Page 44 of The Passion

“The next week, as you know, was a terrible time, but I made it through the other side of it, and every day I still shudder every time I get an alert of my name being mentioned on the internet. But I have pushed forward, not let anyone see the real embarrassment I feel.”

“If I could take that away for you, I would. It’s still burnt inside of me that I couldn’t find who did it, but this is just monstrous.” I can tell the pain he is feeling is getting more intense the more I tell him.

“I turned my hurt into anger and used it to fuel me. I have worked hard and earned my spot in this company, it’s not just been handed to me because I’m a Kentwall. I don’t give a fuck what he was telling people, I’m going to take over as the chairman and owner of Kentwall Estates on my birthday, and then I will show him the door with the pointiest Jimmy Choo I own.”

“Now there’s my girl.” His deep laugh brings a half-smile to my face.

“I didn’t trust him after that day, so Harper and I have been digging into everything we can think of to see if there is something we could find on him. I know two wrongs don’t make a right, but if he was going to try to turn them against me, I need ammunition. I wasn’t taking this lying down. Sadly, there are many things that have made me shudder, and I haven’t pieced it all together yet. But the more I looked, it all started to make sense. He doesn’t want me taking over the company because he is hiding something. But the final straw was when I snuck into his home office, when I may or may not have dropped a sedative into his port that he was drinking with a few of the men at his home to celebrate his birthday a few days ago. Just enough to make him sleepy and need to call it a night and then sleep so deeply he wouldn’t hear anything. As much as I didn’t want to be there, I turned up as the dutiful daughter they all think I am. I made an appearance with some chocolate truffles from Harrods and his favorite port, encouraging them all to share a toast.”

“Fuck, remind me not to cross you.” He is mocking me now, trying to lighten the moment, knowing there is something heavy coming.

“I thought you knew that from the moment we met.” I poke my finger into his chest.

“Oh, the only thing I knew the instant you turned and faced me that night was that I was in trouble, and no matter how much I knew I should, I couldn’t force myself to walk away.”

“I bet now you wish you did.” I shrug. For a woman who felt so put together and in control, I have turned out to be a complete mess in Flynn’s life.

“Fuck no!” He almost makes me jump off his lap with the forcefulness in his voice.

“Okay, whatever. Anyway, after all his guests left and I helped him into his bedroom, explaining he must be coming down with some virus, I waited until he started snoring, then Iwent searching. It felt so wrong to be going through his things, but there was this feeling in my stomach that I had to keep looking. Finally, I found a false bottom in a drawer in the cabinet that holds all his industry trophies. His shrine, I call it. There were three things in there.” I shudder at the images in my mind.

“It’s okay, you can tell me.”

It’s not that I’m embarrassed to tell Flynn, it’s that it’s just hard to say it.

“The first was a gun, which shocked me. I can’t imagine my father with one. I mean, what the hell would he need one for?” My mind is still baffled by this. We have security for a reason, but the threat is not really for that sort of danger. It’s more for the unwanted attention, opportunists who target our wealth, but not so much from violence.

Flynn doesn’t look as shocked as I was about this, which makes me think that’s a talk we need to have later.

“I still can’t process the second thing, but it does explain my father a bit more.” A tear escapes down my cheek for a secret he has kept from me for most of my life and probably will take to the grave. “An envelope with an ultrasound picture, a paternity test, and a non-disclosure statement from a lawyer signed by a Jennifer Nation that she would never disclose to anyone about the baby boy, Ewan Kentwall the Second, that she was pregnant with and had lost at twenty-two weeks. My father had a son when I was nine years old, from an affair, I’m guessing, and he didn’t survive. I had a brother…” A few more lonesome tears fall. “And all he did was pay her money to keep her mouth shut and go away. That poor woman.” Just another victim to my father’s awful cruelty, but I don’t have the emotional strength to properly mourn this news.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, which is what I need to let that news settle over both of us. What Flynn must think of my father now I can only imagine.

But I just want this over.

“The third thing was a thumb drive. It took a while, but I cracked the passcode to be the date of death of the baby.” Looking into Flynn’s eyes, I can see he is already guessing what was on the thumb drive. “Yes, it was all the footage from my motel room.” Dropping my head, I’m embarrassed to say the next part, which I shouldn’t be, but I know it’s not something he is going to want to hear, because if the shoe was on the other foot, I know it would gut me.

“Ummm… and… there’s more than one video on there.” I try to push up off his body so I can put distance between us before he starts looking at me like the slut my father told me I was.

“No! Don’t.” He holds me tighter with one arm, and his other hand grasps my chin, lifting my head to look up at him. Not letting me hide in my shame.

“We have both slept with other people. We know that, and it’s perfectly normal. Do I ever want to see those videos? Fuck no! Am I at the point that I want to go and use your father’s own gun and shoot him with it? Abso-fucking-lutely. Am I gutted that this has happened to you? Yes, and I can’t even describe how bad that feeling is right now. But do I care that you had sex with someone else when we weren’t together? No, baby, I don’t. Would I love that you had never had another man touch you ever, only me. Of course, that’s my fantasy, but it’s not reality, and I’d be a huge hypocrite for being upset about it.”

Before I can say anything, Flynn leans forward and starts kissing me ever so softly on my lips, making my brain almost short circuit after his words.

I just want more. I try to deepen the kiss, but he starts to pull away.

Only the smallest of distance but enough that he makes sure I can understand what he is saying.

“But no more. No one touches what’s mine.”

This time the kiss is hard and more forceful, but again, too short.

“Because you, Felisha Kentwall, are mine, whether you are ready to accept it or not.”

His hand slips around to the back of my neck and pulls me against his lips, taking me in a kiss that can only be described as claiming.

I gasp for air as he finally lets me go, and I’m about to open my mouth to talk, but he beats me to it.

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