Page 18 of Unwillingly His

Stella.

I was not accustomed to being denied something I wanted. Although it would have been brutish and borderline unforgivable to have fucked her in that courthouse, a gnawing need tightened inside my chest.

I hadn’t felt such a keen, almost desperate need to possess a woman for a very long time.

There was just something about the innocent fire and smolder of intelligence behind those golden eyes that challenged me.

It had also been quite some time since I’d been challenged by something or someone.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Olivia shouted as she and Charlotte burst into my office. “How could you be so cruel?”

Fuck.

Usually I would stand to greet them, but in my current state, that would not be possible. “What is the meaning of this?”

“You know what the meaning of this is. Stella is our friend. She just lost her family, and you are hurting her.”

Olivia had always been the stronger of my two daughters.

Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I had given her too much freedom as a child. Maybe I’d hired the wrong nanny. Whatever it was, Olivia would have made a much better son than a daughter.

Charlotte had been much more amiable and obedient, until I let Luc hire that Texan cowboy to protect her. I might as well have hired a dog to guard a bone.

Now they were both married to wealthy men, but their marriages were wasted opportunities. There were no contracts, no deals that had been struck, no understandings. There wasn’t even a single subsidy merger in either of their marriages.

I hated wasted opportunities for profits.

It was like burning money.

Luc was just as bad.

No, Luc’s marriage was worse.

Unlike the girls, he knew better.

And just because my children destroyed their opportunities for a lucrative marriage, that did not mean I was going to let them do the same for me.

My hand flipped the leather portfolio on my desk closed as they approached. The last thing I needed was for Olivia to realize there was a prenuptial agreement already being drawn up.

Charlotte may not have recognized the contract, but Olivia would.

She was a shrewd businesswoman, and although part of me wanted to be proud of her for it, she was still shortsighted and didn’t understand that the family business, my business, needed to come first. Always.

I twirled my heavy, black Mont Blanc pen between my fingers. “I don’t appreciate either of you barging into my office unannounced with your shrewish complaints. Not that it is any of your concern, I am acting well within my responsibility as trustee of Stella’s estate.”

“Is that why you canceled her credit card, embarrassing her in front of her friends and her peers?” Charlotte asked.

I pressed the heel of my palm against the top of my thigh as I tried not to shift in my chair. My disappointment in seeing my daughters and not Stella added a heated edge to my tone as my erection cooled.

“Again. Neither of your concerns. The trust bank accounts and investments are being moved under my control. Had she bothered to talk to me like a responsible young woman instead of throwing a temper tantrum in the courtroom, she would have learned that and been given her new bank card.”

Olivia’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you get new cards issued before the judge ruled?”

“Because the judge issuing the order was a formality. Her father’s will stated I was to be the one handling her finances if she was unmarried when he died.”

Charlotte huffed as she waved her arm at me. “But you hated each other. Why would he give you control over Stella’s estate?”

She said estate, but all I heard was control over Stella.

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