“Take off your dress, Meadow.” “Why?” “Because your ex is watching,” he said, leaning back into his seat. “And I want him to see what he lost.” ••••*••••*••••* Meadow Russell was supposed to get married to the love of her life in Vegas. Instead, she walked in on her twin sister riding her fiance. One drink at the bar turned to ten. One drunken mistake turned into reality. And one stranger’s offer turned into a contract that she signed with shaking hands and a diamond ring. Alaric Ashford is the devil in a tailored Tom Ford suit. Billionaire CEO, brutal, possessive. A man born into an empire of blood and steel. He also suffers from a neurological condition—he can’t feel. Not objects, not pain, not even human touch. Until Meadow touches him, and he feels everything. And now he owns her. On paper and in his bed. She wants him to ruin her. Take what no one else could have. He wants control, obedience… revenge. But what starts as a transaction slowly turns into something Meadow never saw coming. Obsession, secrets that were never meant to surface, and a pain from the past that threatens to break everything. Alaric doesn’t share what’s his. Not his company. Not his wife. And definitely not his vengeance.
View MoreMeadow’s POV
“Hi. I have a reservation. Meadow Russell.” The receptionist raised her gaze to look at me, and then she jerked back slightly, eyes raking over me from top to bottom. Her deep red-colored lips were pulled down in a sneer. “You’re kidding, right?” she scoffed, turning to the lady beside her who had a similar expression on her face. I blinked, frowning. “Excuse me?” The receptionists exchanged another look that made my skin crawl. What the hell was wrong with them? All I wanted to do was get the keys to my room and wait for my fiance, Tyler. We were getting married in a few hours. It was going to be a private ceremony, just me and him. And I wasn’t going to let anyone shit on my plans—much less a couple of rude receptionists. The red-lipped receptionist tilted her head at me. “You already checked in two hours ago. If this is some kind of prank, I’d suggest you quit it now before I call security.” My brows furrowed. “What? I haven’t checked in.” A nervous laugh escaped my mouth. The second receptionist glanced at me as if she was considering something, and then she turned to red lip. “Show her.” Red lip scowled at me, but she did as she was told. She turned her laptop to face me, clicking on a button. And then she pointed at something. The check-in list. And sure enough, my name was there. Meadow Russell. “Oh,” I let out a laugh. “It’s probably my fiance. He must have checked in with my name. I was supposed to get here before him though, that’s why I’m so surprised.” The receptionists exchanged another look. They seemed confused. “That’s not a funny joke, miss,” the second receptionist said. “You checked in with a man two hours ago. I know that because I complimented that cute top you’re wearing.” I glanced down at the white crop top with the word, “BRIDE” written across it. Tyler had gotten me this top a few days ago. He said he saw it and thought it would look really good for the wedding. “And then you said you’re getting married real soon,” red lip finished for her. Something heavy—along with my heart—dropped into my stomach. Something was wrong. “This has to be a misunderstanding…” I trailed off. Because there was no way… No fucking way. “That wasn’t me,” I said firmly this time. They exchanged another glance, and when they both looked at me, I could see something resembling pity in their expression. I didn't like that look. At all. Finally, Red lip sighed. “I don’t know why, but I believe you. Then she leaned backward to search for something. She emerged with a key card. “I hope you get things sorted out,” she muttered, forcing a smile on her face. I couldn’t breathe the entire way up the elevator. This wasn’t possible. She wouldn’t… No. Not after everything. But even as I swiped the key card to unlock the door to our room, my heart raced, and bile rose up my throat. Opening the door only confirmed my fears. My twin sister, Juniper, was straddling my fiance, moaning out loud as he rammed into her from under. For a full minute, all I could do was stare. I stood there, my bag dropping onto the floor with a soft thud. The insides of my cheek hurt because of how hard I was biting them. Tears had long blurred my vision. And they hadn't even noticed me. ‘Maybe he didn’t know,’ I said to myself. ‘Maybe he thought Juni was me.’ But even without saying those words out loud, I realized how awfully stupid they sounded. Tyler and I had never had sex. “Mmhm, yes. That’s it, baby,” Juniper moaned. “You fuck me so good, babe.” Something inside of me broke, screaming at me to turn around, leave quietly and never show my face again. But something stronger dared me to stay. So that’s what I did. “Juniper…?” My voice cracked. “Tyler?” They both turned to look at me at the same time. Surprise and something else flared in Tyler’s expression, but it was gone before I could blink. He pushed her off him, and Juniper had the nerve to moan. “Seriously, Ty? I was close.” Ty? “Meadow,” Tyler heaved as he jumped out of the bed, not even bothering to cover his junk. “I swear, I thought she was you. I didn’t—” He started to reach for my arm but I jerked back, my eyes focused on one person and one person alone. Juniper. She had a smug grin on her face as she arranged her disheveled hair. “Oh, please, baby,” she said airily. “It’s time we cut the act, don’t you think? It’s getting too pathetic.” Tyler turned to face her. “Come on. It’s fun.” “What is… what are you…?” I was speechless. Stunned. It didn’t look like this was some kind of first time mistake. It looked like they knew each other really well. And there’s no way that was even possible. Because I’d never introduced Juniper to Tyler. I hadn’t even seen Juniper in two years. “How—” Juniper let out a sharp laugh as she stood up. She also didn’t bother to cover up, so both of them were stark naked in front of me. “She’s going into shock, baby. We should put her out of her misery right away, shouldn’t we?” She mused, walking over to where Tyler stood. And then she pulled him toward her and kissed him right in front of me, letting out a soft moan and a giggle. I wanted to leave so badly, but my feet wouldn’t move. For some reason, they were glued to the floor. And for an even more fucked reason, I couldn’t look away. I watched Juniper grab Tyler’s still-hard dick in her hand and jerk it back and forth while her eyes remained on mine. “Y–you said…” I struggled to form words. I couldn’t even recognize my own voice. “You said you weren’t ready to have sex yet, Tyler,” I said shakily. “You said you’d wait till we were married.” Tyler threw his head back and laughed, biting his lip and groaning slightly due to the pleasure he was receiving. My knees buckled from under me and I had to hold on to the wall to steady myself. “I thought you loved me!” I said louder now, feeling the tears begin to run down my face. Juniper let go of Tyler and he took a few steps closer to me. And when he took a hold of my jaw, I couldn’t move. “You thought I loved you, Meadow? No. Juni’s the love of my life.”Meadow’s POV: The back of my eyelids started to burn with unshed tears. Hell no, this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. I wasn’t supposed to cry in front of this woman.I looked away from her, blinking rapidly. “You’re right,” I whispered. “He does need me. But I can’t be the person he needs me to be, Ingrid. I can’t just be some kind of… thing that keeps him grounded to reality. Alaric needs me, but he doesn’t love me. And I’m sorry, but that will never be enough for me.” I rose to my feet. “I know you love your son, and I have no idea how much he told you about us and I…” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “Is that what you came here for? To ask me to go back to him?”Cami was right. Alaric was in a very bad state, and his mother was only here because she thought I could fix it for some reason. I didn’t believe that Ingrid would come here on her own accord just to apologize to me. She wanted something, and she had just told me what she wanted.She rose to her feet as well.
Meadow’s POV: Ingrid Ashford’s presence was still as tall and intimidating as ever. However, I wasn’t in the mood for her shit today.To my surprise, her hair wasn’t pulled back in the tight bun it usually was—she let it down beautifully today.“Gives me a migraine,” she said as she noticed where my attention was. “As if having two boys wasn’t enough of a headache already.”Holy… shit.Did she just say something light-hearted to me? Did she just try to make a joke?My gaze narrowed. “Your children are hardly boys, Ingrid. They’re grown men.”‘And maybe you need to get off their backs,’ I wanted to add, but decided against it.“Maybe one day, when you have children, you’ll understand why we as mothers do the things we do and why we’ll always do anything to protect our children even if that means risking our health.”That was it.I scoffed, shooting Ingrid a glare. “If this is what you came here for, then I’ll gladly shut the door in your face. I’m already going through a lot without y
Meadow’s POV:I froze, but I didn’t need to wait long before she continued. “I didn’t tell you the truth because you were already feeling terrible and I didn’t want to make you feel worse—”“Cami, telling me Alaric was fine made me feel worse—”“Did it?” she asked quietly. “If you knew how he was really doing, you would’ve gone back to him out of guilt. And I didn’t want you to subject yourself to that torture of not knowing exactly how he feels about you.”A rock formed in my throat that was too hard to swallow.Nova’s eyes softened, and her smile was sad. She was agreeing with her. “She has a point,” she murmured.“I’m so sorry, Meadow…”“How… how exactly is he doing?” My voice was barely above a whisper, but luckily, Cami caught it.“Um… I can’t really tell because I haven’t seen him in a while. He isolated everybody—even his own brother.” Nova nodded to confirm that fact. “But I don’t think he’s okay. Ingrid was the only one who was able to force her way into his house to see him.
Meadow’s POV: “Well?”“Well, what?” I muttered absentmindedly, not looking up from my laptop screen. I’d just finished class for today and was trying to do some research for my homework, but Nova was doing a good job in distracting me.“Do you like this one?” she asked. “It’s gonna look hot on you.”I looked up at her, slowly scanning the sea-green silk dress she was holding up with a hanger. And then, pinching the bridge of my nose, I replied: “I already told you I’m not going to the opening, Nova.”“And I already told you you have to go,” she countered, tossing the dress aside and joining me on my bed. “Especially since you know Alaric’s going too.”My heart clenched at the sound of his name. It had been four whole weeks since I saw him… since I heard his voice, and it was killing me—I tried to deny it at first and pretend to be fine, but it wasn’t even up to a week before the hurt intensified. God, I missed him so much. And I suppose it made me feel pathetic since he probably di
Alaric’s POV: My gaze narrowed at the edges. “Is that a serious question?”That was not a question I thought my mother would ever ask. She disliked Meadow, maybe even hated her. And she was the one person I thought would be the happiest about her leaving.But now she was asking me why I let her leave?Was this a damn dream?“Does it sound like I’m joking?” she scoffed. “Why the hell did you let her leave if you love her?”My eyes narrowed even further. This was completely out of character for her.I shook my head, walking over to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. “Does it matter?” I muttered. “We’re not together anymore. You should be happy about that, not asking why I let her leave.”“Look.” Mutti sighed, and when I turned around to face her, her hands were on her hips. “I know I may have given you the impression that I didn’t like her—”“Impression?” Now it was my time to scoff. “I think you made it really fucking clear that you didn’t like her. I had to warn you severa
Alaric’s POV:(One Month Later) One month.Thirty days.Over seven hundred hours.That was how long it had been since I last spoke to Meadow, touched her, kissed her, held her… I was losing my fucking mind.‘Thud.’I couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t live without her, couldn’t fucking function without her.‘Thud.’ My fist connected with my diamond-studded punching bag again and again and again until I was satisfied.However, I was never fucking satisfied. I didn’t feel the pain—only the pressure. I watched my knuckles carefully to see if they would break: I didn’t want to let myself get carried away.I only caused enough damage to be able to treat with my first aid box. The diamonds had already turned reddish, stained with my blood. And yet, I wasn’t ready to stop.I needed her.‘Thud.’But I broke her.‘Another thud.’I didn’t deserve her. I did something that was unforgiveable—so our relationship was doomed either way. If Meadow found out what I did, I wasn’t sure what she would do
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