"Amelia? Amelia." I hear Linc calling my name. I am zeroed in on the screen. Tuning him out. His hold on my hand is tight and I ignore it. My breathing is ceasing and I don't do anything about that either. Everything that matters in this moment is what Charlotte has to say to the world about me. "When you say, 'compromising position,' what exactly do you mean, Charlotte? We don't want to assume anything unpalatable. You say this was his stepdaughter? You mean Kathryn Tanner had a daughter?" Sophie Rogan asks, sparing a conspiratory glance at the camera, I feel like she is winking at me before twisting the knife farther into my side. I recall that it is quite normal for people outside of Kathryn's close circle to know of my existence. "Yes. Amelia Tanner. Kathryn had her with her first husband, years ago. She is twenty two now." Charlotte replies with a bitter sneer, like my age was important somehow. Oh. It is. For the accusation she is leveling at Linc and I, my age is an importa
"Oh." Is all I say. "I have the draft ready, Mr. Dmitri. We will be sending the refrains to the news station first thing tomorrow morning. Though I think it is important to point out that this wouldn't affect what they already broadcasted because it is a live show. There is nothing we can do about that. But we can restrict reproduction of the broadcast from them legally. About the general public, I am afraid there is not much we can do about bits of the broadcast that was recorded being posted on the internet." Mr. Harvey, the lawyer, says. He has a reassuring voice that does nothing to reassure me right now. I need definite solutions. Not suggestions. Not halfway hopeful attempts at solutions."Do we know for sure if there are records of the broadcast already being shared on the net?" I already know the damning answer to that question. "Yes." Mrs. Delgado quips up, simply. I sigh and lean back in my chair. Heartbroken. My heart actually feels like it is shattered into a million li
Linc Dmitri POV:::"Aren't you going to go to work?" Amelia asks. Her voice is silky soft and she is looking at me with the morning light illuminating her from behind like a vision. I woke up about thirty minutes ago and just laid here, watching her sleep peacefully, she looked ethereal and I couldn't move. "No. I will do whatever I can from my home office here. It is about time I set it up more anyway." I say, she gives me a weak protesting smile but I shake my head resolutely. I am not going to work and leave her here all by herself. I can't do it. I wouldn't be able to focus. It would be a waste of time. And we have already established that she is not going back there. It was a bad idea. From the start. Born of my selfishness. What the hell did Kathryn know about what was best for Amelia? I wouldn't have taken her word as bond if I wasn't selfishly interested in having Amelia's company again. "But you have so much to do." She says, her voice is soft and weak. My brave beautiful g
Amelia POV:::Linc takes the mug from my uncontrollably shaky hands, he tilts it towards my trembling lips, I try to take a sip of the cold water, it is futile. I am shaking too much. His palm on my back does nothing to soothe my fraying nerves. Tyler is dead. Tyler is dead. Tyler. He is dead. Dead. Oh God. Oh God. This is bad. This is worse than if he showed up to kidnap me again. I will actually take that over this. Oh God. How can he be dead? Dead? Just like that. The police must be mistaken somehow. It wasn't Tyler they found. Please. It was any other body. I close my eyes and his face comes to me in such vivid details, my mind is playing cruel tricks on me because the memories that come to me are not of the real Tyler who revealed himself to me before he kidnapped me and hurt my friend and I. It is the Tyler I had a crush on in my first year of college. The cool popular kid with the easy smile and outgoing personality. The charismatic boy who had a lot of friends because everyb
Eventually, Sheryl settles down. Hernandez remains behind her, ready to hold her back before she can do anything to Linc who is seated opposite her, his expression is cool and unbothered, though empathetic in his steely way. And I am sitting adjacent to them, like an unwanted unimportant eavesdropper. Sheryl doesn't even spare me a glance, I doubt she knows I am in the room with them. There is something wild and unsettled about her features. Grief stricken out of her senses, I imagine. It hurts to look at her and try to reconcile the more put together woman I remember. I still can't decipher why she came here. She hasn't said anything. Linc offered her a glass of water when Hernandez managed to have her constrained to the couch. She refused the offer. Her fingers are tiny and they tremble. She has lost a lot of weight since I last saw her. It is borderline depressing to watch her. "Sheryl. I want to offer you my condolences." Linc breaches the silence eventually. He is cautious and
"You did! You did!" Sheryl leaps out of her seat, lunging for Linc who didn't even flinch before Hernandez restrains her. Sheryl is kicking, screaming, essentially losing her mind and I am frozen with shock and sadness for this poor woman even though, ideally she doesn't deserve my empathy. Considering the fact that she set all this in motion with her lie. What was her reason for the lie in the first place? It made no sense. Tyler probably couldn't handle the emptiness of it all and had to end his life. "Sheryl, I really do feel sorry for you and I wish there was something I could do for you, but you are not even admitting to your mistake and contribution to the ruin that your son's life turned out to be. Like I said, if the police calls for me, I will show up and help them as best as I can. Take care of yourself." Linc says and signals for Hernandez to take the hysterically sobbing and screaming woman away. I can still hear her screams as she is being taken away. I sit still with
The company's media representative and all the plans I heard Linc making with that crew did a really good job at turning the tide on the conversations being had. A small percentage of people are turning against Charlotte and seeing her stunt with Sophie Rogan for what it was, a manipulative attempt at retribution. But it is too small a percentage. The people who want to believe her are way more. But the publicists who were professionals at this kind of blowout have reassured Linc that the best we could do right now is lay low and allow it run its course. Charlotte would soon release her apology and retraction statement or face the wrath of a billionaire. I don't think she would be egotistic or foolish enough not to take the offer. And then it would simmer considerably from there. I hope so. "When are we going?" I ask Linc across from me. His breakfast is abandoned and he has a tightness around his jaw, squeezing the paper in his hand. "We are not going, Amelia." He replies, he tilt
"Hi. Yes." I say weakly. I feel a sadness unfurl in my chest, knowing that Ashley is only calling me to talk about Tyler's death. I have sent her several check in messages over the past few weeks that she hasn't replied to. But she is calling me now to scream about Tyler. "So he killed him, afterall." She whispers, like she is confirming it to herself rather to saying it to me. "He didn't. Linc had nothing to do with it. It is likely suicide. I will know for sure today when Linc comes back from the police." I hate to sound defensive but how else am I supposed to sound? I don't feel like getting into this again with her. "How are you so sure?" She asks and I can't get past the sneer in her tone. "Because I am! Okay! Because I know him! Linc didn't kill Tyler! If it wasn't suicide, then he had some other dangerous business going on that we we had no idea about." I didn't plan on losing my cool but Ashley is pushing it. "You were there! I was there too! He ran away! Linc
The door swings open and Ashley walks in, she comes straight to where I am perched in the middle of the room in my expensive wedding dress that costs seven figures, designed by a top rated designer to flatter my body and make me look unreal. It was unspoken but also to make my tiny pregnant bulge not very visible. And it is perfect. I feel like a fairy in the low V-neck, long sleeved, ankle length gown made with sheer lace, embroidered with real diamonds along my silhouette. I feel pretty. "Are you okay?" She asks.I shake my head. I am far from okay. My life is a fairytale and I can't seem to snap to reality. We are having the wedding in a quaint countryside ranch in the south of France, magical and ethereal. How can I be okay? It is a small wedding. When I say small, I mean it is just Linc and I, Ashley and Dylan, Chris who is Linc's best friend who I am just meeting who happens to be a very jovial man with a wicked sense of humour, his girlfriend, a french model whose name was so
I am alone in the bed. But Linc's scent lingers in the pillows, sheets, my senses. His side of the bed is warm. I can tell he just left. But to where? It is still Sunday right? I look around for my phone, it is six p.m in the evening of the same day so he didn't go to work. My bladder pushes all the other thoughts from my head as I make to get up and go pee. After peeing, I look at myself in the mirror and I find that I can't quite recognise the woman looking back at me. Sensual and free. My eyes are glazed and it is not because of sleep. Wild and sated. My hair is a tousled mess atop my head, hanging loosely down to frame my breasts. Linc had left me multiple hickeys. On my neck, clavicle, shoulder, breasts, everywhere I look, he is there, he has claimed me in ways that I could never detach from. It is not our first time but something about the selfless way he pleasured my body till I came, felt different, new and exhilarating. I need him to come back from wherever he went to immed
I skip over her waiting flesh, the clean trim of her pussy, the little triangle of golden hair, I kiss her inner thighs, raising them up for easy access to the feast I am about to have. Amelia quakes in my arms, I can't help the cocky smirk that comes on my face. We are only just getting started, my love. I give her a little bite around her smooth bikini line and she shivers, the sound of her breathing is audible. Quicker. Shallower. I am positioned in between her thighs and I look up, holding her eyes. "Look at me, my love. I want you to watch me as I worship you." I say, my voice is raspy and endlessly choked full with emotions that overwhelm me. Her scent is in my head, clouding my senses, holding me captive, I am hers, forever. "Linc." She only breathes in response. Waiting. Hunger. Writhing. Arching. Pleading. Wanting. I lean down and run the pointed tip of my tongue through her slick pussy folds, maintaining eye contact, enjoying the rapturous look of pleasure stretching her
Linc Dmitri POV::I kiss her like she was life itself. She is my life. She is my everything. She just made me sob like a child with the heartwrenching news that she was pregnant. Never have I ever been that overwhelmed. Completely caught off guard. I am going to be a father at forty four. Amelia, my girl, my precious little love, she is going to make me a father. It is hardly believable, I can't seem to fully come to terms with it. When I turned forty, I kind of stopped bothering about the whole heir thing. I figured I would just pass down most of my wealth to charity and the other half to her, even if she wasn't in my life anymore. I reviewed my will a few months ago, before I even called her to come back to New York, I reviewed my will and made her the part beneficiary of my entire wealth. That was the extent of my loyal affection for her. I was never going to let her struggle for anything. And then she returned and we gave in to this beautiful fire that was our relationship and I
"What?" "What?" Linc's voice overshadows Ashley's. I look away from the intensity of his eyes burning into me. My heart is beating hard and fast. I am not scared or worried, I am a lot of things. A lot of bubbling emotions and I start crying again. It is definitely the hormones. The test I did didn't say how far along I was, just that I was pregnant. Positive. "When did you find out?" Linc is in front of me. Hovering above me. He is all I see through my tears, he places his hands on my cheek gently, softly, like I was a feather he could blow away easily, like I was fragile and he was scared of hurting me, I am crying too hard to talk and he just quietly swipes away the tears, cradling my face with so much affection, the tears would not stop falling. "Yesterday night." I manage to say through my tears. He pulls me close and I get lost inside him. His huge hard body engulfs mine and I look at Ashley, her face is wet again and she is trying to wipe her face clean, she pats down my ha
"I knew her through Trent. We paid her a condolences visit and help her out with little things occasionally." Ashley says and I realise that I asked her the question out loud. She is telling me her connection with Sheryl and it only makes the sense of dread tighten in the coil of my empty belly. "I pay her a visit every Thursday to check in on how she was doing. When I got there this week, she was drunk and started sobbing uncontrollably about revenge and all sorts of things I couldn't follow till she brought out the phone and showed me the video. She said she was going to share it since, but hadn't found the courage to. She was an emotional grieving mess. It was sad to watch. I stayed with her till she fell asleep and I took the phone and deleted it from the cloud it was saved on. When she wakes up and finds it gone, she might believe she did it herself when she was drunk or whatever. I went to your place that night but you weren't around. I expected to see you in class the next day
Amelia POV::I hear the knock at the door but I don't move. I don't know when I slept off last night, and when I open my eyes to see that it is morning, I couldn't believe it. Yet, I did not move even then, not even to go pee or brush my mouth. And now with that persistent knocking, I remain inert. I didn't order anything and I am not expecting anyone so maybe it is a neighbour's guest at the wrong door. I am not bothered to go check it out. They would leave when they figure it out. My entire world is spinning and I can't seem to get a grip. A thousand thoughts rush through my mind and none is comforting. I am hot and cold at the same time and I am hungry but incredibly nauseous and sensitive to the faintest smell. I couldn't keep anything down if I tried. I sit up suddenly, alarmed by the unmistakable click of the door and then it is open and I hear that familiar voice, that silky smooth baritone that makes my insides melt and feel like mush. Linc. A weak smile plays on my lips in s
"Mr. Dmitri, are you there?" Mr. Hageman's voice comes on again, polite and persistent. Sometimes, I forget about the man's existence in the house with me. But I feel his presence in how pristine he keeps the mansion. It is not an easy job to do, but he manages it all perfectly. His bookkeeping is honest and professional, I have had him for close to ten years now and I have never had any issues with his work. I send birthday and holiday cards to his wife and kids through my assistants every year. "Yes. Send her in. I will be down in thirty minutes." I reply, getting up. I didn't plan to get out of bed today but here comes Ashley of all people, to drag me out of it. I am very curious about her visit but not enough that I would clean up before meeting her. Amelia told me she doesn't have the best opinions of me and that makes her visit all the more suspicious. Is she here for Amelia? I thought they fell out with eachother. I take a quick cold shower, put on clean casual clothes and
Linc Dmitri POV::I stretch my arms out and I come up empty. Air. Nothing. She is not here. I open my eyes and glare at the sunlight splashing on my face. It is Sunday morning and I am in a foul mood. Just yesterday, I woke up in the best mood, with her soft body in my bed after a long night of ravaging her body to my soul's satisfaction. I woke up to her warm body snuggling into me and I couldn't resist fucking her again. And now, she is not here anymore. I can't wrap my head around anything. I swing my arm up to cover my eyes. I can't stand the brightness of the morning, it feels like the universe is taunting me. How can time be moving on when my world is unstable?Did she break up with me? Are we broken up? I am forty four and I can't tell. But I do know one thing. The ugly ache stuck in my chest. Her words hurt me and I was too numb to act when she finally said she had to leave because she needed space. I just watched her. And she left. It took me hours of stunned hurtful silence