Page 14 of Unwillingly His

Of course, that would only happen after everything else was settled.

Otherwise, it would be used against me.

If a man saw a professional for help, he was being smart.

If a woman did it, she was weak.

After I left the courthouse, I sent out several SOS text messages, and my friends rallied around me.

Within twenty minutes, I was sitting in my favorite chair, at the head of my favorite table at The Wharton, with a calming chamomile steaming in the pot in front of me and women glaring at me.

I’d kill for something stronger than tea in this moment.

Unfortunately, with a woman of my stature, it didn’t matter what I did as much as what it looked like I was doing. A single glass of wine at the bar might be perfectly fine, but a well-timed photo of that single glass of wine could write a false, inflammatory story that most would believe over the simple truth.

After all, a socialite falling to the dangers of drugs and alcohol made a much better story than a rich girl having a bad day. No one cared about the truth. They cared about the story.

They didn’t even need to try too hard with the story.

A talented photographer could take fifteen to twenty pictures of me in a single night, take it home, and change the background of the bar, the dress I was wearing, and the levels of wine in my glass to make it look habitual. I couldn’t risk it.

No wonder some of the older women snuck whisky into their tea.

It was technically against the rules, but we all knew they did it.

“So what does that mean?” one of the girls asked, pulling me back into the conversation.

“It means that I have somehow entered a time loop, and I’m now stuck in the fifties. Where a woman isn’t allowed to have her own fortune. It means that despite being an adult, I now have an overbearing gorilla in a suit in control of my finances.”

I left out the part about the “gorilla” being incredibly handsome and domineering, with a primal sexual energy that could make a woman lose all sense of propriety and place. Or that that same “gorilla” wanted to freaking marry me.

No point in boring my friends with the rougher details.

Thoughts of the rougher details brought back memories of his fingers inside me as he pulled a dark forbidden pleasure from my body. I’d never felt anything like that before. The mix of pain and pleasure had been exotic as well as erotic.

It was so incredibly wrong, and yet so deliciously right at the same time.

I pushed those thoughts away and took another long pull of my tea.

When I set my glass back down, Olivia, Amelia, and Charlotte were all looking at each other very uncomfortably.

Oh, damn. The man was their father! I should be more careful with what I said.

“Shoot, girls. I am so sorry. I know that he’s your father and your father-in-law, but…”

“Oh no,” Charlotte stopped me. “We understand. My father can be difficult—and complicated.”

“What she means to say,” Olivia interrupted her, “is that he’s an arrogant, control-freak, who treats his family like he treats his company board, and does whatever he wants without any thought to anybody else, ever.”

Amelia didn’t add anything, but just took another sip of her tea, probably using that to silence her own thoughts on the subject. It was one thing to say something about a man as his daughter. But it was something else entirely to say it as his daughter-in-law.

“I’m still confused,” Amelia said after a moment, putting down her cup. “Your lawyer didn’t do anything?”

“No, he didn’t argue it. He didn’t fight for me. He didn’t even give me a heads up on what was going to happen. It was like he, Lucian, and the judge had already decided everything, and this was just a formality.”

“That can’t be legal,” Amelia said, careful not to talk about her father-in-law directly. “You are entitled to effective counsel.”

“How do I go about filing something to overturn all of this?” I asked, resting my head in my hands for a moment.

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