CHAPTER 4

PETER POV

“You’re hysterical,” I say, keeping my voice clipped and level as I keep one hand flat against the leather steering wheel.

The rain slams against the windshield of my SUV outside the St. Regis, heavy and deafening. Eight months ago in Singapore, I didn't care who Richard slept with until my phone lit up with a video file from a private security line. I open the saved clip, sliding my phone onto the center console between us.

“Look at the screen,” I command.

The video plays without sound. Lydia sits on Richard’s mahogany desk in his private study, her silk dress pulled up past her knee, her face wet with tears while my father’s hand rests firmly over her skin.

“He threatened my family’s company, Peter,” Lydia’s recorded voice bleeds through the speaker, breathless and terrified. “I had no choice. He told me if I didn't stay, he’d liquidate our loans by morning.”

Anna doesn't speak. Her hands tremble as she pulls her own phone out, sliding a photograph across the dark console to match mine. It’s Jack and Mary entering suite 408 forty minutes ago, Jack’s hand resting flush against Mary’s lower back.

“He took fifty thousand a month from my father’s corporate account,” Anna whispers, her voice breaking on the last word. “I thought he loved me. Three years, Peter. Three years I sat at that dinner table listening to Mary tell me how much she cared about my career, touching my hair like she owned me, while Jack was taking money under the table to touch her.”

“Stop talking,” I say, looking straight ahead into the downpour.

“I can’t stop talking!” she shouts, her lungs heaving as she turns in her seat to face me. “I feel like my chest is on fire! Every single time I looked at him, every time I let him touch me, he was thinking about my stepmother’s hands on his skin! I was so stupid! I was the cover! I was just the little trophy daughter keeping the family picture clean so they could drag me through the dirt!”

Her grief is too loud. The raw, violent sound of her sobbing fills the tight space of the front seat, vibrating through my ribs until my jaw aches from clenching. I hated her on sight two hours ago because she bore the name of the man who took everything from me.

Now, her pain is a mirror.

Before I can stop myself, my arm moves on its own. I reach across the console, grabbing her shoulder and dragging her hard against my chest.

“Breathe,” I growl into her hair.

“I hate them,” she sobs into the fabric of my suit jacket, her fingers clutching my lapels so tight her knuckles turn white. “I hate my father, I hate Mary, I hate Jack, and I hate you for looking at me like I was part of it!”

“I know,” I say, my chest heaving against hers as my own blood burns with pure, dark rage.

She pulls back abruptly, her face flushed, her lips parted, her tear-stained eyes locking onto mine in the dim dashboard light. She’s breathing fast, her chest pressing against my frame, her scent—vanilla and rain—filling the cabin until I can’t draw a single breath without tasting her.

Our faces are inches apart.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Anna breathes out, her pulse hammering against the base of her throat.

She grabs my collar and yanks my mouth down onto hers hard.

The kiss is pure violence—teeth clashing, tongues fucking into each other’s mouths, wet and desperate. She bites my lower lip until it splits, copper flooding both our tongues as she shoves hers deep, licking the blood, tasting salt and rain and pure humiliation.

I don’t pull back. I fist her hair at the base of her skull and crush her mouth under mine, tongue thrusting deep, kissing her like I want to choke her with it. Every ounce of hatred and possession pours into the kiss while my other hand already works my belt open.

I shove the console aside and haul her straight into the backseat, dragging her across my lap. Anna’s legs lock around my waist, thighs spreading wide as her nails rip through my shirt and dig bloody half-moons into my shoulders. I tear her silk blouse open with both hands—buttons explode across the leather, fabric ripping. My palm slams onto her bare hip, fingers sinking into soft flesh hard enough to bruise while my cock throbs thick and heavy against the soaked crotch of her lace panties. The heat of her cunt soaks straight through the thin fabric, coating the rigid length of me in her wetness.

“You’re out of your mind,” I growl against her jaw, dragging my mouth down her throat and biting the soft skin until she gasps.

Her skin burns under my lips. Every upward grind of my hips drags the swollen head of my cock along her dripping slit through the lace, the wet fabric clinging to her folds, outlining the soft, puffy lips of her cunt.

“I hate you,” Anna whispers into my ear, voice shredded, as her hands yank my trousers open and shove them down just enough to free my cock. It springs out thick and hard, the flushed head already slick with precum. Her thighs open wider, grinding her soaked lace directly against the bare shaft, smearing her wetness all over me.

I shove two fingers under the ruined lace, sliding through the dripping mess of her cunt. She’s soaked—hot, swollen, so wet her juices coat my knuckles as I push deeper, rubbing over her clit before curling inside her. I fuck my fingers into her while crushing my mouth back onto hers, tongue thrusting in time with the wet slide of my fingers.

“I hate you more,” I answer against her lips.

Neither of us stops.