Page 46 of Vengeful Princess

“Your daddy’s opinion doesn’t matter to me. Until we’re legally married, you don’t have permission to touch me. Are we clear?”

Rage flared in her eyes. “Daddy won’t be happy if you upset me, Cassian!” she threatened.

The chains locking my temper down creaked under the strain. I’d never hit a woman before, but my god, I wasthisclose to knocking Camilla’s expensive porcelain veneers down her throat.

“Don’t threaten me, Camilla,” I warned her. “You won’t like what happens if you do.”

She reared back and sneered at me. “You can’t deny me forever,fiancée. Daddy says we can get married next July.”

My lips curled up in a wintry smile. “Assuming you live that long,fiancée.”

Some of the fight left her, and she took another large step back.

“Don’t threaten me, Cassian. If anything happens to me, the contract is void, and we both know your father wouldn’t like that.”

“Cassian!” My father’s frigid voice cut through me like a chef’s boning knife. I looked up to see him standing in the open doorway, a warm glow spilling out from the room behind him.“Our guests are leaving. Please come back inside and fulfil your duties as host.” And as my son, was the unspoken subtext.

“Of course, Father.” I forced a smile and shoved past Camilla, ignoring her huff of annoyance. He glared when I walked past him, which meant I could expect a lecture once the Bale-Lyons retired to bed.

Sure enough, when the last guests had left or disappeared to their rooms, he descended on me.

“My office, now!”

“Of course.”

Dad tapped his foot impatiently as I finished pouring a fresh glass of whiskey, not bothering to dilute it with ice.

Once my glass was full to the brim, I picked up the bottle too and followed him down the hallway toward his office. Even though it was long past midnight and most of them had to rise at dawn to prepare breakfast, the house staff scurried around, clearing away the last remnants of the dinner party.

My father gave no shits about legal working hours and mandatory rest breaks. While he didn’t stoop so low as to employ illegal immigrants, he made his staff sign NDAs and if they so much as whispered a complaint in his earshot, they were gone.

“Have I not made it abundantly clear how this arrangement with Camilla is to work, Cassian?” my father snarled once the study door closed, ensuring nobody heard our conversation.

“Yes, I’m to marry Camilla, so you increase your business holdings, influence, and wealth.” I swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “Does that cover it?”

He gritted his teeth but managed to restrain his impulse to backhand me. It wouldn’t look good if I appeared at breakfast with a black eye. Again.

“I’m doing this for you!”

“Really? Marrying me off like a virgin bride doesn’t feel like it’s for my benefit.”

“Oh come now, Cassian, we both know you’re far from being a virgin,” he sneered. “And once Camilla produces an heir, you’re free to take on a mistress or two, as long as you’re discreet.”

“Like you, you mean?” I wasn’t blind. My father had at least one woman stashed away in a Mayfair apartment.

He chuckled. “Yes, like me. It’s how things work in our world. Keep your wife happy, be discreet, and the rest falls into place.”

Only my mother wasn’t happy. She wasn’t anything these days. Father made damn sure of it. He paid private doctors a fortune to keep her medicated up to the eyeballs.

In his eyes, it was the perfect marriage.

When he needed her for social engagements, he adjusted her medication and wheeled her out like a doll. And in between times, he indulged his perverted tastes with whatever whore was flavor of the month.

How the press hadn’t caught wind of his questionable proclivities was a mystery. I could only assume he had people in the Met and MI5 on his payroll. It was the only explanation for why the faintest whiff of impropriety never saw the light of day, and also why at least two investigative journalists who’d come sniffing around had disappeared in recent years.

Father sighed, tapping his fingers on his desk. “I appreciate Camilla isn’t the easiest of women, but I need you to keep her happy. Are we clear?”

“And if I can’t keep her happy?”

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