Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

I glared at him in horror as I realized who he was.

“Not quite worth one million pounds, is she?” His husky voice was at odds with the crisp, obviously upper-class British accent, so it took me a moment to decipher his words.

I opened my mouth to snap at him, but Seamus quickly grinned and spoke first, “I think you will find that she cleans up very nicely.”

“Before we get to that,” I bit out, stepping slightly forward and to the side in front of my father to excluded him at least symbolically from this negotiation. “I need to renegotiate the fee.”

“Do you?” he asked with the kind of bored ennui only the rich could affect so beautifully.

“I do,” I affirmed, planting my fists on my hips and tipping my chin. “You will also need to provide either a lump sum of 300, 000 pounds or a monthly allowance totalling that amount over the course of my five-year contract. Payable to Caprice Marie Lombardi.”

The man stared at me with hard eyes, as grey and intractable as stone. He didn’t seem the type to discuss his decisions with others, let alone make concessions. There was arrogance sewn into the corners of his mouth, the creases beside his beautiful eyes, and the geometric line of his hard jaw.

“What, may I ask, do I get out of this increase in expenditure?”

I jutted my chin forward and narrowed my eyes at him. “Some may say you owe it to me.”

My father shifted uncomfortably beside me, completely unaware that this stranger did owe me, for more than just the future use of my body.

Not so long ago, I’d helped him.

“You’ll give me unencumbered access to your body and freedom without complaint,” he added blandly.

“I can’t promise to be completely docile to your wishes,” I ground out.

“Irish.” The Brit’s eyes narrowed, but there was humour hidden in the fold of his full lips. “Not exactly a fine indication of her temperament. For 1.5 million quid, I expect a docile asset.”

Seamus stepped slightly ahead of me to block my viciously bared teeth. “You are paying for her beauty. Her nature may change with time.”

The door opening and closing behind us pulled our attention to an older man entering the room. He carried an expensive looking briefcase, and his hair glistened like a silver helmet.

“Are you ready to begin then?” he asked expectantly.

The blond man—my future owner—gestured dismissively toward me, which prompted the older man to step into my space.

I shied away. “Do we have a deal?”

He stared at me, his beautiful face entirely impassible. I could only guess at the inner workings of his thoughts behind the façade and pondering that unknown terrified me.

“We have a deal, though I’ll have it known now that if you resist too much, I reserve the right to terminate our deal. Now,” he ordered, “be still.”

I was still. Not because I wanted to be, but because I was used to obeying men, used to putting my safety before my pride.

“Be thorough, doctor. I don’t want to drag her home to England only to find out that she isn’t pure,” the blond man clipped out in an accent like cool British steel.

I vibrated with fury, but still I stayed unmoving as the doctor rounded me once, twice, and stopped at my side the third time. He made a few quick notes on his clipboard before he tucked it under one arm. I tried not to flinch as he patted me down the way one might inspect a horse, perfunctory swipes down my sides, over the pert swell of my ass and down both sides of my thighs, inside and out. A hiss erupted from between my lips when his cold fingers swiped over my sex before plunging inside, a shallow thrust that poked at my intact hymen.

“Pure,” the doctor stated, removing his fingers and wiping them on a kerchief he pulled out of his breast pocket. “Beautifully intact hymen.”

“As I told you,” Seamus said, smugly.

The blond man shot him a withering look. “Excuse me if I do not trust the word of a man who would sell his daughter to repay his gambling debts.”

I choked back the slightly hysterical laughter that bubbled up my throat. Seamus scowled, but there was no rebuttal to such a statement of fact, so he remained quiet. I wondered how my owner knew the circumstances of our situation then decided that someone with enough money to pay a small fortune for a girl would have the means to find out anything they wanted.

“Now is the time to say your goodbyes. The doctor will need to take her to run some tests before we leave,” he told my dad.

I noticed somewhat warily that he hadn’t looked at me at all after his initial inspection. Why would an obviously gorgeous, wealthy man have to pay for sex?