Page 52 of Captive Mafia Wife

Fredrick’s right. I push things down. Now, I stare at my life point-blank.

“I want to tell you about Jack. The case that ended up bringing me here.”

He lifts my hand to his lips, kissing each finger in turn. “Please. Share.”

“I was riding high off a win I’d just had against Patrick, when Jack first approached me about representing him,” I tell Fredrick.

“What was your meeting with Jack like?”

I flush under his attention; he always seems interested in my life, my thoughts, my idiot-syn-crazies. I tell him, “I invited Jack into my office. He sat in the chair across from me at my desk. He beamed a stunning grin, and I got caught in the beam.”

“As I’m sure he was caught in a cloud of your beauty.” He sends me a flirty quirk of a brow. “I can picture you at your desk. Black suit? Ten-meter heels?”

“Always.” I give a choked laugh, shaking my head at his compliments. “In my self-importance, I wanted to prove to him that I could win his case. I was more focused on celebrating, partying, and whisky than on vetting him. Knowing his dad, I didn’t investigate Jack as I should have.”

The case came so fast; the firm was already dead busy, and no one checked behind me—they didn’t think they had to.

A tear slips down my cheek. Fredrick kisses it away. I wrap my arms around his neck.

He clears his throat. “I made a similar mistake when I first brought you here. I was drawn to yourstrength, then ignored what made me want you. I thought I could force you into a wedding gown…and that would make you mine.”

Reaching over me to flip open the lid of a wooden box on the nightstand, he says, “Now I know you can’t take what can only be given freely.”

Staring into my eyes, he holds up a ring I may have designed for myself—a simple yet generously sized, brilliant, emerald-cut diamond with a high setting on a thick platinum band. The light hits the diamond, casting rainbows.

“It’s stunning.” I absorb the ring, taking in its brilliance and everything it stands for. We may not be in love, but we’ve become best friends with delicious benefits. I know he’ll take care of me, protect me—and continue giving me phenomenal orgasms.

Most of all, with Fredrick, I’m getting the security I crave.

“You belong here. You belong with me.” He slips the ring on my finger.

And in the contentment of my afterglow, I let him.

Chapter Fourteen

Fredrick

When I first bought thisplace, the garden was stripped and barren. I promised myself I’d do something with it in my mother’s memory. I haven’t even been past the garden gates.

It was traumatizing to be the one who found her hanging from the tree in the garden. After that day, I was sent off to boarding school. My mother’s name never left my father’s mouth again.

Was there therapy back then? Child psychologists? I’m not that old, but I assume such things were around.

But not available to a young boy who stood under his mother as her body swayed, her blank eyes staring up accusingly toward the massive, cold home she could no longer live in.

How I wanted those eyes to look down at me.

To give me that wink she did when my father was going on about something, some rant about the price of shipping, to tell me how silly all this was, the house, the money, the name.

She didn’t fit into our lives. And she couldn’t force herself to not laugh too loud at the stuffy parties, always having one drink too many.

So, my father took away the alcohol till she had nothing left to rely on. And now, I spend my life brewing the amber liquor that comforted her. And, knowing how it got ahold of her, I rarely drink other than the tastings required to confirm what I already know.

It’s the best in Scotland.

My father trapped her in the stone walls of our French estate, and she threw herself into gardening.

Her calming garden.

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