A Debt Owed (The Debt Duet 1)

Just like with women, you have to be patient. Only then will they open up and allow you to enter their domain. That goes for Charlotte too. She’s been nothing but difficult ever since she arrived, but that’s understandable, considering the circumstances. It’s not every day that you get ripped from your daily life and put into a mansion to play wifey for a rich bastard.

She’s lucky she had the chance, to be honest. Plenty of girls would die to become mine.

But I want none of them. She’s the one for me.

I knew it when I first saw her at her father’s wedding, and I knew it when she ignored me at her father’s restaurant years later. The more she pushes back, the more I want to pull and tug until she’s right where she belongs … in my arms.

She may be playing hard to get right now, but I will make her submit. One way or another, I will be the one to pop her cherry.

God, I can’t fucking wait to get my hands on her and shove my dick inside that tight, wet virgin pussy. Her father told me she was untouched, and that better be the truth because I won’t settle for anything less. I’ve dreamed too long, fought too hard for the privilege to let anyone else take it. She won’t slip through my fingers; not this time. No, she’ll stay right there in her room and wait like the pretty little princess she is until the time arrives, and I come to get her.

On the day when I will fucking make her my wife.

A sudden scream for my name has me up in arms, walking out the door, half-dressed.

Charlotte’s in trouble.

Chapter 11

Charlotte

A few minutes earlier

Being alone in a room is the worst thing in the world.

A million wedding dresses surround me. None of them I want to wear, but all of them seem to stare right back at me as I turn and turn, trying to make sense of this all. Even though Jill said I should pick one, I don’t want to. Anything but that. I want to scream and shout off the rooftops, but I can’t get out of this room to even try. There’s no way out … no way to release this pent-up anger I have left inside me.

Rage boils to the surface, and I run my fingers through my hair, trying to stop myself from going insane. But I can’t. It’s too late. Before I know it, I’ve already reached into the drawers and ripped everything out; clothes, underwear, shoes, belts.

Something shimmery and pointy catches my eye, and I grab a diamond buckle and rip it off the belt. Without thought or reason, I rip it through the dresses, one by one, leaving none of them unscathed. Not even the one I’m wearing.

After I’m done, I scream so loud my lungs feel like they’re about to burst. That needed to be let out, and now I feel much better. I sink down onto the bed and breathe in and out slowly. I’m honestly trying not to lose my mind … but I guess it’s already too late for that.

Sudden footsteps stomping up the stairs have me clenching the buckle tight, ready to attack. However, the face that appears calms me down immediately. Jill. She’s still here?

“Miss, I heard some … oh, my God!” She immediately rushes to the dresses, grabbing each and every one of them right where I ripped the holes through. She plucks out the unusable pieces and holds them up closer as if she can’t believe her eyes.

“Did you do this?” she mutters. She clutches the dresses as if they’re her babies.

“I …” I can’t even answer through the guilt eating away at me. How can I when she’s looking at me with such pain in her eyes as though she made these dresses by hand? She didn’t, right? I hope to God these weren’t hers. I don’t want to do this to her. I didn’t want to do this to anyone … But I don’t wanna be forced to marry a guy I despise either.

“These dresses were beautiful,” she mumbles. “Gorgeous. And you wrecked them.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop either,” I try to explain, but I know she won’t understand. How could she when she chooses his happiness over my freedom?

Suddenly, Easton bursts through the door, wearing only a pair of navy pants. He’s completely naked from the waist up … completely ripped from V-line all the way up to his muscular chest, and my eyes can’t stop ogling him. Shit.

His eyes scour the dresses, his nostrils flaring as he witnesses the destruction I caused. He goes over each and every destroyed part until his smoldering eyes land on me. I clench my legs together as he steps farther into the room, his shoulders rising and falling hard with each breath.