Page 65 of Bought

“Is that so wrong?” I demanded, furious at him and how stony-faced he was being. As if none of what I’d told him touched him, as if none of it had made any impression whatsoever. “Is it so wrong to want something for myself? To be safe for a fucking change?”

For a long moment he continued to stare at me, while storms shifted and raged in his eyes.

Then abruptly he turned around and shut the door in my face.

24

Tennyson

It was halfway through my workday when Caleb called me to tell me that Isabel had escaped his security on Friday night and had gone AWOL.

Anger was such a small and petty word to encompass what I felt at that moment, mainly because anger was the least part of it. There was shame and guilt and grief and fear too, all knotted and tangled so tightly it was impossible to pull them apart.

The little sub standing alone in my guest room, wrapped in only a blanket, throwing my wealth and privilege back in my face and telling me she had nothing and no one. That the bastard she took jobs from had evicted her from her home and stolen her money, and could I really blame her for what she’d done, had also not helped my mood.

I’d been thinking about her all morning, knowing I’d handled it badly by walking out on her, but that had been the simplest way to deal with her. I didn’t want to get into a conversation about Sir George and I certainly didn’t want to feel any angrier with her than I already did, yet the moment I’d opened the door to the guest room, I’d forgotten all my good intentions.

Her breakfast tray had been barely touched and there were circles under her eyes. She’d put her chin in the air, radiating that prickly, defensive defiance, and all I’d been able to think about was telling her that the rules applied, and she should kneel for me. She should not have her defenses up because she didn’t need them with me.

But I’d had to force that aside. She wasn’t my sub any longer. She was just a woman I’d invited into my home, who’d turned out to be a Hamilton plant and the fact that she’d only done it for the money, because she’d had nothing, and no one made not the slightest bit of difference to me.

Certainly not now after hearing about Isabel.

I didn’t bother with a conversation over the phone. I disconnected the call, then headed straight for Cross International so I could shout at Caleb in person.

I strode past his dragon of a secretary without a word, going straight into his office to find him waiting for me behind his desk. Atlas was there too, lounging on one of the couches at the other end of the office, his expression neutral. “Pretty much fifteen minutes on the dot,” he said, glancing at Caleb. “You owe me a hundred bucks, Cal.”

I ignored him, striding over to Caleb’s desk and standing there, trying to leash the urge to punch him in the face for his failure to protect my daughter. I’d trusted him with her safety. And he’d failed.

“Tell me,” I demanded icily. “Tell me everything.”

Caleb’s expression gave nothing away since he was as much of an expert in dissembling as I was. At least, if you didn’t know him. But I knew him very well indeed and I could see anger glittering in his black eyes. “She evaded my security team,” he said without preamble, since that was Caleb. Straight up and to the point, always. “I tracked her down to a bar in the Village that same night so she’s fine. Don’t worry, I fired my team.”

I was still held rigid by fury and parental fear. The fear that had gripped me the moment she’d been born, and her mother had died, and I’d known that she only had me to protect her. Me, an eighteen-year-old boy still living on the streets.

It was a fear that had never left me and never would, since being a parent meant being in a constant state of terror that something would happen to her, something I couldn’t stop. Or perhaps worse, that something would happen to me, and she’d be left all alone.

I’d been alone like that as a child, at the mercy of my uncle after my parents had died. I never wanted that for a child of mine, not ever.

Isabel was an adult now, but I was still afraid for her. If anything, that fear had grown since she chafed against the restrictions I’d placed on her, as any woman of her age would. But still, she was so young. She’d been untouched by the world because I’d made sure of it, and she knew nothing of how it could rip you apart. How it could change you, remake you, turn you into a monster that your previous self would have hated.

Caleb was supposed to have kept her safe from that.

Caleb was supposed to have kept her safe, period.

He knew exactly what I was thinking, I could see it in his face, and he didn’t look away. He wasn’t afraid of my anger.

The little sub wasn’t afraid of your anger either, even though she had reason to be.

Even now, even here she crept into my thoughts. Telling me she had nothing. Telling me all she’d wanted was a life for herself and was that so wrong?

It’s not and you know it.

But she’d used me to get it. She’d used Isabel too and that I couldn’t forgive.

I shoved her from my head. “You were supposed to keep track of her. What happened?”

“Your daughter is what happened,” Caleb said succinctly. “She’s a fucking liability. But don’t worry, I made sure she learned her lesson.”