The Dare Collection April 2019. Nicola Marsh
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deep and low and it echoed in my voice. ‘I thought you said your father didn’t hurt you.’
‘He didn’t. But there are always consequences for not doing what he wants.’
‘What consequences?’ It came out as a demand, but I didn’t bother to soften it. William White may not have laid a finger on his daughter, but he’d clearly hurt her in other ways.
Imogen sighed. ‘A couple of years ago I tried to have something of a normal life, or as much of one as you can with twenty-four-seven guards. I signed up for a course at uni, joined a few clubs to meet people, that kind of thing. Anyway, there was this guy in my history class and I liked him. I’d never been on a date before so I asked him if he’d come out for coffee with me. He said he would, except...he never turned up for it. The next day I read in the paper about a man who’d been beaten and left for dead in an alley near where we were supposed to be meeting.’ She dropped her gaze, staring ferociously at her finger following the line of my tat to my hip. ‘I knew it was Cam. Just like I knew it was Dad who’d hurt him. He’d always warned me that I needed to be careful who I associated with and who I spoke to, but... I don’t know. I guess I never thought he’d actually do anything.’ A flicker of pain crossed her expressive face. ‘It was my fault Cam got hurt. I should have remembered Dad’s warning. I should have thought more about the consequences of asking him out.’ Her tracing finger came to a stop. ‘But I was so thrilled to have a conversation with a cute guy and I...forgot.’
My protective instinct sank its claws deeper, responding to the note of pain in her voice. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I growled. ‘It was your father who beat him up, not you.’
‘I know that. But Cameron didn’t. It was my responsibility not to put him in harm’s way, because I know what Dad’s like.’ She swallowed. ‘And it’s not like Dad hasn’t told me for years that I need to learn how to control myself.’
I shouldn’t have cared what her father had told her. She was my prisoner, nothing more.
Yet the pain that threaded through each word caught at something inside me like an anchor catching on a rock.
Did this have anything to do with the way she’d cried earlier? With how she’d tried to repress it, seemingly angry at herself for getting emotional?
I’d have bet the whole of King Enterprises that it did.
‘You’re going to have to explain to me why your father thinks you need to control yourself,’ I ordered, not caring that my voice had got rough and uncivilised. ‘And then you’re going to have to explain why you believed him.’
Her mouth got a stubborn look to it. ‘Why? I don’t have to if I don’t want to.’
I caught her chin with my finger, tipping her gaze back to mine. ‘Because I’m curious, Imogen. And you know what it’s like to be curious, right?’
She let out an annoyed breath, flickers of anger in her green eyes.
Good. Let her be angry. That was better than her being hurt.
‘Okay, fine,’ she said after a minute. ‘My mother died when I was born and Dad never got over it. He told me that it was my fault she died and that I’ll never be like her. Never measure up to her. I’m too emotional, too impulsive. I didn’t...deserve her.’
Jesus.
‘Of course you deserved her,’ I said fiercely. ‘Don’t tell me you believed all that bullshit?’
The stubborn line of her mouth softened, became more vulnerable. ‘I didn’t want to. But he’s my Dad. He’s the only person I’ve got.’ A shadow shifted in her green eyes. ‘I don’t have anyone else.’
Sound familiar?
Yeah, it did. But my isolation had been self-imposed, while hers had been forced on her, the bright, inquisitive spirit I’d seen behind those green eyes compelled to get what it needed from a man who didn’t give a shit about crushing it.
Poor little one. No wonder she hadn’t cared about being kidnapped. Her mother was dead and her father had denied her the connection she was hungry for. A connection she needed.
I stroked my thumb along her jaw. ‘You have me. And I don’t care if you’re impulsive or emotional or curious or any of that other bullshit, understand? You can be yourself with me, Imogen.’
Emotions shifted and changed like quicksilver in her eyes. ‘Because I don’t matter to you, right?’
I didn’t miss the half-desperate note in her voice. It sounded a hell of a lot like she didn’t want to matter, which was pretty much the opposite of what I usually got from women.
‘You don’t want to matter to me?’ I asked, curious. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to have to live up to anyone else’s expectations. I don’t want to worry about disappointing anyone.’
The way she’d disappointed her father, clearly.
‘You won’t disappoint me,’ I said. ‘Not in any way.’
Colour rose in her cheeks and her gaze flickered. ‘You were disappointed that I wasn’t afraid of you.’
‘Apart from that.’
‘And that I got into your stuff.’
‘Yeah, apart from that as well.’
‘And I ask a lot of annoying questions.’
‘I can handle your questions.’
She let out a breath. ‘Just don’t care about me, Ajax. Caring makes people do things they shouldn’t.’
Hell, I couldn’t argue. I’d had front row seats to that particular shit show. There were a lot of things I’d done that I shouldn’t have.
Such as leaving your brothers to get hurt?
Ah, fuck, I didn’t need that thought in my head.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Caring about you is the last thing I’m going to do.’ I tightened my grip on her chin. ‘Don’t forget, little one, I’m a monster. And monsters don’t care about anyone.’
Imogen
I STARED INTO Ajax’s eyes and something gripped tight in my chest.
Did he really think he was a monster?
But the answer was there in his stunning blue gaze.
Denial shifted inside me. I knew monsters—at least I knew one, my father—and Ajax wasn’t like him. Not in any way.
The night he’d kidnapped me, instinct had told me that Ajax King wasn’t a man I should be afraid of, and so far he’d done nothing to disprove that.
And, anyway, I wouldn’t have let him touch me if I’d been afraid. I wouldn’t be sitting here, lying on his magnificent naked body and tracing his tattoos if he’d been the same kind of monster my father was.
He radiated protective energy; I could feel it in my bones. In my heart. He might be hard and pitiless, with a violent, fearsome reputation, but he wasn’t a man who’d hurt vulnerable people.
I was the daughter of his father’s enemy and, despite catching me poking around in his personal things, all he’d done was tell me off.
Hardly the actions of a monster.
You don’t know him. He could be just a different type of monster.
He could be. But if he was a different type, then it was a type that I found completely fascinating and utterly compelling.