1
LIAM
Cruel.
Cold.
Calculating.
These were the words people used to describe me.
It wasn’t a secret. I’d heard employees, business associates, the media, and women – of course women – say these words in concert with my name. I’d heard them so often that they’d become so deeply internalized that I’d accepted them.
Liam Rutherford is cruel.
Liam Rutherford is cold.
Liam Rutherford is calculating.
It didn’t affect me, these words that were supposed to cast negativity on my character. It was if I were hearing them through a glass partition, as if they were describing a character in a novel instead of myself.
They were nothing compared to the other words I’d had thrown at me, words so depraved and disgusting, things so horrible that no one should have heard them said about themselves, much less a child.
Cruel. Cold. Calculating. Who gave a fuck?
Not me.
Not ever.
Not until now.
Not until her.
Not until Emery.
Because as she stood there in that casino, the room filled with smoke and the sound of chips clicking together, the smell of booze so thick I knew it would cling to my clothes long after we left, for the first time I wondered if I’d been too cruel, bringing her here.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her father, sitting there at the blackjack table, flanked on each side by a different woman, one blonde, one brunette, both of them clad in low-cut silver dresses.
I saw the hurt cloud Emery’s face, saw her breath stolen from her chest as she realized her father was here, throwing around money and acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Emery’s father leaned in to say something to the blonde at his side, and the woman threw her head back and laughed. It was a rouse, the whole thing – the casino, the women, everything. There was no chance that woman found Emery’s father anything more than annoying and disgusting.
My hands tightened into fists by my sides. Anger simmered in my veins and then flash-boiled into rage. He had sold her. This beautiful, amazing woman. He sold her off like she was a product, a commodity, instead of treating her the way she deserved to be treated.
And he’d sold her to me.
A man who ‘d taken her and cuffed her to a bed, who thought nothing of slashing her with his belt until her skin was red and raw. I was no better than him -- I’d also treated her like a commodity, like a prize to be won. The rage I felt toward myself twisted together with the rage I felt toward Emery’s father, until it was bitter and coiled, ready to lash out like a snake.
I would beat him, I decided. I would beat him to a pulp, bloody his face until it was unrecognizable. It wasn’t hyperbole or exaggeration. It wasn’t even based much on emotion, as if my rage had been sent to it’s own compartment inside of me and had been replaced with the cold, calculating kind of analytical planning everyone seemed to think I was capable of.
I took a step toward him, my eyes scanning the room methodically. There was a pit boss in the corner, the kind of man who’d been put there solely for the purpose of intimidating people with his beard and muscles. I didn’t give a shit. I would beat him, too, if I had to.
The whole scene moved through my mind, as if I were a character in a movie.
I saw myself make quick work of the pit boss before I leapt on Emery’s father, before I started pounding his face to a pulp. I imagined the satisfaction I would take from seeing the blood, from his nose and mouth becoming mottled and broken.
But before I could move, Emery turned to look at me.
The look on her face pierced my heart in a way I’d thought was impossible.
Sadness. Disappointment. Surprise. Hurt. I knew her face well, had spent hours staring at it in the middle of the night while she slept, her breathing deep and sure. She hadn’t had a nightmare the past few nights, and some part of me wanted to believe it was because of me, because I was keeping watch.
The other part of me knew there was no way I was bringing her any comfort, from her nightmares or otherwise, knew I could bring her nothing but pain and heartache.
I took a step toward her, and saw the horror reflected on her face.
“Emery,” I said, and I saw her flinch, as if her name on my lips was something to recoil from. My hand reached for her hand, my fingers tightening around her wrist.
Blood rushed to my cock, just from this, from her resistance, from touching her so roughly, from owning her.
She wrenched away from me, and I grabbed her again, rougher this time. I needed to get her out of here. Bringing her here had been a mistake, I saw that now.
But before I could, her father looked up, his eyes locking on hers.
I watched, waiting for him to look embarrassed, or at least upset, something. The urge to beat him senseless welled up inside of me again, only overpowered by my need to protect Emery, to keep her safe from harm, emotional or otherwise.