Page 62 of Corruption

“Did you?”

I belatedly realize that I might have said too much. That as far as Vaughn knows, as far as anyone outside the immediate Fantoni family, my mother died. I didn’t escape her.

Not technically anyway. Thus, I hastily add, “Yep. She died. I escaped her.”

“There’s a very large distinction between your mother dying and you escaping her.”

He’s right. There is. But I keep my cool and shrug. “I was eventually going to run away. She just died before I could. So maybe it’s not the way I thought, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the same thing.” I pause and then add, “You remind me a lot of my mother.”

“Should I be flattered?”

“Does it sound like I want to compliment you?”

Vaughn doesn’t say anything else, just continues to dance with me into the next song.

“I saidadance. Not two.”

“One more, and then I’ll be happy to let you go.”

I try not to roll my eyes and decide to let him have the second dance. After this, I don’t have to have anything to do with him until the wedding. I get to spend the next two and a half months with Nadia and Alik.

When the song ends, he stops our dance too but doesn’t let go.

“What are you doing?”

“I think I’ve earned a kiss from my future wife.”

“No.”

“You’re going to have to get used to it eventually.”

I want to argue with him. Tell him that I’ll never get used to it. That there was a time where I would have been willing to get used to it. Where I might have even given myself over willingly, if reluctantly, after a while. But he blew that by showing me his true colors after one conversation. Maybe if he’d had the decency to hide the monster he could be, I might have thought better of him, though I doubt it. Not when I know how he treats his son and how his son sees him.

But then again, he’s right. I’m going to have to get used to it. And if there’s one thing I know about these kinds of relationships, it’s that you have to pick your battles. You have to choose to do things you don’t want to, not make things worse than they already are or are going to be.

It’s not going to be on his terms if he’s going to force me into this, though. It’s going to be on mine.

So I reach up, grab his collar, and pull his lips to mine in a kiss.

There’s nothing affectionate about it. Nothing pleasurable about it. Nothing that makes my heart race or my pussy ache or electricity zing through me. It’s just all pain. All trying to gain control over a life and death game. A game that I know I’ll lose if I end up having to actually marry him.

But I don’t think about the inevitability of losing this game as I kiss him. Just the need to take Vaughn off guard. To show him that he’s not as in control of me as he thinks he is. That I’m not as scared of him as he wants me to be. I can practically feel the anger radiating off him as I kiss him. Feel it even more in the way he grabs my ass and squeezes. In return, I reach between us and grab his cock through his pants and squeeze as hard as I can until he lets my ass go. Only then do I let his cock go from my vice grip.

When I pull my lips away from him, he’s glaring down at me enraged, and I know I’ve just made that scene that he didn’t want me to make, even if covertly. I’m screwed if I have to marry him. He’ll do everything possible to take that control back and make me afraid of him. But in this moment, I don’t care and glare back up at him.

“You two need to get a room. You’re making the guests uncomfortable.”

I turn to see Alik standing next to us. By all appearances, he’s perfectly calm. Maybe not even that. Perfectly indifferent, rather. But I’ve lived with him in close quarters for three weeks and recognize that look in his eyes. The look he gives Nadia when she’s gone too far and he wants to punish her. He’s giving me that same look. Somehow, it’s even more intimidating than if he were glaring angrily at me. Yet it makes me shudder. Makes my heart race in anticipation. Makes my pussy ache to know that he sees me that way.

“I would,” Vaughn replies. “If she would let me.”

“Not before the wedding, dear,” I say in a saccharine tone.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Vaughn says with a smirk before walking off.

“Follow me,” Alik says simply before walking away and expecting me to follow.

I do. Despite the way my heart speeds up in fear. Anticipation. Both of which are fueled by a desire I was never exactly sure I would have. That I would be so eager to have Alik punish me for misbehaving the way he does Nadia. But now that I’ve clearly warrantedsomethingfrom Alik, I look forward to seeing what he has in store for me.

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