Semua Bab I Let My Father's Best Friend Taste Me : Bab 51 - Bab 60

KAEL'S POV Silas Cole stood behind my father in law with a hospital key card in his hand and a smile on his face like he had already won. I moved before Julian could turn around, putting my body between Harlow and that doorway."Get away from her," I said.Julian spun, saw Silas, went white. "How did you get out.""Your security is very bad at their job, Julian," Silas said pleasantly. "Just like it was twenty five years ago. Rain. Whiskey. Elena begging you not to drive.""Shut your mouth," Julian snarled.Harlow sat up in bed behind me, the sheet clutched to her chest, diamond flashing on her left hand. "Dad. Is it true."Julian did not turn around. "Harlow, baby girl, please—""Did you kill Mom," Harlow asked. Flat. Clear.Julian's shoulders dropped all at once. "Yes."The monitor beeped steady behind us. Thump thump thump."I was drunk," Julian said, voice raw. "Your mother and I fought. About money. About Silas stealing from the company. She grabbed my keys. Tried to leave. I gr

KaelHe is gone.Two words. Three syllables. And my entire world tilted on its axis while my daughter fought for her life behind glass and my wife sat in a wheelchair shaking like a leaf."Say that again," I said to the nurse. My voice did not sound like mine. Too calm. Too cold. The kind of calm that happened right before I put someone in the ground.The nurse flinched. "Mr. Hawthorne, the detective is waiting outside. He said Silas Cole escaped transport. He hurt two officers. They are in surgery now."Harlow's hand found mine on her shoulder and clamped down, nails biting through my shirt. "Kael."I looked down at her. She was pale, lips white, IV taped to her arm, wrapped in blankets that did not hide the fact she had almost died six hours ago. Our daughter was three feet away in an incubator with tubes in her nose. And Silas Cole was loose."Kael," Harlow said again, sharper this time. "Look at me."I did. Her eyes were terrified, but clear. Present. Not panicking. Assessing. Pla

KAEL'S POV Elena Rose Hawthorne was six weeks old and already running my entire house.I was up on a little ladder hanging the mobile Sage bought, the one with the felt stars that played lullabies, and Harlow was in the doorway with Elena on her hip giving me that look."Your daughter is doing it again," she said.I didn't even have to ask what it was. When I left the room, Elena held her breath until I came back. Dramatic. Just like her mother."She learned that trick from you," I said, trying to get the mobile straight. "You can't reward emotional blackmail."Harlow walked in, Elena bright eyed and completely faking it, and then the second Elena saw me she stopped crying and blew a big spit bubble right at me and smiled that gummy, toothless smile."She didn't miss me," I said. "She's conning us both.""She absolutely missed you," Harlow said. "You left for ninety seconds. You texted me twelve times yesterday when I went to buy milk. She gets it from you."I climbed down and took h

Chapter 1Vespera’s POVThe ballroom of the Aurelius Hotel smelled of expensive perfume, aged whiskey, and the quiet desperation of men who measured their worth in stock prices and ruined competitors. I stood near the edge of the crowd in a black dress that clung too tightly and a pair of heels that already hurt, holding a glass of champagne I had no intention of finishing. My father had ordered me here with the same cold efficiency he used when he signed contracts designed to destroy people. Smile, he had said to me and be charming, you are to represent the family. As if I had ever been more than an afterthought in the house where he raised me.I watched him across the room, Corvin Quill, laughing with a group of investors while the man he hated most stood only thirty feet away. Thorne Veyra looked exactly as dangerous as every rumor claimed. Tall, broad through the shoulders, silver threading the dark hair at his temples, a suit that fit him like it had been cut for violence r

Chapter 3Vespera’s POVMorning light spilled across the wide bed in pale gold strips, and I woke to the solid heat of Thorne’s body still pressed along my back, one heavy arm locked around my waist and his palm resting low on my stomach as if he had claimed that space in his sleep and saw no reason to release it. The ache between my legs was a deep, persistent throb that reminded me with every small shift of exactly how thoroughly he had used me the night before, and when I tried to ease away from him his arm tightened without him even opening his eyes.“Stay,” he said, the single word rough with sleep, and then his hand slid lower, fingers parting me with easy familiarity and finding the slick evidence of the night still coating my thighs. He stroked through it slowly, gathering the mixture of us and rubbing it against my swollen clit until my hips jerked against his palm, and only then did he open his eyes and look at me over my shoulder with the quiet intensity of a man who had