Page 29 of Claimed By the Billionaires

“Home,” Houston said beside her.

“Home,” she repeated, liking the sound of the word, before going back to sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

Winter stirred awake, waiting for the boulder to fall on her head. But surprisingly, she felt no such thing.

"Oh, thank goodness,” she murmured when the room didn’t spin all around her head. Gingerly, she sat up in bed and was even more relieved that her brain remained stable in her head.

She was never drinking anything again she vowed silently, but at least she’d checked that off her bucket list. Done and dusted, she got the hangover T-shirt to prove it too. Honestly, it was overrated.

She must have been asleep for days because she had no idea what day it was today.

Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings. She was no longer in their modern mansion on the outskirts of the city. No. This place was entirely different, as if they were in the mountains, with an aura here she couldn’t describe, but maybe one of loss and sadness.

Fragments of the old white mansion, when they’d arrived, sailed past her mind. It had looked dilapidated in the moonlight, with peeling paint and dark shadows, despite being in a slightly tipsy state. She couldn’t ignore the fact that it stood with such fierce pride that she remembered lowering her head in supplication.

Whose house was this? Why did they bring her here?

As she glanced around the immense bedroom, then brought her attention back around to herself again, she realized she was naked, completely so under the thick warm duvet.

Oh shit.

Images of herself giggling uncontrollably flashed through her mind as well. She lifted a thick wad of her hair in the dim room, lit only by the light of the fireplace, and the different colors in her hair shimmered.

She lifted her wrist and traced the tattoo of the phoenix. They’d taken her to prom—well, they'd taken her to a prom that was specially designed for her only because she’d missed out on going to her own prom. She drank the fanciest of alcohol at her grown-up prom from crystal glasses, no less.

She'd been okay in the car, surprisingly—tipsy and sleepy—but okay until she wasn’t anymore.

They held her hair when she vomited her guts out in the bathroom of the unfamiliar house. She made all sorts of promises never to do it again if the room just stopped spinning.

The feel of their hands on her body when they had to remove the dress because she’d gotten puke all over it remained on her skin. Then she insisted on showering, that backfired because they wouldn’t let her do it alone.

God, it had been Aston,Astonof all the people who’d climbed into the shower with her in his clothes and lathered her up and washed her hair. Houston towel-dried her, and Konnor gave her something to drink and then tucked her into the bed.

What a day she’d had.

But why did they do that for her when they owed her nothing? And they’d been so utterly patient, too, while they waited for her to get her hair done, her tattoo, and get dressed forprom,and then took care of her because she was such a lightweight—well, she wasn’t allowed to drink anything before, so she had no idea about her tolerance.

From the one shot she’d taken at the bar to the three or maybe four glasses of champagne she’d had at the prom, she’d been quite inebriated.

She was feeling a lot better now, having completely recovered, thank goodness, from her hangover. They’d even given her that—a hangover—because she’d asked for it.

But where had they brought her to? What was this place?

The thought of being alone in this unknown house started to scare her. And yet, when the thought of never seeing them again popped unsolicited into her mind, it created a deep, empty crater in her heart that she couldn’t explain or understand.

Why would she feel like that when they’ve been nothing but cold and cruel to her and her family? Yet …

Thinking about them that way was a luxury she didn’t have.

Climbing off the bed and taking the sheet with her, she looked for something to wear and only found the dress she had puked on.

But then she was properly startled when a lamp was switched on, and immediately, her eyes focused on the three of them sitting in the dark shadows across the vast room.

Her mouth dried. Her pulse started to beat so crazily that her skin became a heated deep red shade of red.

She’d been prepared for this her whole life, and yet nothing could have prepared her for this.

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