Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 2) (2 page)

My controlling interest in the Bennett Corporation was nothing more than a sword without a hilt. I could swing it, but was I willing to slice off my hand just to strike down Darius Bennett?

That answer was easy.

Yes.

I’d spill every last drop of my blood to destroy Darius. No punishment existed that suited a villain more snake than human, but I’d invent a torture fitting for the venomous fiend, if only to prevent the worse sin of all.

He terrified me. 

And I’d never let him frighten me again.

I kicked the dress and ground the silk into the carpet with a satisfied twist of my heel.

No way in
hell
I was wearing any clothes he picked out.

“You guys deal with Darius,” I said. “I want to take a shower.”

Reed tensed the same as his brothers, but only he dared to question me. “A shower? Already?”

I wouldn’t detail the particulars of my current situation. I flushed. “I’m…sticky. Yes, I want a shower.”

“Shouldn’t you…” He really shouldn’t have pointed. “Keep your legs up?”

“I think my legs have been up for long enough.”

Bennett pride was truly a marvel to behold. My step-brothers shared an unrelenting arrogance which only amplified after a night of demonstrating their virile masculinities.

They smirked.

There’d be no living with them now.

Hell, I’d be lucky if I ever got a full night’s sleep again.

And the warm shudder that rocked me was the first thread of the tangled emotions that strangled me.

Max stated the obvious. “Dad’s gonna want you there for dinner.”

“I don’t give a damn what Darius wants.”

“You want to get hurt?”

Reed frowned. “Max, come on.”

“Honest enough question,” Max said.

After spending my last few hours getting slammed, gripped, and tossed man to man, brother to brother, I both loved and loathed the newfound aches within me. But no matter the gentle touches and pleasurable nibbles, my step-brothers couldn’t ease the stinging bruise on my cheek. They couldn’t kiss away the strikes only now fading from my sides, and they’d never heal the tightness in my chest—either an unfortunate fracture or the lurking asthma threatening what Darius hadn’t fractured.

I didn’t want any more pain. I agreed to Nicholas’s plan. I’d stay silent about the secret trust and offer my body for whatever heir they thought they could create. But that sacrifice was enough.

I deserved a little protection.

“Don’t let him hurt me,” I said. “Simple as that.”

Max had the least patience of my brothers, but even he was silenced.

“I don’t care how you do it, or what you tell him.” I held each of their gazes—Max’s dark intimidation, Reed’s gentle green, and Nicholas’s golden vow. “I won’t let him hurt me again. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. I…don’t want to lose you guys.”

Nicholas nodded toward the door. They hesitated, but, ultimately, his brothers obeyed. As always. Reed winked before they gave us privacy.

Privacy.

A strange word for a girl who just had sex with three men.

Three brothers.

Her
step-brothers
.

I tossed the towel away and faced the only man capable of delivering such depravity.  Under the heat of his honeyed gaze, the whisper of his velvet voice, and the brush of his secret touch, I’d have surrendered again.

“What can I do?” Nicholas drew too close to me.

I faked confidence and pretended his approach hadn’t twisted me around his finger, will, and command.

What could he do?

An excellent question, only it had no answer. Nicholas veiled his secrets and forged a path to his desires by using whomever and whatever he needed to get what he wanted.

And that was me.

But what could he do against Darius? What would he do when his attempts to create an heir failed?

What could he do when falling in love bound us to a world of pain, sorrow, and danger?

Nothing.

And everything.

My life would either end in a splash of blood or suddenly begin with a newfound wealth. I could topple the Bennetts with a whisper and be destroyed with my next breath.

“Are you okay?” He asked. It was a simpler question.

“Are you?”

He didn’t answer. He abandoned his tie sometime during the night, and I wore his jacket. Nicholas was never so untended. I teased the buttons protecting my nudity.

He noticed.

He studied my fingers. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You rescued me when your father tried to rape me only to hand me over to your brothers.” A button opened. “Then you watched as they took me, again and again.”

The memory darkened him, but not into rage. He leaned close, and his breath warmed my baring skin. I stilled, trapped within the intensity of his golden gaze.

“They might have taken you, but you are in my possession.”

He unfastened the second button.

“Never forget, Ms. Atwood. My brothers are permitted a taste, but, ultimately, you belong to me.”

The jacket slipped from my body. I stood naked, trembling in his heat, so very tiny before such a proud man. Nicholas dressed once more, feathering the jacket over his shoulders as he admired me with a victorious arrogance.

“You should stay with me,” I whispered. The suit composed him, but it did little to hide his excitement. I edged to the bed. “We could rest for a while.”

“Are you really thinking of resting?”

No, but I needed it. “Well, we’ll…get some champagne.”

“What are we celebrating?”

Did he have to ask? I grinned. “My victory, of course.”

“Is that so?”

“We should drink to my newfound stock portfolio. Or maybe my family’s foresight in securing the shares necessary to bring down the Bennett Corporation.”

I tempted him with the destruction of his life and the tease of my body—probably the most dangerous way to antagonize a Bennett. Nicholas never took the bait.

“Get your shower,” he said. “And then please come to dinner.”

“No.”

“Concessions, Sarah.”

“I don’t know what’s more ridiculous—you and your
concessions
or Max and his
optimism
.”

A quick whip of the terrycloth wrapped the towel over my body. The material was too short and Nicholas’s quiet dignity too intimidating.

“How can you even look at that man?” I said.

“There’s not a part of me that doesn’t wish a thousand hells on my father.”

“Then
why
?”

“Sarah, no matter what I do, he’ll drag you to that hell with him. I won’t give him that chance.”

Nicholas brushed a hand on my cheek. I let him linger too long, but he had already seen me at my most vulnerable. He held me when I cried and comforted me as I broke down after his rescue.

Part of me hated letting a Bennett see that weakness. The other part of me, the part not soured by the name
Atwood
, wanted nothing more than to be consoled by the man I was beginning to love.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” Nicholas said.

“I’m not.” It was a lie.

“We won’t let him hurt you.”

“Where have I heard that before?”

I spoke too quickly. Nicholas pulled away. The frustration crackled around him, a charge of simmering anger and disappointment. I didn’t deserve the guilt for his regret even if he didn’t blame me for acknowledging their failure.

I groaned. It should have been simple.

Get kidnapped. Endure the rape. Gloat when my infertility thwarted their plans. Find evidence of my father’s murder.

The plan had crumbled.

I became a willing prisoner, they never raped me, and my infertility would force Darius to kill me to save his company.

And my father?

My father wasn’t murdered. Even if he was, he was too evil to avenge.

Nicholas reached for me. It didn’t matter where he touched, just as long as he did. His finger traced where my neck hollowed into my shoulder.

“I have the takeover,” he said. “They wait for my signal. Once it happens, I’ll have control of the company. He won’t be able to touch us.”

“When will that be?”

“No more than a couple months.”

“I could be dead by then.”

“You could be pregnant.”

I rolled my eyes. “Good luck.”

“You as well.” Even Nicholas’s patience had limits. He paused. “Sarah, I’m asking this as a favor. Come downstairs and eat, be quiet and polite, and don’t give my father cause to hurt you.”

“It’s
not
my fault that I’ve been abused.”

“No. It’s my fault. It always will be.”

His kiss did nothing to chase the remorse from his words. I welcomed the nibble of his lips, but, like all our time, we existed in stolen moments and dangerous secrets. What should have connected us in quiet peace was only the reminder of the war to come.

Nicholas had his responsibilities. His
expectations
of his own duties and the tasks his father forced upon him. The invitation to dinner was not one we could refuse.

I preferred starvation.

“You can do this,” he said. “But don’t let him think anything has changed. He can’t know you’ve allied with my brothers or that you’re unable to conceive, or that you are aware of the Josmik Trust.”

Nicholas forbade me from speaking the very secrets I longed to scream. If Darius realized how badly I already cracked the foundation of the Bennett Estate, he’d slit his own throat instead of mine.

I agreed with a reluctant nod. Staying quiet would be more difficult than standing before the monster again, but the payoff was worth it.

“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not wearing the damn dress.”

“Dinner’s at eight o’clock.”

I might have asked Nicholas to stay if only to borrow some of his confidence. For the first time in hours, I was alone.

That only gave me the silence to think.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

I showered, letting the thick, rolling steam fill the bathroom before I dipped under the water. The heat soaked through me, the water embraced me, and every evidence of the wildest night of my life rinsed away and circled the drain with the remnants of my sanity.

Not only did I fall in love with a Bennett, I let all three of my step-brothers have their way with me.

At the same time.

And not just once.

I thudded my head against the tile. It was easy to submit at Nicholas’s hand. I never thought I’d find any comfort in the possession of another, especially a man who tracked me through the night and stalked me over road and cornfield to kidnap me for his family’s twisted benefit.

He kept me as his pet and prisoner.

And I longed for him to join me under the water.

Christ. I wasn’t just digging my grave. I sat at the bottom of an open pit, kicking the dirt walls and ripping at roots to collapse the damn thing over me.

This was a dangerous game made riskier by my loyalty to Nicholas. Every second trapped in the luxury of the Bennett’s prison endangered me. No matter the love and promises, escape was the only logical, sane, and safe solution.

But leaving would enrage Darius. Potentially hurt my step-brothers. Ruin Nicholas’s chances to destroy his father in the planned takeover.

If I left, every second of my freedom would tempt Darius to end my life before the trust awarded to me. At least if I stayed in the estate, Nicholas, Max, and Reed could protect me until we concocted a better plan than hoping they’d get me pregnant.

Was it worth the risk? Probably not.

Was it worth attempting if it meant Darius would rot inside his own family?

Definitely.

Silence cursed the estate. I dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and forced myself from the room.

My pulse deafened me to everything but the voice screaming in my head to hide, push the dresser in front of the door, and arm myself against the evil that was Darius Bennett.

I waited at the top of the grand-staircase.

Fifty stairs to compose myself.

The first ten punished me as though I stepped upon broken glass. My nails clawed against the banister, aching as I fought instinct and descended. My shoes clipped against the stone in a distinctive echo.

Jos-Mik.

Jos-Mik.

Jos-Mik.

At least it offered an imagined poise.

Money. Power. Stock. It only mattered to me if I had it all and Darius had none. Now, it was the only weapons I had.

They waited in the dining room.

I was five minutes late, and Darius Bennett had counted every spent second.

His eyes weren’t dead, but the specks of color decayed into a dingy brown. He claimed the head of the table and surveyed his family, his home, and his prisoner as though everything in the world had bowed at his feet to produce what he wished. What wasn’t delivered, he took with violence.

During the night and into the day, I stayed with my step-brothers. Not an inch of my body went unexplored, and every pleasure was meant to break me.

But I hadn’t broken.

Not even close.

So why did my resolve crumble?

Three men took me during the night, but the only touch I could remember was
his
.

Darius’s cold grip on my hips. The searing pain of his attempted invasion. The foul promise of his lust. He punished me then. I’d be fortunate if he didn’t kill me now.

I couldn’t do this.

My knees buckled. I’d either collapse in sobbing horror before Darius, or I’d leap over the table and aim a dinner knife for his jugular.

But I’d vowed never to show weakness in front of a Bennett again.

They foolishly left a knife at my place setting.

“My dear, you decided to join us?” Darius greeted me with a smile that bared teeth and words that curled over my throat. I froze, and I didn’t know if that made me hate him or myself. “Your dinner is getting cold.”

I’d choke on it before I managed to swallow. Prickles of panic stabbed at my skin.

Nicholas pulled my chair out for me. When I didn’t move, he took my wrist.

I flinched, maybe to pretend like I didn’t trust him or maybe because it was a legitimate recoil. Nicholas hesitated before his grip tightened.