Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

He just smirks at my confusion. “I hoped throwing the two of you together that night might spark something. But you both performed beyond my wildest expectations.”

“How did you—” I wheeze, my eyes shooting back to the video. The angle, and how clear you can see Dylan’s face. Then I get it. “You had someone following your own brother?”

“For about a year now,” Darren says. “And this was the first time the Golden Boy slipped up. Then again, Bryce did create you to be the perfect victim.” Darren rubs a thumb over my bottom lip and I jerk back.

But he’s not done. “Not even my brother could withstand you. Not back then and not now. Because oh, did I forget to tell you? At Bryce’s party, that time while I was fucking your face? Dylan was the one fucking you from behind at the same time.”

His words do what all the blows in the world couldn’t.

I go limp. Darren sees it and smiles bigger than he has all afternoon.

He pulls back and shoves me to the floor again. I crumple to the ground.

Of course I always knew it was a possibility. Most of the time when Bryce invited his friends over and passed me around, he didn’t bother blindfolding me, but there were a few nights like the one Darren is talking about where he did.

And Dylan was there. Dylan was there the night when… the night when—

I shut my eyes, refusing to think about it any more right now. Because that’s exactly what Darren wants and I refuse to give this evil bastard a fucking inch.

Darren looks like he’s about to reach down for me again when his phone pings with a text message. Looking annoyed, he glances down at it, then starts tapping out a reply.

He finally puts it back in his pocket and eyes me critically. “Looks like we’ll have to finish this another time.” He crouches over and gets in my face. “Two weeks. You have two weeks. If Dylan doesn’t okay the contract with ProDynamics in two weeks, then I release the video and ruin him so he no longer has a say in the company’s dealings. One way or another, I’ll get my contract, do you understand, whore? You decide how.”

He stands up, towering over me. “You can let yourself out.”

And then, because it’s what bullies do, he kicks me while I’m down one last time for good measure before he chuckles and walks out of the house.

Thirteen

MIRANDA

I get to my feet as soon as humanly possible after he leaves but my legs are wobbly. In part from shock at everything that just happened and partially because I hurt. Everywhere. Darren might have only punched and kicked me in my stomach, but crashing to the ground several times has left me feeling bruised everywhere.

Bruised inside and out.

I stumble out to my car and lock the doors as soon as I’m inside. That’s not enough, though, and I pull out of the parking lot, only feeling like I can really breathe again once I’m on the highway speeding away.

Everything I’m feeling… it’s so… familiar.

I know this.

I lived this for years.

Bryce rarely actually hit me like Darren just did. Maybe that’s how I was able to justify living with him for as long as I did? But what he reduced me to was exactly the same as the woman on the floor back there.

When I finally pull into my driveway, the sun has already set, early since it’s winter, and it’s dark out. I drop my forehead to the steering wheel, then bang it a few times.

Finally I manage to drag myself inside where I immediately start the shower, turning it to the hottest I can possibly stand.

I shed my clothes and stand under the spray.

But the memories are as relentless as the blasting water beating down on my head.

Then again, Bryce did create you to be the perfect victim.

I was an up and coming executive at a tech company when I met Bryce. His fledgling startup, GentryTech was rival to the company I worked for at the time, though mine was much more established.

I was impressed by Bryce but not as in awe of him like so many were.

He seemed to take that as a challenge.

He wanted me. Doted on me. When I finally said yes to going on a date with him, he’d been at it for six months.

He punished me for it later, making him wait like that. And he took great satisfaction in the punishments.

It started small. A word of rebuke or an insult here or there. Often after sex when I was at my most vulnerable.

For all the confidence I projected to the outside world, I’d been a late bloomer and had only had one serious boyfriend before Bryce. And that had been back in Ohio where the boys were, well… boys in comparison to the men I’d suddenly found myself surrounded by in the big city. And no one I’d ever met before had anything on Bryce Gentry, who was something altogether different.