Page 9 of Vows in Name Only
Anger, so hot, so rich she could taste it, broke over her. A tremble quaked through her, and in that moment, she hated him. For rendering her powerless. For reducing her worth to no more than an asset he could trade or cash in. For who he’d become.
Guilt and shame crashed into her, a churning deluge that damn near drowned her. What kind of daughter harbored those thoughts about the man who’d brought her into this world? Before her mother died, she’d hugged Devon close and made her promise to look after her father. Logically, Devon understood that her mother hadn’t meant to place such a burden on a ten-year-old. But that vow had chained Devon to her father all these years. At twenty-six, she still remained with him, worried about how hard he pushed himself, driven by invisible demons.
“Would you really take away my job, the place I care most about?” she asked quietly.
He scoffed, flicking off her question as if batting away an annoying gnat. “I’ve told you repeatedly you don’t need that job. You have your choice of volunteer committees where you could actually bring about change by fundraising and forging relationships with people who matter. But instead, you insist on taking a menial position that anyone with a rudimentary degree could work at. So yes, I would take that away, if you force my hand. Gladly. Because it would be for your own good, which you’re too stubborn to see.”
Her father was right—this wasn’t just about her. Not since he put the future of the community center on the line. For four years, it hadn’t only been a place to utilize her bachelor’s degree in urban studies and her master’s in social work—it was also a haven. The staff, the children, the senior citizens and their loved ones had become surrogates for the family she’d left behind in New Jersey. So how selfish would it be of her to rip funding out from under them just to save herself? Employees would have to be let go. The center would lose programs that served all the demographics of the community, not just youths, but before-and after-school care, and elderly care.
No, she wouldn’t allow her father to harm the center and all the people it assisted and employed.
She also wouldn’t let him determine her future. As he’d taught her, she’d play the game. For now. But somehow, she’d find a way out of this sham. How? No clue.
Yet.
“Fine, Dad,” she said, curling her fingers around the back of the couch, steadying herself against the foreboding that swept through her. As if with those two words she’d sealed her fate. “You win. If you leave the community center alone, I’ll go along with this.”
“Marriage, Devon,” he stated, a vein of steel threading through his voice. “Not only will you marry the man I’ve handpicked for you, but you’ll make him believe this is what you want. You’ll convince him your dream is to be his wife. This discussion stays here between us, Devon. And I mean that. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Dad,” she murmured, the placid tone belying her death grip on the furniture. “You want me to begin my future on a lie. Got it.”
“Devon,” he barked, but the peal of the doorbell broke off what would have undoubtedly been a scathing dressing-down. He scowled. “Who is that? Are you expecting someone?”
She didn’t have a chance to reply before their housekeeper appeared in the room’s entrance. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Ms. Devon, but there’s a gentleman at the door. He claims you are expecting him. I placed him in the formal living room—”
“Since I’m practically family, I decided not to stand on formalities,” drawled a dark, silken voice of velvet and grit.
She knew that voice.
Heard that voice in her dreams.
No. Oh God,no.It couldn’t be.
Slowly, she pivoted, as if delaying what her clamoring heart and the heat pooling low in her belly already concluded.
But neither her ears, her heart nor the desire lighting her up like the Boston skyline were lying to her. Only one man had caused her body to tighten with a peculiar combination of anticipation, lust, excitement and trepidation. And he stood in her home.
Cain Farrell.
Delight exploded within her, and the beginnings of a tremulous smile tilted the corners of her mouth. She took a small step forward, but then his words penetrated her shock.
Since I’m practically family...
Wait. She jerked to a halt.
He couldn’t possibly mean...
She shot a glance over her shoulder at her father, and the smug smirk confirmed the dread yawning wider in her chest. In her soul.
She returned her attention to the silent, brooding man standing feet from her. Instinct warned her that between him and her father, he was the one who presented the most danger. Not physically. Even though his tall, wide-shouldered frame seemed to shrink the spacious room to a cubbyhole, she didn’t fear him using his size against her.
No, the danger he posed was much more nebulous, intangible.
Swallowing, she again moved toward him, his name hovering on her tongue. But he shifted his gaze from her father to her. And once more, she jerked to a halt.
Those wolf eyes didn’t gleam with humor or admiration or even bemusement.
Loathing.
