“We’ll drive you.” I keep the bag out of reach and barge inside so that I’m sitting beside her. Harris grumbles something unintelligible, but he takes the hint, gets out, and sits in the passenger seat. Soon after, Moses slides into his driver seat and the vehicle slowly retreats into the main street.

“I brought my car.” She reaches for her bag again.

“And I said I’ll drive you.”

“Don’t you have to prepare for a meeting or something?”

“We do,” Harris says from the front seat. “Thirty minutes late.”

I throw him a glare, but he merely adjusts his glasses with both his index and middle finger and focuses on his tablet again.

“I can go back on my own,” she says.

“Or we can drive you.”

“Do you ever give up?”

“Not when I can win.”

She huffs but doesn’t stop trying to reach for her bag.

I grab her by the arm and she freezes as her body half-falls against mine. The storm in her eyes gains an electric spark, almost as if she’s slipping from one state of mind to another. It’s fascinating how much the colour of her eyes can hint at her state of being so accurately.

“If you don’t stay still, I’ll consider that as an invitation to finger-fuck you,” I murmur against her ear, then bite down on the shell to reinforce my point. “After all, you’re naked under that dress.”

“Jonathan!” she whisper-yells. “Harris and Moses are here.”

“So fucking what?”

She moves those lips to say something, but they remain in that perfect ‘O’. Aurora must see that I’m crazy enough to do it.

I’m about to reach under her dress and prove how right her assumption is, but she chooses the smart route and pushes back, clearing her throat.

Her cheeks are a soft hue of pink, and she keeps touching her neck, the one I held her by as I fucked her into the mattress the other day.

She thinks if she touches it enough, she’ll be able to cool down. A myth, but I don’t correct her.

“Can I brief you now?” Harris asks in his usual disregard. “If Aurora doesn’t have an objection.”

She makes a face at him, and he counters by readjusting his glasses.

Aurora. Since when did he start addressing her on a first-name basis? I don’t like that.

“Start,” I say in a harsher tone than needed to break whatever connection they’re developing. I’m the only one she’s allowed to form a connection with.

Harris passes me the document he prepared and goes on about the points we’ll discuss during tonight’s meeting. I nod at him, but my entire attention is on how Aurora is trying to look at her nails, her watch, out the window. Anywhere but at me.

That irritating habit of hers of trying to erase me needs to go.

While Harris goes on in his steady voice, I steal glances at Aurora. She seems to listen, too, but her concentration is also occupied by something else. Her gaze is a bit unfocused, and she keeps glancing behind her.

Perhaps it’s the same thing that made her leave the charity dinner she organised herself.

Only one thing rattles Aurora to the point of no return. Or, more accurately, one person.

Maxim.

If his solicitor got in touch with her again, I’d know about it. As that option is erased, what’s this about?

Since we do have an important meeting, and I already wasted time by coming here, I reluctantly rip my attention away from her and focus on Harris’s words. I read the document with him at the same time and highlight the parts where I’ll hit hard and demand better conditions.

Something warm lands on my shoulder, and I halt with the marker halfway on the page.

Aurora’s eyes are closed shut, her head against my bicep. Her soft features appear relaxed, at peace almost.

I stroke her hair behind her ear and she moans softly, leaning into my touch like a kitten. If only she was this compliant when awake, too.

Harris motions at her without saying anything.

“Continue.” I rest her head on my lap and her hand grips my thigh as she resumes her sleep.

I keep stroking her hair while she nuzzles her head into my thigh.

It’s a single moment in time. Something that happens with no prior planning, but in this second, I decide something I’ve never thought about in my life.

Aurora or Clarissa or whatever name she goes with is now fucking mine.

Literally.

Figuratively.

In every sense of the word.

28

Aurora

I finally received another recording.

It’s been weeks since the last one. Damn weeks. I almost gave up on the hope that there would be something else.

The moment Paul called and told me I had a wooden box package, I drove to my flat so fast, I wouldn’t be surprised if a speeding ticket shows up in my inbox.

I sit in the middle of my lounge area, finger hovering over the Play button on my remote.

Unlike the previous times, I’m not so ecstatic about listening to my sister’s voice.

It’s the guilt, isn’t it? It’s catching up to me in every step I take. With every orgasm Jonathan wrenches out of me, and every slap of his hand against my arse.

It’s been weeks of being dominated by him in ways that make me not only delirious, but also beg for more.

Weeks of scorching hot meals and games where he ends up getting what he wants — which is usually my body.

Weeks of running me hot baths where he loosens me up just so he can fuck me all over again.

And with every week, the fact that he was my sister’s husband starts to fade away and becomes white noise.

Every day, I have to remind myself that I can’t get lost in Jonathan and that, besides H&H, the sole reason I agreed to the deal is to uncover the facts behind Alicia’s death.

The problem is, I started to forget about the deal altogether. In the beginning, I counted the days, but now, I vaguely remember that it’s been about six weeks since I started this journey.

Six weeks of rediscovering my body.

Six weeks of feeling.

Six weeks of forgetting about the outside world whenever Jonathan is in sight.

Or even in my thoughts.

I haven’t been thinking about Dad at all, despite the threat of him being granted parole. And that says something.

It’s like Jonathan is sucking my soul into a different dimension than the one we currently live in.

Chasing him away from my thoughts, I hit Play and sit on the sofa opposite the TV.

As usual, there’s a long silence before Alicia’s voice fills my flat. “I haven’t been truthful with you about the past, Claire. You know our mother had a one-night stand with your father, but you don’t know why she did it. Her husband, Papa, was an abusive man. And while I escaped his wrath sometimes, Mother never did. That’s why she killed herself. I was the one who found her sleeping peacefully in her bed with an empty bottle of pills lying by her side. Her will mentioned two specific things; one of them about you. I’m sorry I never told you about it before, but in my mind, I was protecting you. Her will states that she left all her properties to me. The second and only other item on that list was that I needed to cut all contact with you. Our own mother wanted us apart, Claire, and it was for a reason.”