Page 58 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

My fists clench as I resist the urge to physically remove him from my path.

“My daughter is not yours to touch,” he says, the thinly veiled warning thrumming in his voice. He looks slightly to the right to speak to my father. “I’m taking my girls home. If he doesn’t agree to this alliance, then the deal is off.”

“He will.” My father answers, his gaze slicing ominously over to me.

I watch her leave the study with her parents in tow, resisting the near primal urge to rip her dad’s hand off her shoulder.

Once they’re gone, my father turns to me, his voice dripping with ire. “You’re going to marry that girl.”

“Why are you doing this? Haven’t you taken enough from me already, now you’re dictating who I fuck and marry?”

His answering laugh is mocking. “No one’s telling you to fuck the girl. Her father is more powerful than God and more conniving than the Devil. This alliance is for the family business, for the syndicate. Fuck her, don’t fuck her. Cheat on her, don’t cheat on her. See her, don’t see her, I don’t give a fuck, just marry her.” He commands, before changing tactics. “Think about what you stand to gain. You’ll inherit the largest weapons company in the world one day. You’ll be able to make entire countries come to heel with barely the snap of your fingers. Don’t tell me you don’t want that kind of power.”

I don’t, not for the price of spending my life chained to someone who wanted my brother and settled – no, wasforcedto settle – for me instead. I won’t do it.

But he doesn’t need to know that right now.

“Fine.” I grunt.

“You’ll marry her?” He asks, clarifying.

I grit my teeth. “Yes.”

At least, I’ll pretend that I will.

If their plan is to marry us over the summer, that’ll give me enough time to siphon money out of my account in small amounts that won’t trip any alarms informing my father. Once my financial situation is in order, I’ll break it off.

My blood boils at the unnecessary distraction, at the fact that I’ll need to be publicly engaged to her, that for all intents and purposes, people will think she’s mine…I ignore the heated rumbling in my chest at the thought.

Ten-year-old me dreamed of making her my wife one day, but eighteen-year-old me with access to making that dream a reality at my fingertips knows that that was nothing more than a boyhood dream.

She’s nothing more than a means to an end now.

Chapter 19

Sixtine

“Cheers for that, Mum and Dad. A heads up would have been lovely,” I tell them, sarcasm dripping from my tone as we walk into our home and past Lev, our head of security, on our way to my dad’s office, “Nothing much, just a little “welcome home darling, we’re going to engage you to your arch nemesis to pad the company bottom line ahead of Christmas bonus season” would have sufficed.”

“Chérie–,” My mum starts, but I cut her off.

“This is madness, Mum! Surely you can see that from his reaction,” I yell, throwing my arms up. I turn towards my dad. “Please, tell me I can call this off.”

I’ve always been the apple of my dad’s eye, his precious little girl, but I can see in his eyes that I’m dealing with the businessman now, not my dad.

“No, darling. I need the alliance with his family.” His tone is so firm when he responds, and I’m not used to him speaking to me like that.

“Don’t you want me to be happy?” I ask, my voice small.

“Of course we do,ma chérie!” My mum exclaims, grabbing my hands in hers and forcing me to sit.

This is my worst nightmare. I hadn’t even understood our parents’ announcement before Phoenix had already lashed out with a resounding ‘no’.

He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t needed to even think about it, he’d been absolutely resolute in his refusal to marry me. Even after everything that he’s put me through over the years, the torment, the time spent ignoring me, the spanking me,he’sthe one who said no.

Even after all of that, a part of me still wanted him to say yes or to at least think about it. Instead, he’d humiliated me again, rejected me again.

“Then why are you forcing me to marry someone who’ll stand next to me at the altar looking like he’d rather be drawn and quartered rather than put a ring on my finger?”

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