All Chapters of Sinfully His: Craving The Devil's Son: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

POV: ClaraThe morning light felt like a physical weight pressing against my eyelids. My head throbbed with the kind of hangover that had nothing to do with champagne and everything to do with the lies I had swallowed the night before. Victor had left before dawn for some mysterious business meeting, leaving the mansion even quieter than usual. It was a gilded tomb, and I was the body they forgot to bury.I retreated to the East Wing office, locking the door behind me. I couldn't stop thinking about what Nikolai said at the gala—about the W-Project and his mother. I found the file sitting on the desk where he had left it, the blue folder looking like a ticking bomb. I started flipping through the pages, my breath catching in my throat as I reached the back of the document.There were photos. Not professional ones, but grainy, candid shots of my mother from years ago. In every one, she looked terrified. She wasn't the happy woman I remembered from my childhood; she was a captive in pla

POV: ClaraThe sun beat down on the polo field, but I felt like I was standing in a freezer. Victor was a few yards away, laughing with a senator and adjusting his silk tie like he didn't have a basement full of human suffering. I was forced to sit in the VIP box, sandwiched between the elite and Camille Quinn, who looked like she was ready to draw blood.Camille’s grey eyes were fixed on the field where Nikolai was riding, but her focus was entirely on me. Every time I breathed, she seemed to take it as a personal insult. When the match hit halftime, she stood up abruptly and jerked her head toward the lounge."We need to talk. Now," she snapped.The ladies' lounge was all white marble and gold fixtures, smelling of expensive lilies and desperation. Camille waited until the door clicked shut before she turned on me, her face twisting into a mask of pure entitlement."You’re a black hole, Clara. Do you know that?" she hissed, stepping into my personal space. "You’ve sucked Victor in w

POV: ClaraThe leather interior of the SUV felt like a coffin. Victor sat beside me, the orange glow of the streetlights strobing across his face as we sped away from the docks. He was in a celebratory mood, practically vibrating with a dark, manic energy."Did you see that, Clara? The efficiency? Most men spend their lives begging for a fraction of that power," he bragged.He reached over and patted my knee, his touch making my skin crawl like a thousand insects were burrowing into my flesh. I felt physically ill, the image of those eyes in the crate burned into the back of my eyelids."I did," I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.I realized then that Victor’s "love" for me was never about who I was. It was never about the girl from Delhi or the woman I had become. It was about the thrill of corrupting something he considered "pure" and keeping it locked in a gilded cage. He didn't want a wife; he wanted a pet that could witness his depravity and still be

POV: NikolaiI slammed the cue ball into the rack, the sound echoing through the billiards room like a gunshot. I didn't care about the game. I just wanted to get the sound of Clara’s laugh out of my head.Henry leaned against the mahogany table, chalking his cue with a look that told me he was about to say something I wouldn’t like. He hadn't stopped grinning since dinner."You’re going to break the table, Nik," Henry said, his voice way too casual."The table is fine," I snapped, lining up a shot on the eight ball and missing by a mile.Henry chuckled, stepping up to take his turn. "It’s not the table I’m worried about. You’ve been vibrating for the last two hours. Is it the wine, or is it the fact that your stepmother actually has a personality?""She doesn't have a personality. She has a script," I said, leaning back and crossing my arms.Henry sank two balls in a row before looking up at me. "Right. A script that involves laughing at my jokes and looking like a real person for fi

POV: NikolaiI stared at the muddy footprint on the white marble of the hallway and felt like a total idiot. It was a clear, brown smudge right outside the library door. I must have been more out of it than I thought when I got back from the Quinn shed yesterday. If I was getting this sloppy, Victor was going to bury me before I even had a chance to swing.I needed to snap out of it. I needed to remind myself that Clara was just a job, a revenge project that got a little too complicated."Hey, Camille," I said into my phone, leaning against the cold wall. "You want to come over? Let’s hang out by the pool house.""Oh, finally! I thought you’d forgotten I existed after that storm," she chirped.I made sure she got there fast. I also made sure the door to the pool house was cracked open just enough. It was the perfect angle. Anyone walking toward the library would have to see us.It was petty. I knew it was petty. But I needed to see if I still had that grip on myself, or if Clara Wilso