Page 43 of Sacrifice (Corrupt Empire 2)

“Is that so?”

He leant down, kissing my thigh just above my knee. I shivered.

“Yes.”

As much as I wanted him to touch me and melt away the tension from my body, I couldn’t.

“We need to talk about something.”

He stiffened, raising his head.

“Is this about what you found in his office?”

I nodded. He sat back, releasing his grasp on me. I reached into my bag with trembling fingers. Pulling out the photo, I handed it to him. Aiden’s expression turned dark immediately. Dark and closed off. He shut down entirely, his whole body tensing and curling in on itself.

I waited for him to say something, but minutes ticked by as he stared down at the photo in his hands. Shit. I shouldn’t have given him that. It clearly hurt him to see her.

I leant towards him, putting my hand on his shoulder. He jerked in response.

“Aiden… I know who it is, but what I don’t understand is why he would have a photo of her.”

His mouth opened and closed twice. Then he looked up at me. His expression was cold. I felt the icy chill of it on my skin.

“Because he was obsessed with her.”

The tone of his voice sent a shiver of dread down my spine. My father was obsessed with his mother. Of all the fucked up and terrible things I’d imagined, that was not one of them.

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t explain it. I told you, I don’t talk about her.”

“You can’t tell me my father was obsessed with her and then shut me out. That’s not fair.”

He shrugged my hand off his shoulder, stood up and walked away. Walked the fuck away from me. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep my racing heart in my chest. It burnt with pain. The sting of his refusal to say anything further bit into my skin.

“The truth is worse than you can ever imagine, Avery. It’s better that you don’t know.”

His voice came from behind me. I turned. He was standing by the window, looking out over the twinkling lights of the city. The photo was still in his hand at his side.

“And you just get to decide that, do you?”

“Yes.”

I stood on shaky legs. Not only had I endured the worst day possible from the confrontation with my uncle and the police, I was now faced with this. Him. Cold and unreachable.

Why had I gone through my dad’s desk? This would’ve never happened if I hadn’t found that photo.

“I don’t accept that.”

“You don’t have a fucking choice.”

I wanted to get angry with him, but I couldn’t. I was exhausted. He was being unreasonable and quite frankly, he could fuck off if he was going to behave like that towards me.

“We’re back to that now, are we? You know what, fine. I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now.”

I strode from the room. I no longer cared about dinner. All I cared about was getting out of these stupid clothes and going to bed. I shut the bedroom door behind me and tore off the blazer, throwing it on the floor. Next came my blouse followed by the damn restrictive pencil skirt. My bra joined them.

I knew very well it would wind him up further that I’d left all my clothes on the floor. The threat of his anger wasn’t enough to make me pick them up.

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