A Debt Owed (The Debt Duet 1)

I pick up my bagel and take a bite, but the more I swallow, the less she seems interested in her food.

“Go on. Eat.”

“No,” she says, folding her arms.

I’m offering her an olive branch right now, and she throws it right back in my face.

“Charlotte, are we going to play this game again?” I raise a brow at her, challenging her attempt to defy me once again. “Please don’t try. You know it’ll only end in heartbreak.”

“You mean pain,” she replies. “My pain.”

I wish her words didn’t cut into me the same way I’m slicing through the butter right now, but they do. I do desperately want to hurt her, but not in the way she thinks.

I don’t want her to feel the pain that I felt. I want her to feel the pain that makes you squirm, that makes your throat jam and takes your breath away. Not the kind where your heart is ripped out of your chest, thrown on the ground, and stomped on. Because that’s what I felt when she didn’t even acknowledge my existence in front of her father. Nor does she know the kind of pain you feel when you find your own father lying on the floor dead.

“You don’t know what pain is,” I growl back, angered by the memory.

She narrows her eyes. “Like you do.”

I stab the butter knife into the butter like a butcher’s knife into meat. “You don’t fucking know what I’ve been through, so don’t even try.”

“Really? Tell me then. Tell me how hard the world has been to you,” she jests, trying to get under my skin. It won’t work. I won’t let it.

“Eat. Your. Breakfast,” I say with a low, commanding voice. Then I proceed to eat my bagel and take a sip of my coffee.

“Only if you tell me why. Why all of this ‘pretending’ to be happy? Why do you even care? You already have me. What more could you want?”

I look up from my food, narrowing my eyes at her as I answer. “Your heart and soul … and I won’t stop until they belong to me.”

“Then you’ll die trying,” she says, picking up her bagel and taking a defiant bite. She can even turn food into an object of aggression. I don’t know how she does it, but she makes me want to dig my nails into my skin until I bleed.

“You say that now, but you’ll warm up to me eventually,” I say. Her tongue dips out to lick the spread from her lips, and I wish that was my tongue instead. Fuck.

“Why do you think that?” she asks, taking another bite.

“Because I charmed you once …” An arrogant smile curls my lips. “I can do it again.”

“Before I knew what a manipulative bastard you were, you mean,” she retorts.

“You’re angry because I do everything in my power to get what I want,” I say, and I put my coffee down. “Make no mistake, Charlotte. I may look like a gentleman, but I’m far from it. My only interest from the start has been to destroy your father’s business and take you as a prize.”

“I’m not a fucking object,” she hisses.

There she goes again with that dirty mouth of hers, but I like it. “You should swear more often. It takes the edge off things,” I taunt.

“Stop. Stop playing these games,” she spews.

“No. I like it when you’re uncomfortable,” I reply, cocking my head. “Gets me off.”

She growls out loud and then throws her bagel onto her plate. Leaning back in her chair, she crosses her arms across her chest with a scowl on her face. She reminds me of a child who’s not getting her way, but that’s something we can work on. After all, we have all the time in the world.

“So you planned this all along?” she mutters. “Tell me how.”

Does she really want to know? I can tell her, but it’ll only make her hate me more. Then again, maybe she’ll finally take me seriously and start listening. “I bought the last of your father’s stock and then sold it dirt cheap to make the markets plummet.”

She grabs the napkin to dab her lips, but she can’t help but scrunch it up in her hand as I talk.

“A few phone calls were all it took to make the other shareholders start selling … and for the price to drop like a stone in the water. It didn’t take long for the company to go bust and for his wife to abandon him and take whatever he had left. Poor fucker. I should feel sorry for him, shouldn’t I? But I’m glad he took my loan afterward. I was the only one who would offer him one after his business went to shit, of course.” I chuckle and take the last bite of my bagel, but Charlotte doesn’t seem remotely amused. What a surprise.