upt, violent shift from her hesitant, sacrificial compliance to frantic, almost hysterical resistance clearly puzzled him. He easily caught her flailing wrists, his grip like st

band on his finger, staring at it with a mixture of horror and loathing, as if it were a venomous snake poised to

rofound annoyance-crossed his patrician features. He glanced at the ring, then back at her, his expression

d attract a proper, blue-blooded wife from a family of equal or greater standing. He found the entire notion absurd, but it was easier to wear the damn ring than to endure his mother's lectures. But to Fiona's ears, raw with trauma and primed for betrayal, his arrogant, clipped expl

fore she could scream at him for the monster he was, the sharp, electronic

leased one of her wrists and jabbed the button on the sl

ate. "Mr. Powell, my sincere apologies for the interruption. Your mother, Mrs. Powell, and your fiancée, Ms. Estela Alford, are in

an

she had probably seen in the glossy pages of Vogue or Town & Country. A woman who was waiting for him downstairs, in the grand lobby, while he was up here, trying to claim his new "pet." The confirmation of his deceit was so absolute, so devastatingly comp

, with chilling certainty, that the fury radiating from him wasn't directed at his family's surprise visit. It was

promised retribution. He ended the call and turned his full, furious attention back to Fiona. His eyes glitte

room for argument or escape. "Do not move from