Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“I’m still confused,” Amelia said after a moment, putting down her cup. “Your lawyer didn’t do anything?”
“No, he didn’t argue it. He didn’t fight for me. He didn’t even give me a heads up on what was going to happen. It was like he, Lucian, and the judge had already decided everything, and this was just a formality.”
“That can’t be legal,” Amelia said, careful not to talk about her father-in-law directly. “You are entitled to effective counsel.”
“How do I go about filing something to overturn all of this?” I asked, resting my head in my hands for a moment.
“I have no idea,” Amelia said. “Maybe I could ask Harrison? But he has been so busy lately with some cases. Even Luc is helping him with parts of it.”
“Is that why they called Reid?” Charlotte asked. She was so smitten with her new husband, it was cute.
“I have no idea,” Amelia said. “Oh, I know who you should ask. My new sister-in-law, Eddie. She is going to law school, and she is a brilliant paralegal. She’d have to be to impress Harrison. Maybe she could help?”
“Really?” I asked, sitting up, feeling a glimmer of hope.
Surely another woman wouldn’t let me get steam rolled by the boys’ club.
“Maybe. Between law school and helping my brother, she is really busy. She never has time to come to tea with Rose and me or go shopping. Maybe she doesn’t like us, or we make her uncomfortable.”
“You could never make anyone uncomfortable,” Olivia said.
“Thank you. She is probably just really swamped with work. I think she is just as much of a workaholic as Harrison.”
“Then it’s a match made in heaven,” I said with a smile that I hoped reached my eyes.
I tried to stay focused on the conversation at hand, but my mind kept going back to Manwarring Sr. and how his hands had felt on my body.
And how his cruel smile made my heart race.
What a twisted thing to think, let alone feel. That man had me all kinds of confused and mixed up.
The conversation around me continued as I tried to push thoughts of my encounter with Lucian out of my head. What he had done was unconscionable.
I could never let that happen again.
It wouldn’t happen again.
I wondered how long I’d have to repeat that in my head before I believed it.
The truth was that I hadn’t wanted it at first. But somewhere in there, while he was groping my body, stealing my kisses, and heating my core, everything had changed. My brain stopped protesting the violation and instead celebrated the unfamiliar domination of it all.
My desires turned dark, seductive, and erotic.
Ladies like me were not supposed to behave that way, especially about a man so much older than myself. It was unbecoming for a lady to act on something so primal.
Was it his anger, his hot temper, or was it something else that made his body burn like that?
I had always known that Lucian had a lust for life and for conquest. Not that I had seen it before personally, but I had heard my father’s rantings and the rumors about what a vile man he was. The rumors covered everything from business deals done in bad faith to dealings with questionable enterprises.
It always made me wonder if he had ties to the criminal world.
He would hardly be the first man of his class to deal in the gray. But for most people, that meant insider trading, not brutish thugs, threats of violence, and mafia ties.
Of course, then there were the rumors about his lineage, those who said the Manwarrings did not belong in high society—education and net worth be damned.
He was not Old English money as he claimed to be, but instead came from impoverished Irish stock. They said that the Manwarrings made a fortune during prohibition with counterfeit whiskey. Those same people gossiped that it was to be expected that Lucian operated the way he did.
What else would you expect from a man whose fortune was built off of lies and deceit?
I had heard all of the rumors floating about them, but I never looked down on them for it.
I found the Manwarring clan to be interesting.
Every other family in our circle had been handed everything.
Many of the men never earned their titles or their wealth. They merely made back room deals on the golf course or in steam rooms and had other people manage everything.
So to see a family who took what they wanted instead of waiting for someone to give it to them, was intriguing.
My father, in particular, had hated Lucian Manwarring. I never knew why exactly, just that my father said he was a brute and did not operate by the rules of polite society.
The rules of polite society were built to keep those born with privilege on top and those not under their heel.