The Debt The Billionaire Married

Pov: Wren The Ashford Maritime Gala was the kind of party I used to attend instead of work. Now I was the girl with the clipboard, making sure the ice sculptures didn't melt before the auction started and that nobody important noticed the junior event planner used to have a seat at one of these tables herself. I caught my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the harbor. Black dress, dark hair pinned too tight at the back of my head, and a smile nowhere to be found. "You're doing the thing," Dahlia said, appearing at my elbow with two glasses she absolutely wasn't supposed to take from the open bar. "The thing where you look at all this like it personally owes you money." "It does." I took the glass. "Drink that, stop haunting the canapés, and go rest. I'll take care of things left here," she said, already steering me toward the terrace doors. Before I could object, she steered me through the terrace doors. Dahlia has never once respected a professional boundary in her life, exactly why I love her. Outside, I watched the lights scatter across the harbor. "If you're waiting for the fireworks, they cancelled them." A man’s voice came from behind me. I didn't turn immediately. There was something about a voice that calm that made you want to make it wait. When I did turn, I found him watching me. My eyes trailed from his dark hair to his expensive suit without the desperate need to make sure anyone noticed it. Then back to his pale eyes, mdlvf caught the terrace lights and threw them back at me. "Tragic," I said. "I was really counting on the fireworks to distract from the string quartet's Kenny G phase." "You noticed that too." "I notice everything. Occupational hazard." "What's the occupation?" "Making sure people like you have a nice night without ever knowing my name." I sipped the champagne. "What's yours? The occupation, not the name. I'm not giving you that yet." Something flickers over his face, there and gone, like I've said something funnier than I meant to. "Let's just say I spend most of my nights in rooms exactly like the one inside, bored out of my mind, until somebody says something honest." "Dangerous thing to admit to a stranger." "You don't strike me as someone who'd do anything with it,” he chuckled darkly. We talked for an hour after, maybe longer. He never asked where I'd grown up. Never asked whether Callahan meant anything to me because, as far as I knew, he didn't know that name belonged to me. “Want to get out of here?” I'd barely touched the champagne, but my pulse had been climbing for the better part of an hour. “Yes.” His hotel suite was thirty floors above the harbor. I didn’t remember most of the elevator ride, only his hand at the small of my back and the way it made every nerve in my spine light up at once. The suite door had barely shut before I kissed him. His hand found my waist, dragging me against hi,m and mine went straight for the buttons of his shirt. There was nothing careful about either of us now. My dress landed somewhere between the door and the bed, his clothes following close behind. With our lips still locked, he lifted me like I weighed nothing, and my legs wrapped around his waist on instinct. A second later, my back hit the mattress. He was still in between my legs with my legs wrapped around him, close enough that with every shift of his body, I could feel the tip of his hardness just right above my entrance. One of his hands slid along my side, tracing my neck before tangling firmly in my hair. The other settled on my hip, his grip gentle, but rough enough to make me gasp into his mouth. His lips left mine and traced my jaw, hbuv hroxb the sensitive place beneath my ear, then settling on my throat. A gasp slipped out before I could stop it. "Tell me if you want me to stop," he said against my throat. There was nothing teasing in his voice now. He meant it. I opened my eyes and found him watching me, waiting. "Don't you dare,” I breathed. Something dark and satisfied flickered across his face. Then his mouth was on mine again. His hand left my hips, tracing his fingertips downward slowly. My breathing turned uneven at the maddening action, his eyes on me the entire time. There was something agonizingly hot about having all of his attention fixed on me and the way he took his time. I bit my bottom lip as his finger finally reached my center and rubbed the wetness. His breathing pace turned even faster, and so did mine as he slid two fingers in while his thumb remained on my c**t. Soon I was gripping his shoulders with frustration and pleasure twisting together inside of me as his fingers worked in and out of me. I couldn’t even tell where the pleasure began or ended. I arched my back, a sharp, wounded sound escaping my throat as he pulled his fingers out right when I was about to hit climax. My hips instinctively chased him, seeking the pleasure he had just stolen, but he held me in place. "No," I gasped, my voice sounding foreign and desperate. "Don't stop. Please." He hovered over me, his weight supported by his arms. “Patience,” he whispered. "I don't have any." That earned me the faintest smile that I wanted to kiss off his face. The smile disappeared as he shifted closer, the tip of his length pressed against my entrance again, but he didn’t push inside. Instead, he began to grind slowly, a torturous movement that made my eyes roll into my head. I gripped his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin, as my breath came out in uneven hitches. "Look at me," he murmured. I did. His dark eyes held mine with an intensity that felt like it was stripping me bare. He waited until I was trembling, until I was practically begging with my eyes as well, before he sank into me. *** I woke up alone, tangled in sheets that smelled like him and nothing else. There was no name, just the ghost of him on my skin and in between my legs. I let myself into my apartment a little after nine, exhausted. My parents were sitting at my kitchen table, and from experience, I knew that was never a good thing. "Sit down, Wren," my mother said. I didn't. "What happened?" My father looked older than he had the previous week. There were papers spread across the table, and I immediately recognized them as creditor notices and settlement documents. My stomach tightened. “Dad?” My father slid a folder across the table, his hands shaky in a way I'd never seen before. "There's a way out." I looked at the documents and then at my father. “How?” "Sinclair interests bought the remaining debt." That got my attention. "The Sinclairs?" Even after years away from Ashford society, I knew that name. In fact, everyone in Ashford knew about the Sinclair Group that owned half the harbor and had probably financed the other half. My father pushed the folder closer to me, but I still didn’t touch it. "Edmund Sinclair is willing to settle everything," he said. My brows furrowed in confusion. "Why? What’s the price?" Neither of them answered immediately. That made my heart rate increase. My mother reached for my hand. “Wren, Edmund Sinclair’s son came back to Ashford last year, and… he wants you to marry him."