Page 76 of Seduced By Contract

I usually don't sleep during the day, but I think my body is trying to escape reality. If I'm awake, I start crying again, and I hate Zeus for making me feel like this.

I take a shower and put on a nightgown. It's the first time I've allowed myself to lie down during the day in years. Not even the prospect of seeing the kids makes me want to get up.

I'm used to feeling physically exhausted. When I was doing cleaning jobs, I felt like this every single day, but at the moment, it's my mind that can't deal with everything that's happened.

Zeus

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Hours earlier

We've just fastenedour seatbelts on our private plane, and I can hardly believe that we've finally succeeded.

"The alternative wasn't what we expected," I say.

"It doesn't matter; what matters is that you're definitively free from any deal with that fucking Gordon. Now, let me ask you: could you have married the daughter of that worm who got involved with our mother?"

"I didn't intend to touch her. The agreement was for us to be together for two years, more than enough time for me to wipe GordonBank off the map."

"For someone as intelligent as you, old man Emerson had a lot of faith in you."

I shrug. "I think he believed I would succumb to the beauty of his granddaughter, which only shows he has no idea how much I hate his dead son and all his relatives."

"Men like him only see opportunities. He probably thought the possibility of becoming a few billion dollars richer would make you forget all the harm his heir caused us."

"Or maybe he doesn't know the whole story. He might not realize that our father left us a letter." I look at him curiously, wondering at his indifference as we discuss this. "You don't seem as affected as I am by what caused our father's death."

"You and Hades are the vengeful ones. I'm practical. Nobody can keep a wife by force. As much as Gordon's son pursued our mother, he didn't force her to yield. It was her choice, Zeus."

"A choice that destroyed our father."

"Yes, but still her choice."

I decide to change the subject. "Thank you for offering to be the new guardian for the girl. I don't think we would have gotten that missing one percent without your intervention. He wanted someone to replace him in that role."

"I think so. No problem, brother. She's seventeen. She'll stay another year at the boarding school, and when she's old enough to leave, I'll let her live her life, with light supervision."

"I doubt it," I say and take a sip of whiskey, needing to relax. "None of us takes responsibilities 'lightly.' The old man has no idea what he did by putting the responsibility for his ward in your hands."

"She's not my responsibility yet. She still needs to be formally acknowledged in front of the judge."

"Yes, but the agreement made with the lawyers is binding. What matters is that now, together with Odin and Christos, we own the majority of those wretched Gordons' shares."

"Zeus, our grandfather had no right to ask you that. It was too heavy a burden to place on someone only twenty-two years old."

"Looking at it from the outside, I agree. But he was hurt, Ares. He had lost his only son, our father. Revenge seemed like the natural path."

"But it could have destroyed any chance of you being happy. When you closed the deal, you didn't know Madison. If Odin and Christos hadn't managed to buy the shares, would you have gone ahead with the original plan?"

"I've asked myself that question a thousand times."

"And found an answer?"

"Yes." I swirl the drink in my hand. "I would have found an alternative. I'd rather die than betray her trust. Madison has already been hurt enough by her father."

"Is that the only reason? Not to hurt her?"

"It's a good enough reason."

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