Chapter 6: The Trap

LILA’S POV

The chandelier was a frozen explosion of crystal above the table, every prism throwing knives of light across the china. Eleanor Callahan walked towards the table with a man by her side as she gestured to the table.

“Everyone, this is the woman joining our family,” she said, her voice sweet. “Lila Harper.”

The name cracked through the room louder than the crystal ever could. Forks froze halfway to their mouths, conversations died mid-sentence. And about ten pairs of eyes turned to me at once, and I felt every single one strip me bare.

I couldn’t breathe.

The six-foot-three of living nightmare standing beside her stared at me like he wanted to sniff the life out of me.

It was Zane.

He leaned against the frame as if he owned the oxygen itself—black suit jacket open, white shirt stretched across his chest, hair a deliberate mess. Those green eyes swept the room once, dismissed everyone, and locked on me like crosshairs.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I was sure the whole table heard it.

He knew. He knew exactly what I looked like naked, wrists bound, thighs trembling, mouth open around his name while he wrecked me in every way a man can wreck a woman.

And now I was sitting here, dressed like a modest little fiancée, Ethan’s hand already creeping possessively up my bare knee under the damask tablecloth.

Zane’s gaze dropped to that hand for one heartbeat. His jaw flexed. Then he smiled—slow, cold, lethal—and stepped into the room.

Every movement was deliberate. The scrape of his chair when he pulled it out directly across from me. The lazy way he unbuttoned his jacket before sitting. The way he leaned back, one arm draped over the empty chair beside him, legs spread like a king surveying a battlefield he’d already won.

Ethan’s fingers dug into my thigh. “Say hello to my nephew, darling.”

Zane’s smile sharpened. “We’ve uh… we’ve met.”

Victoria, Zane’s younger sister, with the same razor cheekbones, with the same poisonous green eyes, tilted her head. “Oh? When?”

Zane never looked away from me. “She interviewed me. Remember the cute little article making waves around the media? She made it.” He lifted his wineglass in a mocking toast. “Guess she likes to get up close and personal with dangerous men.”

Soft, delighted laughter rippled down the table. Ethan’s grip turned bruising.

Heat flooded my face as my pulse thundered in my ears. I wanted to disappear, to sink through the floor and never resurface.

Eleanor’s smile didn’t waver. “Well. I’m sure Lila’s very… thorough.”

Another ripple of laughter, darker this time.

Zane set his glass down with deliberate care. “She is.”

The double meaning landed like a slap. I felt it between my legs, the ghost of his fingers, the sting of the cane, the way he’d made me say please before he let me cum.

Ethan’s thumb stroked higher, brushing the lace edge of my panties. “Relax, sweetheart,” he murmured against my ear, breath sour with red wine. “You’re shaking.”

I was, because across the table Zane was carving his lamb with surgical precision, each slice slow and vicious, and every time our eyes met I felt the blade.

Conversation crawled forward about stocks, about the new real-estate deal, about the wedding date. My wedding date. They discussed it like they were scheduling a board meeting.

“St. Regis in April,” Eleanor said brightly. “We want it as intimate as possible with only four hundred guests.”

“It will be perfect for a magazine coverage,” Victoria added, smirking at me. “Lila will look lovely on the society pages.”

I swallowed acid.

Zane’s fork stabbed through meat with a sudden, small violence. “Some women chase stability,” he said, voice conversational, lethal. “Some women burn through beds faster than headlines. Better to lock the second kind down quick, right, Uncle Ethan?”

The table went very, very quiet.

Ethan’s hand froze on my thigh.

Zane lifted his gaze to me, slow and cruel. “Wouldn’t want any… unnecessary complications.”

Every person at that table looked at me then, the cousins looked with patronizing smirks, Victoria looked with a cold assessment, Eleanor looked with the tiniest narrowing of ice-blue eyes.

I was meat on a hook, and they were circling. My wineglass trembled in my hand, I set it down before I shattered it.

Richard—my father—laughed too loud. “Lila’s a good girl. She knows her place.”

Zane’s eyes flashed. “Does she?”

I couldn’t breathe, the room was too small, the air too thick, the weight of ten judgments crushing my sternum.

I shoved my chair back, the scrape was deafening.

“Excuse me,” I whispered.

No one stopped me, they all just stared.

The hallway stretched forever with marble floors, portraits of dead Callahans glaring down. I made it ten steps, fifteen, my heels clicking too loud, before a hand clamped over my mouth and the world tilted.

I was yanked sideways through a side door and the lock clicked.

Zane spun me, slammed my back against the wall, and pinned my wrists above my head with one brutal hand. The powder room was tiny, gold fixtures and dim sconces, a mirror reflecting us like a crime scene.

His body crushed mine with heat and fury and muscle. His thigh shoved between my legs, forcing my dress up my hips.

“You fucking slut,” he snarled, mouth an inch from mine. “You let me tie you up, cane your pretty little thighs, fuck you until you cried and then the very next day you walk into my family’s house as my uncle’s fiancée?”

I tried to speak but his hand tightened over my mouth until my lips parted on a gasp.

“Don’t,” he hissed. “You don’t get to talk yet.”

His free hand dropped to my throat, not squeezing, just resting there, thumb pressing the frantic beat of my pulse.

“Tell me, Harper,” he said, voice low and vicious. “Was last night just research for you? Did you get into my bed to get the inside scoop and then crawl into my uncle’s lap before breakfast?”

Tears burned my eyes as I shook my head frantically.

He laughed, dark and ugly. “Liar.”

His thigh pressed higher, grinding against my soaked panties, my hips rolled before I could stop them. Shame flooded me, hot and humiliating.

Zane’s eyes dropped to where our bodies met. “Jesus Christ. You’re drenched.” His hand left my throat and dragged my dress higher, bunching it at my waist. “You’re such a whore, Lila. And the good thing is I like whores.”

He ripped my panties down my thighs in one violent yank, the lace caught on my heels; he didn't bother removing it, he just shoved my legs wider.

Cool air hit my wet skin as his palm followed, cupping my bare pussy, and owning it.

“Look at this greedy little cunt,” he growled. “Your pussy still fucking want me. It’s still breathing for me, Lil.”

He inserted two thick fingers inside my core without warning.

“Zane… fuck…!!” I cried out into his hand, the stretch burning, perfect, overwhelming.

He pumped hard, curling, his knuckles grinding my clit with every thrust. “You’re going to cum all over my fingers,” he rasped against my ear, teeth scraping the lobe. “Right here where anyone could walk in. And then you’re going to go back to that table and sit in your own mess while Ethan paws at you.”

“Nhhhghhh… Zane… please…”

My knees buckled.

He held me up by the cunt and the wrists, fucking me deeper, adding a third finger until I was sobbing into his palm.

“That’s it,” he crooned, dark and filthy. “Take it. Take every inch like the desperate slut you are.”

I was close—so close—tears streaming, my thighs shaking, when he slowed, dragging his fingers out, keeping me on the razor’s edge.

“Please,” I mumbled against his hand.

He pulled his fingers out just long enough to slap my clit—sharp, stinging, perfect.

“Mmmhmmm…” I jerked, a broken moan escaping.

“Please what?” he taunted, sliding back in, slower now, torturous. “Please stop? Or please don’t stop finger-fucking my uncle’s fiancée in the guest bathroom?”

Another slap.

“Mhmmm… fuck..” another broken cry.

He curled his fingers hard, his thumb smashing my clit, and I shattered, cuming so hard my vision whited out, my pussy clenching around him in waves that left me limp and gasping.

He kept stroking through it, drawing it out until I was trembling with aftershocks.

And just then three sharp knocks rattled the door.

“Zane?” Eleanor Callahan’s voice, cool and imperial. “Zane, are you in there? Open this door.”

But Zane didn’t stop.

Instead he fucked me slower now, deeper, his eyes locked on mine, his lips curled in a vicious smirk. His thumb circled my oversensitive clit, forcing another helpless shudder from me.

“Z…ane.. we—need to stop… fuck…” I managed to rasp.

“Zane,” Eleanor snapped, doorknob rattling. “Are you there?”

He leaned in, licked a tear off my cheek, as his fingers removed my panties. He pocketed it and whispered against my skin:

“Fix your dress, Aunty. And don’t you dare clean up. I want you leaking from your own cum for the rest of the night.”

His gaze was fixed on mine as brought his soaked fingers to his mouth, and sucked them clean, slow and deliberate, while his mother’s fist pounded the door.

“I’m coming, Mother,” he finally replied.

I sagged against the wall, wrecked, shaking, ruined.