“Stella?”
I strained to free my wrists. It was no use. He started his swing, the whip lashing through the air. A strangled scream erupted from me.
“Stella!” Not Vinemont’s voice. Someone else.
I opened my eyes, my heart racing and the scream only then dying on my lips. Lucius leaned over me, kneeling at my side and blocking the sun. He brushed a hand across my cheek.
“Are you all right?” His other hand rested on my bare waist, above the line of my bathing suit bottoms. For a moment, I caught a flash of Vinemont, but it was replaced with his brother Lucius, his chocolate hair and lighter eyes. Handsome, made even more so by the concern written in his features. I wasn’t falling for it. He was just another viper.
“Fine. Just fell asleep.” I tried to shrink away from him, but his hand on my waist kept me where I was.
He leaned in closer, his clean, sandalwood scent filling my nose. “It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t have to be afraid, not of me.”
He slid my sunglasses up my head and peered into my eyes before wiping a tear that had escaped during the dream.
“I’m not afraid of you, Lucius.” I returned his stare.
“Then why are you trembling?” His voice was silky, seductive as he leaned closer.
I had to escape his gaze, his touch. “Because you remind me of your brother.”
He shook his head slightly. “I’m not Sin, Stella. I thought you knew that when you chose me.”
My barb about his brother hadn’t worked. Lucius was still too close, his hands too warm, his words too easy. If anything, he was emboldened by my sharp tone, his gaze darting to my lips.
This is the closest he’d come since our flight to the island and subsequent Jeep ride to the estate. We had been in Cuba for two weeks. Most of the time I had remained in my room, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I couldn’t go back home. I didn’t have one. Not anymore. My father sold me like a piece of cattle. The memory of his signature beneath Vinemont’s elegant script made my stomach churn. Bought and paid for by one Vinemont, and now another was trying to take even more of me.
“No, Lucius.” The steel in my words strengthened my resolve. I gripped his wrist and pulled his hand away from my face. “I’ve been played enough. By my father. By Vinemont. Now you’re trying to play me. Not anymore. I’m not the same naive girl from two months ago.”
He allowed me to move away from his touch, but he gripped my hand. “Stella, I won’t deny I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you.” He smirked. “It didn’t hurt that you were naked at the time.”
I sat up but he didn’t release me. Instead, his hold tightened. He was kneeling so it was as if we were sitting face to face. Too close.
“But you need to know you’re mine now. You chose me. You are my Acquisition and you’ll stay that way. Your contract is just as binding as it ever was. Your father? He still has the same sword over his head as he’s always had. I can have him in prison with a phone call.”
“You think I care what happens to him?” I tried to yank my wrist from his grip. It was like trying to pry it from steel.
“I know you do. I know deep down you don’t want him to suffer and die in prison. Even though he sold you like a worthless trinket. I know you, Stella. I could be your ally instead of your captor. If you’d only let me.” His gaze flicked to my lips again.
The worst part was that he was right. I still cared for my father. I hated myself for it, hated the stupid little girl who lived in my breast and held out hope that this was all a trick or a mistake. It wasn’t. Anger rose inside me like the waves of heat from the cobblestone patio around the pool. “You don’t know anything about me, Lucius. All you know is I’m an Acquisition, sold to your godforsaken family and enslaved first by your brother and now you. You own me for a year. I have nowhere to go. So stop with the mindfuck.”
“That’s not what this is Stella.”
“Then why don’t you just let me go?”
“I can’t do that.” His face hardened.
“Why not? If you don’t want to be my captor, then that’s the quickest way to alleviate your concern.”
“The Acquisition. It’s too late for that now, Stella. You’re mine.” The velvet faded. He was made of stone.
“Am I? I remember Vinemont telling me the same thing. Wasn’t true then, either.”
His eyes bored into me. “I would never let you go, not like that. Sin didn’t know what he had. I do. I’m good at three things, Stella. Three. One is running the family business. The second is valuing assets. Whereas Sin undervalued you, I see your true worth.”