Page 29 of Claimed
I shifted uncomfortably at the memory of Arthur’s goon grinding my ass. “No,” I said with a sigh.
“Is it legal for him to extort me and force me to marry his daughter and my sister to marry his son?”
I knew where he was going with this. I shook my head.
“His lust for power was his weakness, Holly. I took advantage of that. It didn’t happen overnight. But I willsay that I started destroying Valentine the moment my father was out of commission. Then you came into my life, and I had to struggle to remain patient while simultaneously speeding up the process.”
I mused over the sped-up process. “Then if I hadn’t come into your life, would you have married Julia?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But I never could have loved her. And insteadof bankrupting her father, I would have acquired everything he had.”
“I’m still curious to know what you did to him.”
Finally, I got Jasper to look at me with a hint of a satisfied smile. After a moment, he sighed in a way that signaled surrender. “I re-re-distributed his wealth…”
I narrowed my eyes. “Humph?”
He chuckled as if amused by my response. “You’re sexy whenyou do that.”
I waved my finger at him. “Uh-uh. Don’t seduce me now, Jasper Christmas.”
We smiled at each other. It felt good to be solidly back where we’d been before Julia had showed up behaving like a crazy person.
“Okay. Since you’re so beautiful and I’m in love with you, I’ll tell you this. Thomas was a sanctimonious and hypocritical purist. The original will containeda clause stating that a descendant would have to pay restitution to the others in the amount of sixty percent of the original treasure if they brought shame on the family. Conrad broke the no-contest moral clause with the war-hero stunt he pulled.”
I raised an eyebrow. “But why are they making him pay for it now and not then?”
Jasper pressed his lips together, and once again, I understoodwhat that meant.
“That’s all you’re willing to say?”
He set his jaw. “Yes. That’s it.”
At that point, I was sure I didn’t want to know more. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Jasper had fabricated the story about that moral clause. But then another thought came to mind.
“You pushed one or more of the descendants to sue him, didn’t you?”
He kept a straight face.There was no doubt he would make a world-class poker player.
I shrugged, conceding. “Okay, then, we’re done talking about it.”
“We still have to be careful, though. Arthur isn’t going down without a fight. And now Julia is completely on his side.”
“I know,” I whispered.
We stared at each other. The longer our gazes lingered, the more my heart rate increased. Jasper’seye veered down to my exposed cleavage. He wanted to fuck. The next thing I knew, his mouth was on mine, and we were kissing so hard, so intensely, that our teeth kept clacking together. He stopped himself before ripping off my robe and spreading me on top of the bed.
“I want you now,” he said with fervency, breathing heavily. “But we have to leave. Also there’s been a change of plans.”
Even though my head was still spinning, I was able to ask, “What change of plans?”
“I’ll tell you once we get out of here.”
