Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Series Book 2) (21 page)

It would be a miserable night.

“Lovely,” Darius said. “You’d be more beautiful if you were swelling with a child, but soon enough. Nicholas, you will escort her.”

Nicholas had said nothing while his brother bound me in lengths of rope. Now he offered his arm.

It wasn’t a gentleman’s courtesy.

He had
escorted
me too many times this week, guiding me to his father’s office where he injected the fertility drug under Darius’s supervision. The humiliation would happen for twelve consecutive days before the final injection induced my ovulation.

I hoped Darius wouldn’t supervise
that
aspect of my treatment.

Nicholas held my elbow and Max attended my other side as we ducked into the limo. They tried to shield me from Darius. It didn’t work. Anywhere his voice grated was too close. The leather seat twisted the ropes under my dress. I squirmed, but the bindings cut into every sensitive spot on my body. Darius noticed.

“Does it hurt, my dear?”

Not that I would admit. My silence amused him.

“At least you’re an obedient little girl when there’s ropes digging into your cunt. I should have done this weeks ago.” He rapped the closed glass separating us from the driver. The limo departed. “This should be an easy night. You are not to speak unless spoken to, Sarah. You will not leave your brothers’ sides. You will remain polite and courteous. Am I understood?”

It was less demanding than the orders my father issued when the Atwood’s attended events.

“I wouldn’t dream of disrespecting the Bennett name,” I said. “Not when it could cost me so much.”

It wasn’t the answer Darius expected, but screaming rape in a crowded ballroom would tank my future company. I’d ensure the Bennett Corporation thrived in their profits and success before I ripped it from Darius’s clutches.

He didn’t react. I braced for a slap across the mouth, or a veiled threat for Max to tie the ropes around my neck instead.

“I know you’ll make Daddy proud.”

Max shifted, but Nicholas possessed an uncanny ability to remain still, steadfast, and unaffected. I envied his skill almost as much as I feared his father. Darius hadn’t pricked me with the needle of the fertility drugs. He hadn’t beaten me or tried to rape me. His tortures turned…mental. Offering to sell the research? Dressing me in pretty little outfits with darkness strapped beneath? Presenting me to his partners and board members as his new
daughter
?

He didn’t raise a hand when I challenged him.

That was worse than anything he’d done in the past.

Reed requisitioned a popular ballroom for his extravagant gala. Black tie was apparently a family tradition, but Reed’s event offered more creativity than what Darius permitted within his iron-fisted expectations of his sons. Spotlights and a string quartet greeted the arriving guests, the more famous of which delighted the crowded red-carpet with quick photographs.

I squinted. A comedian, sitcom actress, and mayor posed for a picture. Not a bad haul, though Atwood events usually commanded more State Supreme Court justices and lobbyists than celebrities.

The gala supported the Bennett Foundation, but the head of the household directed the assigned personal assistants to guide us to a secondary entrance. He preferred something
low-key
. Something less likely for me to make a spectacle.

Or escape.

As if the ropes constricting me in every horrible, disgusting place would let me run away.

“Smile, my dear.” Darius offered his arm. “All eyes are on us.”

He wasn’t lying.

Though his touch should have left a line of bruises over my skin, his hold appeared nothing less than gentlemanly—
fatherly
—as the crowded ballroom parted for us. Worse, I clung to him for support. The ropes burned
as much as the shame, especially the one tucked between the folds of my slit. Every sway of my hips dragged it deeper. I leaned on Darius, as if I trusted, admired, or respected the damned toad. I would have preferred the gala see the bondage wrapping my body than my reliance on my step-father.

Darius molested me without a single touch.

I wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing how much it panicked me.

So I pretended I didn’t care. For one night, I escaped the Bennett’s prison only to enter a world of even worse restraint. Money attracted money. I recognized most of the gala’s attendees. The Bennett and Atwoods circles overlapped, even if the families never did. My presence was more surprising to the guests than the appearance of an action movie star.

I hadn’t seen most of these people since my brothers’ funerals.

I’d endured less stares at their wake.

An airy waltz strummed from the string quartet. The rumble of conversation, chortled laughter, and hushed gossip threaded throughout the beats. The cocktail hour was little more than a checkered flag to begin judgement.

Despite the formal dress, waltzes and blossoming, white flowers transforming the Versailles-inspired ballroom into a lovely garden, nothing changed from the day-to-day cutthroat lifestyle of high society. The Bennetts might have been the only family with the gall to kidnap and rape, but that didn’t mean their guests didn’t look upon me with a presumption worse than hatred.

Pity.

“Sarah Atwood!” One of my father’s former golfing partners shook my hand in passing. “So sorry I never caught you after Josiah and Mike’s funerals. Hopefully, you’ll be well enough soon to take over where they left off.”

Great.
Everyone
heard about the asthma. The secret my father kept hidden was what Darius shouted to the masses to explain my social disappearance. I accepted the compliment with grace and tried to slither from Darius’s arm.

His hold only tightened.

The Bennett’s friends offered greetings, business associates toasted Darius, and strangers admired our
charming
new family. Darius showed me off to people who benefited from knowing I was still alive, and I was forced to shuffle at his side, bound by the unseen, aching rope.

And there. Only twenty feet from me.

Roman Wescott.

The investor who might have ended all of this insanity.

He was younger than I anticipated, and far more handsome, if not a little…guarded. He packed with lean muscle, but his eyes chiseled just as hard as his physique. Grey, like carved stone.

He conversed with a small group near the bar, but stood too far to be properly greeted without alerting Darius to my intentions. If he saw me or Nicholas, he didn’t react.

Darius checked his watch. “We will stay through this cocktail hour. I have one more person for Sarah to greet…if she behaves.”

Since when did I ever meet his expectations?

His arm entwined in mine, as tight and revolting as the ropes restraining my movement. I hated that I forced pleasantries with his friends. Hated that I squirmed under his hand. That I suffocated in his musky cologne.

The curl of his fingers was a measured humiliation. He pretended he was a real step-father—that he hadn’t forced me over his desk, stripped me of my dignity, and attempted to violate me with pain.

I slammed my heel against his foot as he dared to guide me away.

This ended now.

No more pretending.

No more waiting for trusts and scheming in the shadows.

I wasn’t cowering any more, not when I had the money, the power, and the alliances of his sons.

This time, he was going to fear me.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me.”

Max downed his champagne. “Aw, fuck.”

“Sarah, not here,” Nicholas warned.

Darius twitched, concocting a dozen different punishments and perversions to punish my disobedience. “Be a good little girl, and take Daddy’s hand.”

I tasted the profanity on my tongue, undignified and rich with venom.

I didn’t have a chance to say it.

“Darius,
darling
!”

I recognized the voice, that melodic, southern softness. For twenty years, that voice praised and comforted, mourned and wailed, but I never heard it call so lovingly for Darius Bennett.

Nicholas took my wrist if only to prevent me from crumbling to the floor in a mess of silk and chiffon. I stared at the thinning woman gliding over the ballroom.

“
Mom
?”

My mother eagerly kissed Darius, smiling at him with a grin that tore through my gut.

She never once looked at Dad like that.

“Oh, Sprout!” She extended her arms for a hug. “I had no idea you’d be here!”

Me either. I couldn’t move.

“Go on, my dear,” Darius said. “Give your mother a hug.”

The monster bound me to my shame with knotted ropes then led me to the one woman who had no idea of the danger he posed.

I didn’t care.

Mom was there. She was okay. She wasn’t hurt.

I collapsed in her arms.

She had lost weight, but the depression wasn’t entirely Darius’s fault, not when the funerals, pills, and empty house did more harm than anyone. Her eyes puffed with dark circles, but she covered them with enough makeup and false charm to hide her grief.

But her
smile
.

That was genuine.

And I didn’t realize how much I missed it until it aimed for Darius.

“Isn’t she just lovely?” She asked.

Darius nodded. “Takes after her mother.”

“Oh, you cad.”

I didn’t release her. “Mom, are you okay?”  

“Of course, darling. I’m enjoying your brother’s wonderful party.”

I hugged her again, whispering in her ear. “Mom, really. You can tell me.”

“Sarah, what’s gotten into you?” She laughed. “You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Nicholas and Max mercifully remained silent. I tried again.

“Mom, I haven’t seen you in
forever
.”

“Oh, hush, Sprout. It hasn’t been that long.”

My chest ached. “It’s been almost three months since…I left for the Bennett Estate.”

“
Three
months? Couldn’t be.”

“You haven’t seen me since then…even when I was in the hospital.”

“The hospital? For what?”

Nicholas took my hand. I was grateful. Mom frowned in confusion.

Darius kissed her temple. “Her asthma, remember? We took care of it though. Our daughter is good as new. And her brothers have tended to her needs.”

Vile.

Wicked.

Bastard.

“Poor thing,” Mom said. “Always did have such dreadful attacks. Mark hated it.”

“She’s safe with us. I told you I’d look after her.”

“Hopefully, she hasn’t been too much trouble.”

“Little Sprout?” Darius grinned. “Oh, she’s earned a very important spot in our family.”

She laughed, but her amusement bled with fatigue. Her hands trembled as she accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waitress. Darius carefully replaced it with a club soda instead. Mom drank without realizing the difference.

“Bethany—you can’t have alcohol with the new medication.”

“Right, right. So hard to remember these things.”

He brushed her hand. “I’ll remember for you, my love.”

This was sick and wrong.

The woman before me was a shell of my mother, and the bastard at her side prayed on her depression. He couldn’t love Mom. He used her for the money and company he never received. Now he bartered my body for her safety.

But she loved him.

Christ, if she only saw the monster he really was.

But I knew better. If she learned the one man she had left in the world was a demon who abused her only surviving child?

It’d destroy her.

Whatever remained of her.

“Oh, Nicholas, don’t you look dashing?” Mom teased him with a pat to his cheek. “And Max? I hardly recognize you. Sarah, couldn’t you just eat your brothers up?”

Sure, if they didn’t eat me first.

Reed’s timely appearance rescued us. He seized two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter just to force something into Max’s hand. He addressed my mother with pure charisma.

“Bethany.” He didn’t look at me. “I didn’t know you’d be here. Now the party can get started.”

Mom chuckled. She leaned against Darius once more.

“Now I know where he gets his charm.”

The cluster of Bennetts attracted a parade of tuxedos. They descended upon Darius. Nicholas edged between me and a man I remembered from the barbecue, pre-lemonade fiasco.

Bryant.

His greeting was laced with a sweetened threat. He was one of Darius’s primary partners, but something beyond the Bennett Corporation’s feud with my family darkened his gaze.

I didn’t appreciate his Cheshire grin. He stared so hard I feared he’d see the ropes, but he studied only the midline of my dress with a scrutiny unbecoming of a man who didn’t have an apologetic tumbler of hard liquor in his hand.

“So nice to see you again, Sarah Atwood.” He looked at me but spoke to Darius. “She gets prettier by the day.”

“She is a vision,” he agreed.

Nicholas squeezed my elbow. A warning to be cautious?

“How are you, Ms. Atwood?” Bryant asked. “Still enjoying your stay with your brothers?”

“Step-brothers.” Something in his tone demanded the qualification. “And I feel I’ve taken advantage of them for too long. I should return home soon, to be with my mother.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Mom laughed. “I won’t be a burden.”

Darius patted her hand. “Sarah, I can take care of your mother. You need only to focus on yourself. These past months were trying for you.”

“And yet, my stress remains.” I shook free of Nicholas’s arm. “I’m eager to return to work and focus on my company. I have many ideas for Atwood Industries in the coming year.”

And the Bennett Corporation.

Bryant sipped his champagne. “A lot of things can change in a year, Ms. Atwood.”

I didn’t like his tone.
Something
lingered in his words beyond the usual company arrogance.

Darius agreed. “Look at what happened just this year. Your father, your brothers, the asthma. You must concentrate on what’s important.”