[ARMONICA]“I’m sorry—why am I stuck with you again?”Zach rolled his eyes, tapping away something on his iPad while the car drove through the evening traffic.“Because I don’t have a date and Tyler’s flight is three hours delayed.” He said, without even looking at me, and for the hundredth time perhaps, I let out a heavy sigh.Just the mention of Tyler had my gut twist.“Quit being dramatic,” Zach spared me a brief glance before dropping his focus back to the screen. “It’s only a matter of a few hours, then you’re free to go back to whatever.”I knew where he was going with that insinuation. “Are you mad at me?” I asked, frowning.It wasn’t even surprising anymore. Recently, everyone had been mad at me. Maybe I did have a role to play for Zara and Brandon to ignore me like a plague. But God knows, I didn’t mean to hurt them. Over the last few weeks, Zara had grown on me. And not only because my idiot cousin was crazy for her, but also because she was the kind of person I always aspir
[ZARA]The next morning when I saw Maddox, he was soaring down the stairs with the grace of royalty while I sat at the dining table, minding my breakfast. When one of the maids working in the kitchen noticed him pulling the chair, she quickly dropped whatever she had been up to and rushed to set his plate.I rolled my eyes and focused on my breakfast, trying my damn hardest to ignore the heatwave of his gaze. Unlike any other day, all my efforts seemed in vain, considering the role I had played to piss him off by denying him his share of satisfaction. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a smidgen of guilt myself. Maddox had never denied me the pleasure that was so hard to resist when he filled me so completely. In fact, he made sure to give me more than I hoped. He satisfied me beyond imagination. Not once, or twice, but every single time.With a short mental groan, I tried to suppress that tiny little voice in my head. The one time I take some revenge on him and serve him what he be
“Don’t what?”“Don’t start something you’re not gonna finish,” after all, why would he treat me any differently than the way I did last night? I knew he would walk away the way I did. He was here for revenge.“Darling, I would like nothing more than to finish you off,” he whispered seductively, grazing his luscious lips against the length of my neck.I clenched his shirt tightly, imagining his face buried deep between my legs, consuming me like no other. “No. You won’t.” I shook my head, reminding myself to breathe, eyes still firmly shut. “You’re doing this to punish me.”“Do I need to prove you wrong?”“You can’t prove me wrong when I’m right.”“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing…” a chuckle rippled out of him, but he did nothing to move away or give me some space. Maddox continued to hold me tight, his warm, large hand too close to my thrumming hole. “You’re practically tempting me to prop you on this damn table and widen you enough to shove my cock deep in your pussy. I be
[ZARA]I had seen Maddox angry. I had seen him throwing a fit.I had seen him dazzle a million-dollar grin just so he could get on my nerves.I had seen him snap my father’s wrist with no hesitation at all.But never had I caught him with tears in his eyes. I never thought he was capable of it. I always thought it was humanly impossible for him to feel anything other than vanity and narcissism. It kind of broke my heart a little when worried tears rolled down his cheeks as he clutched the steering wheel too tight, his knuckles turning pale and stiffening every time his phone buzzed with a notification.When I asked him to take me with him, he only nodded before sucking in a deep breath, pulling himself together, as if hoping for the best.Now, we were in the hospital, and Louis was in the Emergency room. Nathan met us at the reception, looking just as dishevelled and worried sick as Maddox was. I could see Nadine trying not to unleash the tears glimmering in her eyes.It was only yest
“Coffee?” With a steaming cup in my hand, I held it out for him.After Louis was shifted to ICU, Nathan took Nadine for a walk outside. She had been feeling a tad dizzy after so much crying—who wouldn’t?—so I suggested they take a breather. I went with them and checked out the cafe downstairs. While they ordered a meal so he could feed his famished wife, I returned with two cups of coffee.Maddox sat in a leaning posture, his elbows digging into his thighs.At my question, he reluctantly lifted his head and flicked his tired gaze from me to the cup in my hand.He took it. “Thanks.”I sat down next to him. Stayed silent for a while, before it felt suffocating and I couldn’t sigh without knowing. “Are you okay?”My eyes were glued to the white wall in front of us, but I felt his eyes on me, only for a second, though.“Yeah.” That’s all he said.My chest tightened. I tried to breathe through my mouth. I wanted to talk to him, to hear his voice, but at the same time, I didn’t know what to
[ZARA]For the next whole week, all four of us did nothing but take turns looking after Louis. It had become a routine. While Nathan and Nadine stayed and accompanied her in the hospital during the day, Maddox and I stayed the night.Every time I stepped into her ward, my eyes stung with stabbing tears. Like Maddox, I had wanted to hate Louis, too, for the unexpected turn my life had taken. I tried even. But no matter how much I forced myself to or reasoned myself with, I couldn’t do it for the life of me. Maybe she had been aggressively forceful many times and somehow all our conversations ended up with her trying to prompt me to coax her son and make lots and lots of babies, but the truth was, she wasn’t exactly a bad person. Since the day we met after our contract marriage, she had been nothing but caring and protective of me, chiding Maddox for the weight I hadn’t lost, the glow that never vanished, the clothes I never ran short of or not taking me anywhere after the wedding…Well
[MADDOX]“I know I’ve been giving you crap recently, but really, are you sure about this?” Jade asked as we sat in my home office, going through some leads regarding Richard Milton that had recently popped up.It had already been two weeks since they discharged mom from the hospital, and we brought her home. Nathan and Nadine had been constantly chewing my ear off about Zara and why she wasn’t part of the small gathering we had to welcome mom home. Mom had asked about her, too. I told them she had some personal things to take care of. The truth was, I hadn’t seen her since that night when I handed her those papers to put an end to our contract. I still had no answer from her. She just left without a word.Or a goodbye.Was I sure about letting Zara go?Absolutely not.But it was the right thing to do. Even if every cell in my body was kicking my ass to go back to her and shred those papers away, I couldn’t persuade my legs to move. Other than mom and Nathan, I had only allowed two mor
Her hands reached up my chest and tugged at the buttons of my shirt. I tried to stop her, but she was growing too reckless too fast. My head buzzed with irritation and an angry growl to peel this woman off me. The touch that once electrified every single cell in my body now felt sickening and dirty.“Jade!” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. She wasn’t in her right mind. “What the hell—”The door of my home office swung open and a pair of eyes landed on me. I turned to face the door, all the while holding Jade and keeping her as far from me as possible.The next heartbeat that slammed against my ribs knocked the air right out of my chest.A confused Zara stood at the door with her lips slightly parted. I watched with a great horror of my own when she pursed her lips and pinched her eyebrows, studying where my hands were and the woman connected to them.“Zara!” I wasn’t a fool to not understand what she might perceive of this. The speed with which her expression was turning into on