Page 10 of His Wild Seduction

Josef might have broken my heart, but he’d saved me from a fate I believed to this day would have been much worse than death.

Josef didn’t know about that. I could tell by looking at him. And I wasn’t going to tell him now.

He doesn’t get my secrets. Good or bad.

I gave my virginity, my heart, my everything to Josef freely that summer, and he ruined me. But my stepfather’s plan to give me to one of his oily business partners was so much worse than my heartbreak.

At least, I’d always thought so.

But looking at him now, I had to wonder. Was it?

Pain lanced my heart at the memory. I gave Josef everything. But it wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t enough.

The sound of Franklin’s cruel laughter as he showed me proof of the payoff he’d given to my lover. A copy of the check he’d cashed that same day in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars made out to Josef Aziz.

At least, I learned what I was worth.

Money really was the root of all evil. I was certain of it. I’d witnessed it firsthand.

Besides, if that old saying wasn’t true, why did so many people stitch it on pillows?

Money could turn people you thought you knew, people you loved, into absolute strangers.

I fucking hated my stepfather’s money.

But I was a hypocrite. Because his money had paid for my life for so long.

Even after I ran away, he put money in my account, and I did my best to not use it. I hated his money.

But maybe Franklin owed it to me after what he did. After his brutality had caused me to run. After he’d cost me the only thing I’d ever really wanted. After bribing Josef.

“It’s all over. Merry, I lost it all. The house. The cars. Everything, I lost everything, but worse, I lost you. Please forgive me. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted this. Forgive me,” he’d blurted when I walked into his office last night.

God, I always hated my stepfather’s office.

It was cold and unforgiving, all wood panels and black furniture. Like a coffin.

There’d always been something soul-destroying about that space. But I had no idea at the time that it would be the last place I’d see him alive.

“What are you talking about?”

I was confused and shocked by his haggard appearance. I hadn’t seen him in years and time hadn’t treated him well.

My modest living conditions over the past decade and a half made it so I wasn’t used to the opulence of my childhood home. I hardly even thought of that place.

So, I certainly wasn’t prepared at all for the pity I’d felt when I saw all the nothing his wealth and grandiose home had given Franklin.

He used to seem so big to me, the man I’d called father. But not since the summer I turned eighteen.

“I expect you to fulfill the terms of the loan by the close of business today,” Josef said finally, and I knew I’d lost.

He slid a copy of the contract my father had signed across the table to me, bumping it against the other documents his man had already given me.

But I made no move to touch it.

I didn’t have to read the letter to know he was telling the truth. My stepfather had taken an enormous risk, using the business, the house, everything really, as collateral to fund his latest scheme.

---