I felt stupid, seated at some huge table. Edward at the head with me next to him. The young girl who had bought me food seated across from me with her head hung low, eating silently.
I’d refused to leave my room and meet him for dinner resulting in me being locked away without food for the night. I didn’t mind – my stomach at that stage couldn’t have handled much anyway. The effects of the drugs that had been pumped into my body still turned my stomach with the thought of anything other than water.
Gracious old Edward had sent makeup with the outfit that had been picked for me to wear the next day. I dare say so I could cover the bruising that was now starting to show under my eye and around my throat.
Joke’s on him, I hadn’t used it.
I caught him flinch as I’d entered the dining room for breakfast. My stomach now screaming to be fed, but he had yet to mention it. I was already dressed in the outfit he’d sent up. It was yellow, like some kind of sundress and fell to just below my knee – not my style at all, nor my size. It had capped sleeves and covered all the way up to my neck. I guess the guy was the modest type. I felt like a Stepford housewife.
“Is this your house?” I asked as we ate. I was curious to figure out where I actually was. The view from the bedroom window, while very pretty looking over a lovely garden, gave me no hints to what state we were in. I didn’t take him as a man to live in Alabama permanently, most in his business was likely in LA or New York.
“No, it’s nice, but it’s only a rental while I’m here,” he explained with a smile. No doubt happy I was deciding to engage with him.
“It is nice. I’ve lived in Alabama for a while now, how do you like it?” I asked casually as I stabbed a piece of bacon, crammed some egg on the top and popped it into my mouth.
“It’s nice, but I prefer LA.”
Thank goodness, we were still in Alabama. My hopes of Kit finding me were still bright. I knew he would’ve gone to Daniel first. But it seemed as though I was only there momentarily before they moved me on. I hoped like hell Kit had gotten the info he needed to find me.
“If you’re thinking just because we’re still in the state, that your little club will find you, you should just forget it,” he said, cutting his toast into strips.
I frowned, who does that?
I shrugged. “Do you have any other children?”
I wondered if that’s who the girl was sitting across from me.
He followed my eyes. “No. Amber is not my daughter.”
“Then who is she?”
The young girl sat quietly as if we weren’t talking about her while she sat right there.
“She works for me.”
“Doing what exactly?”
He slammed his palm on the table, both Amber and I jumped. “Keep your nose out of business that’s not yours,” he growled, staring me down. “Amber, take the dishes into the kitchen.”
She moved fast, gathering all our plates and balancing them perfectly as she left the room.
“I know what kind of business Daniel Ashley is in,father,” I said tauntingly. “I know exactly what you were looking for when you found that picture of me.”
His lips formed a flat line, his fingers twitched on the table. “Daniel was right, you do need to learn your place. Obviously these men you’ve been associating with have let you get away with too much.”
I laughed. “Quite the opposite, actually. I happily follow the rules they set down for us. Because Irespectthem. Unlike my feelings towardyou.”
His hand moved fast, grabbing a fist full of my hair and tugging it back. My neck strained and an unconscious whimper of pain left my lips. He pushed his seat back and loomed over me, his face twisted in disgust and anger.
“Do you know why I wanted you here, Harmony?” he growled. I didn’t move, I couldn’t move. “Because I was curious to meet my only child. A child who was kept from me for twenty-three years. I wanted to see what she was like, how she’d grown up. Maybe even consider how we could piece together a relationship that worked.”
“You didn’t have to kidnap me in order to do that,” I whispered.
“That wasn’t what I intended.” He released me, pushing back his chair and walking around the other side of the table. “But then Mr. Ashley enlightened me on how you were living your life. Sleeping with countless men, being provocative, shaming yourself. That’s not the way a woman – someone with my bloodline, should conduct herself.”
“I live my life how I please. You have no right to judge me,” I told him sternly as I cradled my head, my neck still screaming with pain.
“No, I haven’t been there up until now, and look at how you are living. It’s disgusting, and I refuse to pass on my hard work, my business that I’ve built up to a girl who spreads her legs for any willing male.” He screwed up his nose as he watched me from across the room.