Chapter 24

UNEDITED

Nathan enters his father's study without knocking. At the sound of the door swinging open Desmond takes off his reading glasses and looks up from his paper with more than a questioning gaze.

"Is it true?!" Nathan yells. "You didn't design the engine that this entire company was built around?"

His father leans back his chair. "Where is it?"

"You're not even going to deny it?" He greets his teeth.

"Where is it?" Desmond repeats himself.

"I don't know where it is. Why?" He has heard two different sides of the story. Now he wanted his fathers.

Desmond laces his fingers together. "If you don't have the drawing then it doesn't matter."

His son's eyes fill with disgust. "It doesn't matter?" He steps closer reaching the front of his desk. "I've spent my entire life working around that engine thinking you were the genius behind it." You've stolen another man's idea and claimed it as your own. You're a liar and a fraud, and I'm ashamed to call you my father..."

"His idea!" Desmond shouts while standing up. "Without my money his eye idea was nothing. I don't care how many ideas he came up with." he grinds on his teeth.... "My money was the only money invested the company. He will not profit from it... neither his wife. When we went to court...the son of a bitch gave his best shot...He grins. "But I had all the financial proof. He had nothing..."

"Until now?"

"It didn't matter. It would have been a battle either way. But luckily he lost the only proof he had. Proof that it was all his idea as you call it. He stands. "The fact that he was sleeping with an employee also helped." Desmond walks around to his mini bar and pours himself a drink. "Get that paper from your wife. I've heard her father is dead. Good riddance. He wanted you to shelter his daughter." He laughs and takes his glass back.

"And his wife?"

"Slut!" Desmond hisses. "They're both money-hungry. Selling their daughter for revenge."

"What about you betraying a friend?"

"A friend?...A friend wouldn't have slept with the women I was in love with."

There it was. The reason Sabrina and Nathan were forcefully married. His father's inability to accept defeat.

"I knew that little bitch would talk eventually. It's only a matter of time before just being under the Alden shelter wouldn't be enough for her."

At first, Nathan didn't know who his father was talking about. The moment he realized. He started to grind his teeth. "That bitch. Will be the mother of your grandchildren. If you want anything to do with them. Learn how to appropriately speak about their mother."


"Nathan." Desmond's lips twitch with anger. "You give me grandchildren by her, and I will disown you. I don't want that family's blood mixed with mine I will never accept a grandchild by that woman."


"After what I've heard today, I disown you." Nathan quickly leaves his father's study. He was boiling with anger. He never held back so much rage before. Had that been anyone else he would have hesitated to break their jaw.
Hearing anyone talk negatively about Sabrina caused unseen rage to rise in him.

He enters his office and closes the door. His is stress level on high. He called her a liar, he yelled at her, and all along he knew deep down she was speaking the truth. He needed a drink.


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Sabrina's heart hurt. She was in love with a man that will never love her. She wanted badly not to care about love. She wanted so badly for the want in Nathan's eyes to be enough. Couldn't she make it enough? She asked herself numerous times.

His words tore her chest open. If she didn't already know, Nathan let her know. She meant nothing to him. One piece of paper is all it took. Then it hit her like someone whacked her with a pole. He asked her if she was like her mother before. What did he know about her mother? He called a liar. Who the hell did he think he is? In the haze that she was in upon at her father's funeral that Nathan's words never clicked. To think she gave him her body.

Never, never again will she ever let him have her body. As a matter of fact, she wanted answers and she wanted them now. She exits the bedroom and heads downstairs. She makes her way down the long hallway and into his office hoping that's where he disappeared too.

When she gets there, he's sitting behind his desk twirling a glass with brown liquor. The only part of his body that moved were his eyes. He shifts his focus from the glass too her. "How long have you known?"

She moves closer to his desk. "Oh, now you want to ask me?" She crosses her arms. "No, you don't get an answer.

Nathan stands and takes back his drink. His low eyes lazily travel her body like he was eating her up.

She takes an involuntary step back. She watches him move to the bar and pours himself another drink. The bottle was almost full the last time she was there. Now it's nearly finished.

"Anyway."She continues. "Why are you bothering asking me. I'm a fucking liar, remember?" She never cursed it left a bad taste in her mouth. "Why don't you answer my questions and then I'll answer yours."

He seemed unfazed by her anger. He pours his drink and carries it front of his desk where he leans back. "Go ahead."


"Why? After months of not even acknowledging me, do you think it's ok to call yourself my husband?"

A smile touches his lips. "You know what I want to know Sabrina? I wanna know why it bothers you so much that I ignored you?"

She bites her lips. "It doesn't bother me that you ignored me. It bothers me that you still felt as if you had any rights over me."

Nathan takes back his drink and moves to get another. "I have every right to you. Your father sold you to me. You're mine but, you stand here and pretend that this attraction between us is one-sided.

"I'm not talking about any damn attraction..."She yells. "I'm talking about the fact that I never want you to touch me again." she points at him. "I don't care how many contracts there are. I don't care for the rest of my life that I'll share some part of my life with you. You will never touch me again."

She jumps of shock when Nathan slams his glass down.

"Answer! How long have you know?" His jaw clamped down. The veins in his neck protruding and his eyes were turning red.

"Why does it matter?" The stubbornness in her bones won't let him get anything that easy.

He growls while closing the distance between them. He grabs her upper arms and hauls her to his chest. "Answer me..."

"I would really like to know." She had a touch of bitterness to her words. "Is why do you care if I knew or not?"

He slams his mouth into hers taking her lips harshly.

She makes a closed-mouth sound while pushing on his chest. She might as well have been trying to move a parked car. He releases her arms only to grab her head forcing her to kiss him. He sticks his tongue in her mouth demanding access. Her mouth opens with a gasp as he moves forward causing her to step back until her back hits the wall. Keeping her trapped he presses against the wall with his body... Then takes her protesting hands,
Holding them down and ravishing her lips again.


"Nathan." She mutters in his unrelenting mouth. He smelled and tasted of alcohol. She always thought that that smell would turn her off but somehow, she liked it. All the anger that was boiling inside of her was slowly fading. Even in her rage, Nathan could make her melt. She was already started to protest less and less as the seconds drag on. His moaning and panting as if he couldn't get enough of her. Like he couldn't be close enough to feel satisfied.

Then the thought ran across her mind. He was trying to make a point. He was trying to prove just how much she wanted him. Just how easy it is for him to make her surrender herself to him.

She bites down on his bottom lip until she tasted blood.

Nathan froze showing no hint of any pain. After a few seconds, she lets go and lifts her chin to meet his eyes. He slowly backs his head away, a smile and blood on his mouth.


"I told you never to touch me again." Her chest heaving and her arms still pinned to the wall by his. She was fighting hard with the little restraint she had.

"Let go." She lets out a frustrated sigh and wiggles her wrist.

He moved one of her hands to be held by the other, then he wipes his mouth. "You want me to touch you. You practically beg me to."

Could he really see how bad she wanted him even in all her anger?
"No. I think the liquor is clouding your judgment. What I'm begging you to do is let go of me and never touch me again. Are you the kind of man who touches a woman against her will?" She surprises herself with that question

He releases her wrists. "Goddamn it, Sabrina...You think this is some kind of game? This is my life. That design is the reason Alden enterprises is what it today. Everything I built was because of that engine. All this time I've thought my father to be the man behind its genius." He is the liar and a cheat. His jealousy and greed got the best of him. He's always been bitter, his anger was always just at the surface. Now I know why. Now I know why my mother was never good enough for him." He lets out a disgusted laugh and moves around his desk. He sits in his chair and put both hands on his head. "As horrible as he was I looked up to him."

She realizes at that moment that he was hurt by the truth. She hadn't once given it a thought as to what he might have felt. How much this affected him. Nathan was hurting that's why he lashed out at her. It wasn't that he didn't believe her, it was more that he didn't want to believe what she was saying was true.
Still, his rage against her is uncalled for. He should have asked instead of yelling at her.

"You wanna hear why I ignored you, Sabrina?"

She doesn't answer she moves to stand in front of his desk. She's never seen him look like this.

"Because, I thought you were just an uptight, money-hungry, selfish brat who did daddy's dirty work for him, and even after hearing confirmation from my mother that that's who you were, I shouldn't have, but I still wanted you. I wanted you before we got married and I had every intention of taking you to my bed on our wedding night. But you flinched every time I touch you, so I figured it better I let you be. You didn't seem too ecstatic about our marriage, or my touch. Money makes people do crazy things I thought. Here you were marrying a man you didn't like." He pauses. "I had to ignore you, it was the only way to block you out."

She swallows, trying to absorb his words delicately. He was attracted to her all along. She wished it was words of love he confessed. She did flinch when he touched her at first but only because she wasn't supposed to like her new husband. It scared her.

She lets out a short breath and sits in a chair opposite his desk. "I didn't know, my mother decided it was a time she told me the truth." She picks at her nails nervously. "But my truth is, I would have done it knowingly because it was the last thing my father asked of me." She couldn't meet his eyes. She gets up from the chair and leaves the room.


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