Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

in his blood—his father had seen to that by spilling it himself, long ago. More, he had vowed that he would wipe the Connolly family off the map, one by one.

And so he would, starting now.

“Right here is fine, Kendra.” He inclined his head. “You can begin by stripping.”

CHAPTER THREE

KENDRA KEPT WAITING for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. But it did not.

The situation had gone from terrible to outrageous to something far worse, and she wanted nothing more than to run away. But she couldn’t.

Because this was Tommy’s only chance. She might not think much of Tommy and his endless messes, but she knew that Balthazar was right. If he dragged her brother through court, it would kill her parents.

And Kendra might think that her father could use a little humbling, sure. It certainly wouldn’t do him any harm. But she didn’t think her mother deserved the same. After all, what had Emily ever done but what she was expected to do? Did she truly deserve the scorn of all the women who’d made the same choices she had—because that was what she would get, in spades.

It didn’t seem fair that Emily should bear the brunt of Tommy’s poor decisions.

Honestly, it didn’t seem fair that Kendra should, either.

But she’d wanted to do this, hadn’t she? Wanted to help, anyway, even if she hadn’t wanted this, precisely...

Liar, a voice inside chided her. You want whatever you can get.

Because what little she’d gotten from him had been haunting her for years.

Why was that so hard to admit?

She told herself to calm down. To get a hold of herself. Yes, Balthazar was every bit as awful—and if she dared admit it to herself, as exciting—as she remembered. He was like a force of nature. Overwhelming and electric and impossible to look away from. The idea of actually having sex with this man made her feel hollowed out with the heat of it.

Kendra wasn’t sure she’d survive.

Oh, come on, she chided herself. How hard can it really be to do what he’s asking you to do? People do it all the time. The world is filled with people doing it right this minute.

Maybe not bargaining to be the mistress of a man who was essentially a stranger, but the sex part, certainly. Kendra bet if she went and looked out the vast windows at the other lit up buildings, she would see people doing all kinds of things in those anonymous squares of light. That was what big cities were for, surely.

She cleared her throat and wished she could clear her head as easily. “To clarify, you want me to get naked, right here in your office. Now.”

“Stalling is probably not a good way to begin this arrangement. Or any arrangement, but particularly not one that relies on your naked obedience. Literally.”

He sounded amused. More than amused. Those dark eyes of his were glittering, and that cruel mouth of his was set into something not quite a curve. As if he was taking pleasure in this.

In what he was asking her to do.

More, in how desperate she must be if she was really considering doing it.

He was a horrible man. The way he spoke about sex and mistresses and even her family said absolutely nothing good about his character—

But that wasn’t the point, was it? This wasn’t about his character.

You don’t care about his character, something in her asserted, with a low sort of heat that shook around inside her and made her bones ache.

Because if she wasn’t mistaken, what this was really about was how far she was willing to go. Something inside her seemed to soar at that notion.

You don’t have to care about what he thinks of you, or what anyone else thinks of you, either, that same voice whispered, hot and deep, making her ache all the more. You were sent here to do these things.

In a way, she felt free.

Kendra had always been so afraid of putting a foot wrong, of embarrassing her parents, of causing trouble... But that all seemed to her now to be the dim concerns of a girl she hardly remembered.

Because she was standing before Balthazar Skalas, who wanted her naked.

His dark eyes blazed with how much he wanted it.

She understood, then. He hated her family. She couldn’t really blame him for that, of course, given what Tommy had done. But she was a part of that family. Kendra had to assume that he hated her, too.

And she told herself she didn’t care about that, but she knew that wasn’t true when something in her...hitched.

It didn’t matter. She still had to do this.

If only because it was something she alone could do. Neither her father nor Tommy could solve this problem, but she could.

All it took was this.

Free, something within her whispered.

The way she never had been.

“All right, then,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “If that’s what you want.”

“Something else you should know about me,” Balthazar said mildly, though that fire in his gaze did not diminish in the slightest, “is that I do not like to repeat myself.”

Kendra had the slightly hysterical urge to say something inappropriate. Or perhaps...salute. She bit her tongue. And then, telling herself it was no different from stripping in a doctor’s office, started removing her clothes.

Except she didn’t.

She ordered herself to move, but her body did not obey. For one jarring thud of her heart. Then another.

All while he stared at her, ruthless and darkly entertained.

Everything seemed to fuse inside of her until she couldn’t have said, in that moment, if she was doing this for her family or if she was doing this because Balthazar clearly didn’t think she would.

If she stepped back even an inch, she knew it didn’t make sense. Getting naked proved nothing at all.

But suddenly it felt as if Kendra’s entire life had been leading her to this very moment. As if she needed to prove herself in this bizarre way, or die.

That did