Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 2) (10 page)

I stood, regretting not taking the juice. At least then I’d have something to shatter on his desk.

“You don’t come near me again, do you understand me?” I hissed. “You don’t touch me. You don’t look at me. You don’t even think of me.”

“Are you pregnant, Sarah?”

Rage hurt. I never realized how painful hatred could feel. It slashed at my chest and infested my mind.

“No.” My voice lowered. “I’m not.”

“Then I can’t guarantee your safety, can I?”

“You’ll regret this.”

“So will you…if you don’t obey my sons and provide us the heir we demand.”

Wouldn’t he be surprised?

“You will never control me.” I stared into the eyes of the devil and shielded myself in borrowed bravery. “You can kidnap me, hold me, beat me. Hell, even rape me yourself. It won’t matter. You can do
nothing
to me.”

He didn’t react.
Why
didn’t he react? “Is that so?”

I’d scream and ruin it all.

I’d praise my family’s foresight and scratch the word
Josmik
into the pristine hardwood of his desk. The blood in my veins sparked and ignited. I’d whisper it. I’d tell him that I had won. And then I’d cackle as he raged in a pitiful fury when I stole everything from him.

But I didn’t say it.

Revealing the trust would bury me before I had my chance to witness his destruction.

“We’re done here.” My warning didn’t move him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch my dog.”

He didn’t need to strike me to crack every bone in my body. His voice captured me in quiet dread.

“Sit down, my dear. Your manners are atrocious. You will not address your father this way.”

“You aren’t my father.”

“Sit. Down.”

I debated running, but I remembered what happened last time I tried to hide in the Bennett Estate. I was done fleeing, done with the abuse.

I sat.

Darius was pleased. “That’s my girl. I only ask that you act as a proper lady.”

“Provided you act like a man and not a demon.”

“You’ll regret those words.”

I tensed. “When you beat them out of me?”

“No.” Darius pushed a folder across the table to me. “When I offer you everything.”

Oh, Christ.

Last time he offered me secret documentation, my entire world crumbled under the weight of my father’s hypocrisy. I still hadn’t collected the shattered pieces of my life I lost when I tangled myself in the Bennett’s insanity. My ill-fated attempt to honor my undeserving father ended only in tears.

I opened the folder. My original research journal rested between the pages of a contract.

He gave me Hamlet and my research.

No threats. No raised fists.

No unbuckled trousers.

The anticipation of his violence would kill me. What the hell was he doing?

“I’m willing to enter into negotiations with you,” Darius said. “My research division was very interested in your work. They understood you were early in the experimentation process, but they insisted the ideas were sound and profitable. I’m interested in buying your research.”

My heart stopped, but that was fine. Not like my lungs were willing to breathe.

“
Buy
?”

“I understand your…situation is difficult. You’ve lost Atwood Industries whether you realize it or not. Your company is held in trust for my future grandson. I am offering to buy this research from
you
, Sarah, not your company. The money you’d make would be yours.”

Money?

I flipped the page.

I hadn’t seen that many zeros since my attorney revealed how much Josiah and Mike spent when they took control of Atwood Industries, when I thought they squandered it instead of purchasing the stock and influence they’d use to ruin the Bennetts.

It wasn’t real.

It was a trick. A distraction. I expected a knife or gun in Darius’s hand. I flinched away.

He handed me a pen.

Any agreement with Darius was signed in more blood than ink. Nothing he offered came without conditions. No way was I reading the contract now, not when it was just as likely he’d attack and rape me over the scattered pages.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” The words trembled from my lips. I pushed the folder away. “You’d never give an Atwood that much money for college genetics work.”

“I’m not paying for the scribbles. I’m paying for the vision.”

“And once you get it?”

Darius chuckled. “My dear, we can pretend you’re a guest of this family, or I can lock you in the basement for your brothers to fuck until you were ripped, raw, and bleeding. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead, just like your bastard father and his wretched sons.” He folded his hands. “However, your womb is worth a great deal to me, and so I am offering you a
choice
.”

“You never gave me a choice before.”

“Our original arrangement stands. You will bear a son for this family, and that child will inherit Atwood Industries.”

“If you think—”

“I’m presenting you with a proposition beyond that original agreement, an offer extended between two like-minded businesspeople doing what is best for their company and their lives.”

“I’ll
never
entertain any offer from you.”

“Care to view the dollar amount again? I assure you, it’s generous. As is the opportunity to work in our R&D division once the child is born and weaned off your breast.”

“
What
?”

“And once you’ve completed your education, of course. I’ll need someone to head a new Agricultural Engineering Research and Development department. Who better to oversee your own projects than you?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“You are not meant to run Atwood Industries, my dear. Once my grandson is born, Atwood Industries and the Bennett Corporation will be forever linked. I am offering you a chance to do what you’ve always wanted.”

Bullshit. I didn’t even know what I wanted. I never had a
chance
to do what I wanted. My father chose my path from a young age, forcing me into genetics and engineering. I did as I was told until his death. Then the Bennetts kidnapped me before I could even try to run my family’s company.

And now this?

Money and a goddamned
job
in their company?

Why hadn’t Darius just beaten me to a bloody pulp and had his way with what remained?

“Think it over, my dear. Or…speak about it with Nicholas.” His eyebrow rose. “If you’re so inclined.”

Shit
.

I threw the papers at him.

“Nicholas and you can rot in a shared grave for all I care. I’ll never sign anything over to you.”

“There’s no timeframe for these negotiations, Sarah.” He gathered the contract and replaced the pages in the folder. “My office is always open to my little girl.”

I wasn’t his daughter.

And my real father never let me in his office.

My head spun. I stood, lost in numbers and insults, fear and the cold dousing of my rage with confusion.

Darius whistled, and Hamlet padded over to him. He tugged at the collar around his neck, freeing Hamlet from the leather and leash.

“There we go.” Darius made no attempt to loosen my collar. “He should be allowed a bit of freedom, wouldn’t you agree?”

I didn’t respond.

I couldn’t think of a goddamned thing to say.

Sundresses and barbecues, a small fortune and my knucklehead pet.

I might have handled a beating and rape from Darius Bennett if only because I understood every moment in his presence was a war. I refused to retreat.

And yet I slunk from his office just as humiliated as ever.

Darius neither hurt nor threatened me, and I had no idea what to do without the familiarity of his violence. But I would learn. I’d steel myself against false generosity and his perverted games with me and my step-brothers.

In less than a year, I’d own the Bennett Corporation, and I didn’t care how much of my blood spilled, my pain screamed, or my body broke.

I wasn’t about to surrender to Darius Bennett.

He hadn’t struck me, but I felt the blow just the same.

I had underestimated him.

It would
never
happen again.

“What do you think of the offer?”

Nicholas flipped through the contract a second time but still said nothing.  He wouldn’t find anything hidden in the pages. I already scoured the agreement, but the only bewildering clause existed in the remarkably generous price for the research.

I didn’t trust it.

Neither did Nicholas, though he revealed only a momentary aggravation as his gaze fell to the bed.

“Your dog is sleeping on my pillow.”

I suppressed a giggle. “Cute.”

“Does he have to sleep on the bed?”

“Hamlet is eight years old. Sleeping is pretty much all he does.”

“He can’t commandeer Reed’s pillow?”

“Not unless you want me sleeping in Reed’s bed too.”

The contract dropped to the table. Nicholas exhaled.

“Hamlet can stay.”

“I knew you’d be willing to negotiate.”

He didn’t share my smile. Instead, he stilled, impenetrable, completely unreadable, even to the woman who fell in love with him.

I spent so many days worrying about the lash of a flogger and Darius’s sadism. I forgot the most dangerous Bennett slept beside me, fastened my collar in the morning, and had his way with me at his will. Nicholas never hurt me, but I’d never forget that he was the one who chased me off the road and kidnapped me from my own property to bring me to his family’s lair.

Nicholas once surveyed the world and saw every weakness he needed to exploit. But now? He had changed. He was distracted.

Blinded.

It had something to do with Darius, but Nicholas revealed nothing. That hidden truth would rot us from the inside out. The time for deception was over—lost when my step-brothers and I forged our alliances. But it hadn’t been that simple. Nicholas said he loved me, yet he refused to free me from the cruelty, the terror, and his bed.

And now he kept more secrets.

I let myself trust my step-brothers, hoping we’d be safe if we protected each other.

But Nicholas Bennett could destroy that trust with a single word. I was too vulnerable, my desires and feelings too exposed.

Then again, maybe that’s what
trust
was.

Was that why it was so hard to give?

“Did he talk to you about this offer?” I asked a question that would have been foolish only days ago. Nicholas, heir to the Bennett Empire, knew everything, controlled everyone, and made every decision in strict cooperation with his father.

Until now.

His hesitance curdled my stomach.

“No.”

“Nick, please. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why is he doing this?”

“I don’t know.”

“He offered me a
job
.”

“Sarah, I don’t know.”

Nick buttoned his jacket. He wore the suit like armor, but his defenses were stripped. We hid our love, the infertility, Josmik,
everything
, but one slip and Darius would learn the truth. I was the chink in his armor, and Darius always aimed for the kill.

I pushed the contract away. “Christ, Nick. Maybe he knows about us.”

“No. Impossible.”

“He hasn’t hit me. Hasn’t tried to hurt me. Now he offers me money? Hamlet?”

“Sarah, he doesn’t know anything. And we’ll keep it that way.”

“He’s an evil, horrible man. He doesn’t need to rape me. He’s trying to get in my head.”

“And it’s working.” Nicholas’s mocha voice hardened. “You should never have met him alone.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Fear will keep you safe. You aren’t a coward for avoiding him. Letting him think he’s won is the only way to save your life.”

I tensed. Even Hamlet whined, yawning before burying his head under the pillows.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I have to go to the office.”

I gnawed on my lip. Now was
not
the time to broach the subject, but it was the most conversation I had from Nicholas in days. I took a breath.

“I have an idea for the takeover,” I said. “I can fix it.”

“So do I, and it isn’t for you to worry about.”

“Nick—”

He pulled me into his arms. I hated how his embrace was exactly what I needed. Every time I faced Darius, I returned raw, shaken, and confused. Only Nicholas’s touch calmed me.

He was every breath my chest denied, every whisper lost to fear, and the guiding hand tightening the bindings over my body.

I shouldn’t have loved him. I never meant to stay for him. I wanted to believe him.

How could I love someone I didn’t trust?

What was he hiding?

“I’m going to make this right,” he said. “It’s not over. Not yet.”

A kiss was our only true honesty. His love was desperate and precious, and it shielded me from the moments of pain and terror that threatened to rip us apart. The kiss warmed as much as it ordered me to obey.

“I’ll take care of this, Sarah. I won’t let you get hurt.”