Stolen Beauty (Jackson Family 1)

JAMES

This morning, after I had woken Emmaline up, I had laid out a simple pair of jeans and a comfortable, simple shirt on the bed for her with a pair of bra and panties. I’d gone out yesterday before coming back from my meeting to get them for her so she would have something to wear today while we went shopping.

After instructing her to get a shower and to put on the comfortable flip flops I had gotten her since her feet were still blistered, I gave her instructions on how to get to my office. She had very strict instructions to come find me so we could go shopping and then eat lunch while we sat down with my lawyer and signed our contract to officially make her my submissive and me her dominant.

It was fucking killing me inside to not have a fucking collar on her neck yet. She was so obedient, so sweet. Her soul was completely untouched by darkness, and I wanted to keep it that way as long as I possibly could.

I wanted to be the only monster in her life.

I didn’t know what it was, but the moment my eyes met those pretty, brown ones, I was sucked into her. Something stirred deep inside of me that I didn’t even know existed – that I thought had burnt out and become hardened and charred over with age and a shitty childhood.

Care.

For the first time in a very long time, I gave a fuck about someone other than my little brother.

And that someone happened to be one of the submissives at the club I owned. Fuck, just the mere thought of any other man or woman seeing her at her most vulnerable like that – not fucking taking care of her like they should have been – made so much rage pulse through my veins that it made it hard to fucking think.

Adrian slid me a manila folder of papers. “Physical copies of the BDSM club’s spending and profits,” he told me. I flipped it open, looking at the graph in front of me. “Thought it needed to be brought to your attention. If you look through the previous months of the past year, you can see where someone has been slowly pulling money from the profits, trying to pass it off as spending. I’ve also attached invoices for all previous orders – nothing new has been ordered,” he informed me. “And any price changes to the items are not drastic – not enough to cover that missing money.”

“Someone is trying to fucking outsmart me,” I mused. If it wasn’t such a pain in the ass to have to deal with, it would honestly be somewhat amusing.

I had eyes and ears everywhere, and they always brought any concerns to Adrian – my second in command. He then collected the necessary information I needed before bringing the matter to my attention. He was thorough and quick about gaining access to whatever he needed.

Even if that meant he had to drop bodies or kidnap someone to get his answers.

A light knock sounded on the door right before it opened. Someone snatched Emmaline’s arm, yanking her back. She squeaked in fear at the same time I jumped up from my desk. “Get your goddamn hands off of her!” I roared at Alfonso – one of the guards to my office. I stormed around my desk, moving to the door.

“Sir, she was—”

I was seeing fucking red, and if he didn’t get his goddamn hand off of her within the next second, I was going to saw it off his fucking arm.

“I fucking told her to come in here when she was fucking finished getting ready,” I growled at him as he released her. She stumbled back from him, her eyes wide with fear. I gently gripped her chin, forcing her eyes to mine. I hated that fear in her eyes, and I wanted to put a bullet between Alfonso’s eyes for putting it there.

“Easy, little one,” I soothed. She was trembling, her face extremely pale. “Breathe. No one here is going to hurt you. If they do, I’ll splatter these fucking walls with their blood,” I promised. I heard Alfonso audibly gulp from behind me. “Just breathe. I’m here; you’re safe.”

She sucked in a sharp breath of air. “Good girl,” I softly praised, knowing it would ground her. Her eyes lit up the slightest bit.

So fucking sweet.

I grabbed Emmaline’s hand in mine and pulled her into my office. She cast her eyes to the floor as soon as she saw Adrian, a normal gesture to show her submission. I understood it, but I sure as fuck didn’t like it.

I gritted my teeth. She wasn’t a submissive to every fucking person she came across now. Outside of our sessions, she was a normal human being – a normal woman.

“Eyes up,” I ordered. She snapped her eyes up to mine. “You’re not a submissive to him,” I told her. I led her around the desk to my chair, not wanting her near Adrian – especially since I knew he had fucked her, used her, and then hadn’t fucking taken care of her afterward.

“Sit,” I told her. She quickly dropped into the chair I’d just been sitting in. I grabbed my phone and typed out a message to Judy – my cook – asking her to bring up a tray of fruit for Emmaline to eat with two bottles of water and a glass of cranberry juice. I set my phone back down on the desk and grabbed the manila folder, flipping through the paperwork again.

“James, is it okay to talk about this in front of her?” Adrian suddenly asked me.

I arched a single eyebrow at him. “You fucking questioning me?” I asked him. He might be the closest thing I had to a best friend, but even he had boundaries he wasn’t supposed to overstep.

He quickly shook his head. “Not at all,” he grumbled.

A knock sounded on my door. “Boss, it’s Mrs. Judy,” Alfonso announced from outside my door.

I walked over and opened it, smiling at her as I took the plate of food from her. “Thanks.”

She smiled at me, her aging eyes shining. “Be good to her, James,” she told me.

I sighed. “I’m going to do my best,” I promised. And I meant that promise with every fiber of my being. I planned on Emmaline becoming my queen, and I couldn’t wait to see her fully come out of her shell and fully embrace the greatness I sensed within her.

I closed the door and walked over to my desk. I balanced the tray with one arm and placed the two bottles of water, the cranberry juice, and the plate of fruit in front of Emmaline. “Eat,” I told her. “When you finish, we’ll go shopping for clothes, and then I’ll take you to get the massage I promised.”

“Thank you,” she whispered as she swallowed thickly, obviously not used to someone caring so much. The shit both pissed me off and broke my goddamn heart all at the same time.

I glared at Adrian since he was one of the very many that I knew had made her fucking feel like this – made her feel like she wasn’t worthy of being taken care of. And that shit at my club would be changing. Aftercare was going to become a must, and if I got a report that aftercare was not being done, the dominant would be removed from my club, no longer able to use the amenities.

“No need to thank me, little one,” I told her. “Eat up.” I sat on the other side of my desk next to Adrian, flipping open the folder again. “Who has access to the club funds other than Gemma?” I asked Adrian.

“William,” he informed me. “He’s hardly ever there, but I’ll look deeper. Gemma’s numbers are the only ones on the invoices though.”

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. “Dig deeper,” I told him. I flipped to the invoices. “I’d hate it to be Gemma. She’s a damn good manager, but that doesn’t mean shit to me when my goddamn money is being laundered out.” I closed the folder and stood up, striding towards my filing cabinet. I took my keys from my pocket and unlocked it, sliding the folder inside before I locked the cabinet back.

I looked back at Adrian, only to find him staring at Emmaline. “Keep your fucking eyes off of her,” I snapped at him. He slowly dragged his eyes to me, annoyance flashing in their depths. “She’s mine,” I told him.

“No collar on her yet, James,” he reminded me.