Empire of Desire by Rina Kent

“I…don’t understand.”

“I meant what I said. We need the joint property for the house and the shares since you now control them, and you have to give me power of attorney. That way, I can manage your assets until you can touch them when you’re twenty-one. I'll draw up a contract that joins both our assets, even those owned prior to the marriage. The only way you can do that is with a husband. Hence the marriage idea.”

“So…you do want to marry me.” The spark returns, turning the green bright, the blue light, and the gray almost nonexistent.

“Did you hear a word I said, Gwyneth?”

“Yeah, you want to marry me.”

“Aside from that.”

“To protect my and Dad’s assets from Susan, which, of course, I want to do but don’t have the power to due to my stupid age.”

Her nose scrunches at that last bit. My stupid age. Her brows dip, too, like whenever King tried to make her eat any flavor of ice cream aside from vanilla and she told him, “I love you, Dad, but I don’t like you all the time.”

To which he’d buy her unhealthy gallons of ice cream. Vanilla, naturally.

And because she’s a bit of a sheltered princess, she has a lot of things to learn. Things King was too soft-hearted to teach her.

Softheartedness is the last thing anyone could accuse me of.

“Shouldn’t you be wondering about the joint property part? With that, and the power of attorney, I’ll be able to strip you of every last penny and toss you aside.”

“You wouldn’t.” No hesitation. She doesn’t even stop to think about it.

“What if I do?”

“No. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a backstabber. Also, I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t. Blind trust is plain stupidity.”

“It’s not blind. I carefully built it up over time. Besides, there needs to be some sort of trust if we’re going to get married.”

“This marriage is only for convenience. Do you understand, Gwyneth?”

“Oh.”

“It’s a yes or no question. Do you understand?”

“Does…does this mean you won’t touch me?”

My jaw clenches in two rapid tics and I shake my head. “No. It’ll be on paper only.”

The gray gains dominance in her chameleon eyes, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Not even when her clinking stops and she steps closer. “What if you do touch me?”

“It won’t happen.”

“But it happened before. Two years ago, remember? Though I was the one who touched you, but it still counts, right?”

“Gwyneth,” I grind out through my teeth.

She flinches, but she forges on, “What I’m trying to say is that it could happen again. You can’t stop it.”

“I can.”

She purses her lips, a frown creasing her forehead.

“No touching, Gwyneth, I mean it.”

She lifts a shoulder. “Fine.”

“Really?” For some reason, I don’t believe that she’d give up so easily. She has the frustrating type of determination that’s impossible to break.

“Yeah. It’s not like you won’t change your mind.”

“Gwyneth,” I warn.

She jumps again, startled. And I realize I do that a lot to her. Scare her by being strict and firm and generally harsh. But she’s the foolish one who doesn’t stay away.

She takes a step back. “I…uh…I’m going to ask the doctor if I can go inside.”

She turns around and runs as fast as she can from me. Her shorts ride up her pale thighs and her top stretches against her back. I try to look away, but I can’t.

I tell myself it’s to see what she’ll do as I openly watch the swish of her hair down her back and her legs that don’t seem so short now that she’s not standing in front of me.

She’s not a small person. Just small compared to me.

My fist clenches at that image and it takes everything in me to remain calm and focused on what’s to come.

Before rounding the corner, she comes to a screeching halt and spins to face me, motioning at my jacket that she’s been hugging to her chest all this time. “I’m going to keep this.”

And then she disappears down the hall.

I release a sigh, slowly closing my eyes.

Necessity.

I want to blame it, to shove this entire situation down its throat, but who the fuck am I kidding?

Necessity might have started this, but I’m the one who will pursue it until the end.





8





Nathaniel





“Do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing?”

I sigh for the thousandth time today and face my nephew—the source of the unnecessary question.

“He does,” Aspen tells him with her usual assertiveness.

The three of us are standing near City Hall, ignoring the people buzzing around us, and focusing on the time. Or I’m probably the only one who’s having an unhealthy obsession with my watch.

Gwyneth is twenty minutes late.

Surely there’s a reason behind her tardiness. She’s never been the type who’s late to appointments. Or irresponsible.

Though it’s true that getting married only five days after her father’s accident isn’t a normal situation, it’s not like we have time. The sooner she gives me power of attorney, the easier I can stop Susan’s moves. Because she’s plotting them as we speak. I made calls, talked to judges, and I know about the subpoenas her lawyer is trying to file. I can only ward her off for so long before I run out of options.