novelxo Chapter 10
Chapter 10
“I thought you left.”
He stands by the door, watching me as I’ve been working from my phone, where I’ve been alternating between reading the
financial reports he left queued on his computer, and
transferring the money.
“I hope you didn’t do something you’ll regret,” he says.
Like handing over millions of dollars that my husband likely considers ‘ours’ to my father-his enemy?
“No. Of course not,” I say easily.
He snorts.
I point to two companies whose shares we’ve both been following for a while. “You marked these to offload. Is there something
wrong with the financial projections?”
He nods. “Both companies are about to go belly up.”
Oh no. I bought ten thousand shares of each on behalf of my father’s pack last month. I don’t exactly hide that I make those
investments, but technically it’s all managed by my father, I
just pass along information from my research or that Aaron
shares with me.
He smirks. Then he comes back into the room, tilts up my chin with his big hand and kisses me. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I’m pretty sure my mouth is still hanging open as he leaves.
Those two words...
To hear him say them, to apologize.
Aaron doesn’t ‘do’ apologies.
And just moments ago he was smirking. What exactly is he apologizing for, I wonder. Not that it matters. It’s enough that he gave
me the words. Finally.
I sink back into the chair. Shocked. Elated.
Feeling those broken bits of my heart coming back together
again.
You see... it’s these moments. The tender ones.
The heated embraces and possessive glances. The way he holds me at night, or does something unexpectedly sweet. The
way this man with a single look, with one kiss, can claim every
part of my body.
I touch my mouth.
Aaron is cold and controlled and closed off.
But these glimpses of warmth...
They are what give me hope.
That maybe there is more to our relationship.
And hope... hope is really dangerous for a dying girl like n
*
*
AARON
I wait in the hallway and listen.
I can hear Leah’s shuttered breaths.
I’ve confused her, as I’ve intended.
The way to break her is not with force.
She is too strong for that.
But her heart is big and open and her trusting nature...now that is a prime thing for me to exploit.
Because I have every intention of keeping her where she
belongs.
4/7
Here.
Though walls and distance surround us, I swear I can feel her joy, like some force of positive energy radiating from her to
1.
My phone blinks and I see that funds have been transferred. I’ve never micromanaged her finances before, because I didn’t have
a reason to. She doesn’t spend a lot of money. She
isn’t into fancy clothes or expensive jewelry. She sends money
back home but the funds she had from her dowry were hers,
and I allowed her to manage them as she chose to.
Her father gave her a pittance of money when she was pledged to me. We’ve grown that amount a hundred times.
over.
I never touched a dime of my wife’s. But from the moment she went ‘missing’ last week, that all ended.
I track her whereabouts with her cell and I now get an update
of any changes to her accounts. From coins for a game on her iphone to Amazon orders she has sent to the mansion.
Most of the charges are subscriptions for regular,
pack-related items and necessities. But that account transfer
to her dad...
I’ll say it again: He’s a piece of shit.
What kind of man takes from his child? What kind of parent lets a kid work or suffer to support him?
We dressed it up as an “arranged marriage for peace” but Robert had been intent on selling his daughter, even when she’d been
barely a teen. He didn’t know what kind of man I
was. He could’ve been handing her over to a beast.
And seriously, he had to assume the worst, given the hatred and long-standing feuds between our packs.
After what he did to my sister...
Why would he think I’d be anything less than brutal to his offspring?
And still... he sent a girl to war.
He sent that girl to me.
I never touched her. The thought never even crossed my mind. After we were married, it was a few years before we crossed that
line because despite my hatred for her father and her pack, I would not take advantage of an innocent.
And that’s what Leah is.
An innocent woman caught up in her pack’s machinations and
forced to pay their blood debt to me.
Leah never wants to see that truth for what it is.
That her father is a vile monster, capable of anything.
But that will change.
Very soon.
I watch as the text she’s sending to her father and brother about which stocks to unload goes through.
Excellent.
The messages are sent and received.
That’s another new bit of intel, having her phone
automatically sync its texts to mine. I’ll see every one and by