arrogant, disgusting….” I was shouting now, I could hear myself shouting and didn’t care. “You think you can just buy me? You think ruining my father makes you entitled to me? I hope you choke on s**t….”

He moved before I finished the sentence, closing the distance between us in two strides, coffee dripping down his jaw, and grabbed my wrist hard enough that I stopped talking. His eyes locked onto mine, furious and something else underneath the fury I couldn’t name.

“Let go of me….”

Before I knew it, I was over his shoulder, the room spinning upside down, my fists hitting his back as he carried me straight out the front door.

“PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN! You SON OF A b***h!”

“No.”

“I will scream this whole street awake!”

“Scream all you want.”

He set me down inside the car hard enough that I bounced, and before I could scramble for the other door he was already there, pinning me back against the seat with his body, his weight settling over me. He smelled like cedar and rain, and the coffee had darkened the front of his hair, damp strands falling over eyes framed with lashes far too long for a man who looked like he could ruin someone’s life with one phone call.

I blushed. This bastard was too hot.

I hated that I noticed that.

“Get off me.”

“You’re still fighting.”

My gown had ridden up in the struggle, baring most of my thighs, and I watched his gaze drop there for exactly one second too long.

“Careful,” he murmured, low, almost amused, tugging the fabric back down himself with two fingers, “or I might start enjoying this.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Probably.”

I went still under him, chest heaving, and something about the way he was looking at me made my anger falter for one traitorous second....

He gripped my chin, tilting my face up to his, forcing me to meet those eyes.

“Let go of me,” I whispered, though it came out smaller than I meant it to.