Page 12 of Enemies to Wife

"We have enough to go on," James said. "And I am sure you can coerce what we don't have from him at this point." I would have preferred not to torture someone at such a public gathering, but needs must.

"Sure," I nodded. "I'll be up in a few." James looked over at Lily and nodded.

"Take your time," he said. "I'll get everything ready." He nodded to Lily and turned and followed, as some other men carried a whimpering William from the room.

I stepped towards Lily but stopped when she flinched. She still had a hint of fear in her eyes, but also some curiosity. She had clearly been listening to my brief exchange with James.

"Are you okay?" I asked apprehensively, stepping closer. When she didn't flinch again, I sat down on the sofa next to her.

"What was that about?" she asked, glancing towards where James had gone.

"William crossed a boundary," I said, matter of fact. "For that he has to learn a lesson."

"Yes, I get that," she said with an edge to her voice. "But this is more than about him just hurting me, isn't it?" I narrowed my eyes at her, and my dick twitched at her keen insight. Maybe I had underestimated her.

"How very observant of you," I said. "Yes, we suspected that William is involved in something rather unsavoury, so I was brought in to investigate." Then I took Lily's hand and brought her attention back to me.

"But just so you know, Lily Appleby, this arrangement between us may be a temporary fix for you. But it has never been that for me. I was certain the moment I first met you that you belonged to me." Lily's eyes widened slightly. "And even if that bastard had been completely innocent of everything else, hurting you would be enough of a reason for what I am about to do to him." I leaned in and kissed her cheek, before letting go of her hand and standing up. I brushed myself down and looked at her again.

"Give me an hour or two," I said. "And then we will go home." Lily had the hint of a haunted look that I had seen in so many women as she nodded a response. It was a look that I hated, and I knew I would do anything to wipe it from her eyes. I had to re-evaluate everything that I had been thinking, especially after some new information I had received earlier. But we had six months to work on that. Tonight, I had business to attend to. I started to head out of the room when Lily stopped me.

"Sebastian," she said. I turned to look back at her and she smiled slightly. "Thank you."

Chapter 9

Lily

I watched Sebastian leave the room; my head full of so many thoughts. The feeling of that vile man's fingers inside me kept pushing itself to the forefront, making me shudder. It was bad enough that I was on my knees on the floor with Sebastian's cock in my mouth, but when I felt those hands on me, I panicked. But Sebastian had protected me. The sickening sound of bones breaking as Sebastian snapped William's fingers should have been horrifying, but some part of me took great joy in it.

I was under no illusion that Sebastian had done this for anything other than it was his property being violated. It was clear that was how he saw me. But what he said before he left, that hurting me was enough reason to… well, I didn't know what he planned to do, but I could imagine that it wouldn’t be pleasant. Still, it sounded almost intimate, like it was me, and not his property. No, it was nothing to do with protecting me. Sebastian had made it perfectly clear that I was his property, at least for the next six months. Unless, what Sebastian had said was true and that he could actually make the contract permanent. I needed to check it out.

I stood up from the sofa and headed out of the room, passing even more random people in the middle of various sexual acts, towards the bathroom that I had found at last night’s party. I had every intention of ringing Jade, checking to see if Sebastian could follow through on his threat, and see if I could stop it from happening. I was passing an open door when a hand shot out from the dark and grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me into the dark room. A hand was on my mouth before I could scream and the door slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness.

I tried to struggle against the person, but they had me held tight.

"Lily," the person hissed. "Calm the fuck down, it's me." I froze as the man let go of me and the room flooded with light.

"Alec," I said, taking a sigh of relief. "What the fuck, you scared me." Alec grinned sheepishly at me and shrugged.

"Sorry," he said. "I had to be careful. My dad told me I wasn't allowed to come to the party tonight. So, I had to make sure he, or your husband, wouldn't see me." He practically spat the word husband out and his face turned into a scowl.

"You were told you couldn't go to your own party?" I asked. Now that I looked, I could see that Alec was dressed casually in dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt.

"Well, technically it's my father's party," Alec shrugged. He turned and walked further into the room, which I could now see was some sort of office, with a mixture of floor to ceiling bookshelves and wood-panelled walls and a big oak desk. Alec perched himself on the edge of the desk and smiled. "But yeah, apparently Sebastian told my father that he didn't want me near you." My eyes widened.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Yeah, I mean I knew he didn't like our friendship in university," Alec said with a shrug, "But you would think a guy would grow out of that shit by now." I frowned; this only further supported my concerns about Sebastian. Would he feel the need to control every aspect of my life? I certainly wasn't happy about the idea that he would stop me seeing friends.

"But," Alec said, grinning, "It worked out in our favour."

"It did?" I asked. "How did you getting booted from a party work out in our favour?"

"Well, my dad was apprehensive about helping us before," Alec said. "But after Sebastian started throwing his weight around my father said he would happily put him in his place."

"Helping us? In getting me out of the contract?" I asked, the small spark of hope lighting in me. Sure, Alec's father was an awful man, but if he was willing to help get me what I wanted, then I wouldn’t say no. Then the horror of what had just happened dawned on me.

"Oh no Alec," I said. "Your father. Sebastian." I told him quickly about what had happened in the room, not twenty minutes ago. I was worried that Alec would be angry with me, after all it was his father, and blood was definitely thicker than water with this crowd. Alec frowned as I spoke, and a flash of anger crossed his eyes when I told him that Sebastian was now in some room with William. But he stayed quiet through the whole thing.