Page 36 of Searching for Hope

He runs his hand over my forehead, pushing my still damp hair back. “Nothing for you to worry about. I’m sorry I took so long.” He throws something onto the bed. “Here, I thought you might like I know how to connect to the Wi-Fi.”

“I thought there wasn’t any here.” I sit up and grab my phone, powering it on and entering the security code.

“There is if you know where to look.” He holds out his hand and I give him the phone. He presses a few buttons, enters the password and soon my phone starts vibrating with messages. “You’ve got one from Michael,” he says before handing it back to me and sitting back to lean against the headboard.

I let the phone fall through my fingers and crawl over to him, climbing onto his lap. I hold his face in my hands and peer into his eyes.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.”

His frown deepens. “I do tell you what’s going on.”

“I mean everything,” I say. “Maybe I could help.”

“It’s nothing. It’s money. It’s Hope. It’s the business.”

He shrugs and then his eyes fall to the exposed strip of my flesh between the open buttons of his shirt. They darken, but the tension is still there. He tears his eyes away and gives a wry chuckle.

“Have you got a spare few hundred thousand?”

“Actually, I have.”

He narrows his eyes in confusion.

“It’s my father’s.” I adjust the way I’m sitting, attempting to cover some of myself as it seems wrong to be talking about such important matters when half my breast is exposed. “There’s a trust fund in my name. It’s quite considerable. All I need to do is publicly ‘come out’,” I roll my eyes, “as Sebastian Atterton’s daughter. As soon as I do that, my father will ensure the funds are released to me.” I pause, thinking of him locked in the cell far below us. “If you let him make a phone call that is.”

“I’m not taking your money.”

“It isn’t mine,” I’m quick to correct. “It’s his. It was his. I won’t claim it but if we could use it for something good, I might consider it.”

“I could never ask you to do that.”

I shrug. “You don’t have to. I’m offering.”

“Berkley, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

“What’s there to think about? There’s money that’s mine if I want it. I don’t want it, but it could help you.”

“It’s not that simple. You can’t just give me money.”

“Well, talk to your lawyers. Do whatever it is we need to do to make this work.” I lean forward and brush a kiss over his lips. “I’ve made up my mind, Mr Priest. There’s no point in arguing with me.” Moving my mouth across his jaw, I bite the lobe of his ear hard enough to make him let out a hiss of air and for his cock to surge beneath me. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

chapter thirteen

JERICHO

She slips back to her room to change for dinner while I dash into the office. It worries me how innocent she is. How quickly she seems to think she can take up the mantle of her old persona, as the daughter of a monster, without there being repercussions.

I turn on the screens, watching each section of the Sanctuary flicker to life. He’s sitting in the corner of his cell, knees drawn to his chest and staring at the opposite wall. It’s hard to tell if his mind is filled with thoughts of revenge, or if it is blank. He seems to have aged greatly from the images that were flashed across TV screens. He’s lost more hair. His plastic face has begun to sag. He’s pale and sickly.

It seems inconceivable that Berkley came from him. I had planned to use her to make her father spill his secrets, but in truth, maybe this is sweeter revenge. For her to want me.

I close my eyes, blocking out the vision of the monster and thinking of my Berkley. Because that’s whose she is now. Mine.

How wet she got. How she screamed my name. How willing. How submissive. She’d surprised me with her wicked innocence. It was like God had packaged my most sinful desires and presented them in her form. She was unabashed in her need for me. She was fucking perfect. I’ve had more sex in the past 24 hours than I had in the past six months but all it has done is make me want her more.

A loud knock snaps me out of my reverie.

“What?” I snap, unlocking the door.

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