Page 12 of Purchased

“Matrimony is traditionally a transfer of property. You’re right about that. But the modern interpretations of both marriage and law mean a wedding is in order. You need to be mine in every sense.”

“You mean you want to launder me. Dirty money turned clean. Illegal trafficking turned legit ownership.”

“You are a beautifully cynical little thing,” he says, his eyes meeting mine as the moon breaks through the night clouds. I see the lightness in them, feel a jolt deep in the pit of my stomach as his look hits me in some nearly physically tangible way. He is so handsome it verges on supernatural.

How am I going to escape him?

CHAPTER3

Beatrix

We come to a halt in the middle of the countryside at a small train station. I know that it’s not usually used for much of anything besides coal, so our presence here is odd and sets up alarm bells in me.

“What are we doing?”

“Changing modes of transportation. Cars are small and cramped. I don’t care for them for long journeys,” he explains, his tone off-hand before he fixes me with a more determined look.

“Beatrix, I know that this is going to seem like a very good place to try to run. There is nobody for miles and there is a great deal of open ground. But I remind you, there is nobody for miles. Nobody would hear your screams or your cries if I were forced to discipline you for running from me.”

He speaks almost kindly, but there is a note of pure steel in his voice that tells me what happened in the orphanage will be the least of my concerns if I run.

He gets out of the car on his side. I get out of it on mine. The second my bare feet touch the moonlit ground, instinct insists I flee. It is not a choice, it is not a thought. It is an imperative.

A large hand closes around the back of my neck.

“Uh-uh,” he says, tutting lightly.

“How did you move that fast?”

“I walked around the car,” he says. “It’s not a long distance. Now, come.”

I whimper as I feel his power. He doesn’t feel like just some guy. I’ve been stopped, tackled, and even punished by orphanage guards. They were men. They were rough, gruff, aggressive. But I never felt like this when they touched me. I never felt a bolt of pure energy running through me, turning dials and switches in my mind, making me flood with need between my thighs.

I would have said this place was practically defunct, if not for the fact that there is a train here, a great big glossy black beast of a thing. It does not look at all like the trains I’ve seen around. It’s not graffitied. It’s not dirty. It’s not long. It has an engine and three cars, and every single one of them shines darkly in the moonlight.

“What is this?”

“My personal train,” he smiles.

“You can have a personal train?”

“Most people cannot, but yes, there are private trains. This is one of them.”

That’s when I know this man is loaded in a way most people never will be. He’s not just rich. This is billionaire level extravagance. He’s taken an anachronistic kind of transport and made it his own, and I am guessing it has to schedule in with all the public trains unless he’s also put his own tracks in…

I stop thinking about the logistics as he leads me up and into the interior. The carpet is a deep red, and on the inside it is furnished like a palace lounge, every item befitting royalty. I immediately feel shabby and filthy, like a dog that has broken into the house after years of being chained outside. I don’t belong here. I am not like these things. Not elegant. Not refined. Not worth anything…

“Oh, my god…”

“You have landed on your feet, pup,” he says. “All of this, and so much more will be yours once we are married. My millions, at your disposal.”

My stomach clenches. This can’t be real. Am I having a hallucination? Did they catch me when I ran and hit me with some drug that put me into a dissociative state? Am I back at the orphanage, talking to a mop?

Strong arms wind around me and squeeze me, not hard enough to choke the life from me, but enough to put pressure all around me and calm me like the frightened animal I am.

“Breathe,” he says. “You are safe.”

You are safe.He says those words, and I believe him. I feel myself calming down, even though the world has suddenly become so strange I hardly recognize it.

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