Arabelle seethed as she yanked at the door handle, fully aware her attempts were futile. She gave up and tugged at her skirt to get it to cover the indecent amount of thigh she already showed and that just made her madder.
“Arg,” she cried in utter defeat as she watched him come around the car calm, unaffected, and cold while she was a heaving hot volcano of a mess.
“Let me out of this car immediately, you imbecile.”
“You were supposed to arrive at my house this afternoon, as I instructed,” he said, sliding his body into the driver’s seat of the sports car. She knew nothing about cars, but she did know this one would undoubtedly cost millions.
Pretty much what he had paid her father for her and for the life of her she couldn’t understand why he would do that, marry someone he hadn’t met and knew nothing about, when just by looking at him he could find any woman he wanted in the whole world.
“And I said I would show up for marriage duty tomorrow at nine in the morning.”
Yes, her father had informed her that Silas Knight expected her to arrive at his home at four that afternoon. He would send a car earlier for her with a few of his staff who would pack up her things for her.
With her whole life falling apart, she felt she needed this one moment to rebel and promptly told her father she would get to his house in her own car, after having packed her own things but it would only be at nine the next morning. Her father had of course warned her that defying a man like Silas Knight would not end well for her. Well too bad for him, she had silently retorted.
“I make the rules,” he replied. “You obey them.” He drove off at a speed that should have frightened her and yet the confident manner in which he handled the vehicle comforted her as well that she wasn’t going to die.
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly, folding her arms over her chest. “Also what are you ancient?”
“I’m thirty-two years old,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Well you could have fooled me with your archaic ideas and all,” she muttered.
She remained silent for a moment mostly because she worried, she might suffocate. His entire presence made it hard for her to breathe and the tight confines of his car didn’t help much.
She made the mistake of looking at his hands on the wheel. The tattoos on his knuckles, the rings, his long fingers, and she knew his palm was littered with callouses too. She shifted in her seat and hated that her panties were still embarrassingly wet and that he had touched her. He would have known.
Determined not to dwell on it, if only to save herself from more mental shame, she took a deep breath and asked her next question.
“Where are you taking me to?”
“Home.”
“My home?”
“Mine.”
“But I need to go home. I don’t have any of my stuff. I need my clothes.”
“It’s already been packed and delivered to my house.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?
“Why did you pay my father to marry me? You don’t even know me.”
He didn’t answer her and when she glanced at his profile, she caught the ripple in his jaw, and his coldness toward her increased even more.
It was clear he didn’t want her, so why did he marry her?