HIS PROPERTY (Book Three) Read online

  HIS PROPERTY (Book Three)

  Hannah Ford

  Contents

  Copyright

  WANT TO BE IN THE KNOW?

  Hannah Ford

  HIS PROPERTY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Copyright © 2017 by Hannah Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  WANT TO BE IN THE KNOW?

  Want to know as soon as Hannah has a new release?

  CLICK HERE to sign up for her newsletter, and get alerted as soon as a new book is out!

  HIS PROPERTY

  (Book Three)

  Hannah Ford

  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.

  But the dickhead didn’t look embarrassed. Instead, he raised his glass as if in a toast. “Emery!” he said. “Baby, come here! I’m on an amazing run!” He patted the spot at the table next to him. “Come sit and play. I’ll bankroll you.”

  Emery bit her lip so hard it flushed red through her lipstick. She took in a full breath, then turned and ran.

  2

  EMERY

  I hated them both.

  I’d been stupid to let my guard down with either of them, had been stupid to want to talk to my father, and even stupider to let myself think that this thing with Liam was anything other than what it was.

  I think I’m falling in love with you, he’d said.

  Someone falling in love with you didn’t hold you against your will.

  Someone falling in love with you didn’t put a tracker on your wrist and insist it was for your own good.

  Someone falling in love with you didn’t refuse to answer questions about his family.

  And someone falling in love with you didn’t turn his private jet around and bring you to Vegas just so he could prove to you how much your own father didn’t give a fuck about you.

  So I turned and ran out of that stupid room, with it’s stupid chips and it’s stupid cards and those stupid women in dresses so tight their fake boobs almost came spilling out. (If you were going to get fake boobs, why the hell would you wear something like that, something that made it even more obvious that they were fake? No one’s boobs were that high.)

  Liam caught up to me before I was even halfway back to the elevator.

  His hands circled my waist from behind, and he pulled me back toward him.

  “Le
t me go!” I demanded, and I stomped on his foot as hard as I could. He let me go, but he looked at me with surprise, not from the pain, but the fact that I’d done something like that in first place.

  “Emery.” His voice was low and melodic, as if he were trying to soothe me.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t even. I want to go home. I want to go home now.” I meant home as in home home, as in back to my apartment, not back to Liam’s place.

  The same man who’d greeted us when we’d gotten out of the elevator was still at the end of the hallway, and he began walking toward us.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Rutherford?” he asked. A walkie talkie rested on his hip, nestled between his belt and his pants, and his hand drifted down toward it, as if he were going to radio for back-up if this proved to be something he couldn’t handle himself.

  “Yes, there’s a goddamn problem,” I announced, recklessness pounding through me. “The problem is that my father sold me off for a hundred thousand dollars and he should be arrested. This man should be arrested too, he’s holding me captive!” I pointed at Liam, feeling jubilant that I’d finally announced my secret, anticipating the satisfaction I would get when the security guard finally realized what was going on here and called the police.

  “We’re fine, Tony,” Liam said, his tone measured. “Is there a place I can talk to her in private?” Her. He didn’t even use my name, as if I were some kind of commodity that could have been easily switched in and out. And perhaps I was. I remembered what the stylists had told me, about London Banks and the mysterious Vienna. I may have been the only one Liam had actually kidnapped, but it seemed as if he’d used all of us in his own way.

  “Yes, of course, sir,” Tony said. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a shiny gold key card, which he handed it to Liam. On the front was a picture of a gold key embossed with a huge RT.

  My mouth dropped as I realized this man – who was supposed to be security, what a freakin’ joke -- was no better than the cops who’d come to Liam’s apartment that night, the cops who should have realized something was wrong but didn’t care because Liam had made donations to the police department.

  Liam took the card wordlessly, then grabbed my hand and pulled me into the elevator. He held my wrist tight the whole time, making sure I couldn’t get away as he slid the key card into a slot in the elevator, pushing the button for the RT level, which was locked and could only be opened with the card he’d been given.

  RT.

  Rooftop.

  When the elevator opened, Liam hustled me down the hall to the suite at the end of it. He pulled me inside, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

  “I don’t know why you’re locking the door,” I said. “It’s unnecessary, since apparently no one gives a shit that you’re a kidnapper.”

  He turned around, his face impassive, and I felt my heart clench as I looked at him. God, even when I was mad at him I couldn’t help but notice how fucking sexy he was. His square jaw, his broad shoulders encased in that damn leather jacket, the t-shirt underneath that clung to his chiseled pecs. I flashed back on this morning, when he’d bent over to get some of our luggage, how tight his ass looked in his jeans.

  Stop.

  I shook my head as if the physical gesture would snap me out of it.

  “I want to go home,” I said. “Now.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said softly, like I was a child who needed something broken to her gently, like I’d lost my favorite blankie and he’d been the one tasked with telling me it wasn’t coming back.

  “You said that if I wanted to go, I could.”

  “Emery, if I let you go, those people -- the ones who took your father -- they’ll come after you.”

  “Then pay them,” I said. “Please, just… pay them their stupid money and let me go!”

  His eyes bore into mine, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take that he kept changing the rules. But had he? He’d never promised me I could leave, had never promised that he’d pay the money to let me go early, at least not since my apartment had been broken into. In fact, it had been the opposite. He’d wanted me to stay with him past the seven days, isn’t that what he’d said? I was confused now, wondering what was real and what wasn’t, what words, what actions, what promises were lies were true.

  “I should have left with Maddie when I had the chance,” I said. “You’re nothing but a monster, you’re nothing but a psycho.” I spit the words, hoping to hurt him, to wound him.

  He was on my like a flash, his hand back on my wrist as he pulled me toward him, his touch burning my skin. “Watch what you say,” he growled, “because you will be punished for it, and it will hurt no one but yourself. Anything you say to me is nothing I haven’t heard before.”

  Quick as a flash, regret stabbed at my heart. I remembered those scars on his abdomen, white and faded, like they’d been there for a long time, the kind of scars you got when you were younger, not the kind of scars you got from being in a bar fight in your twenties.

  But I wouldn’t allow him to play on my sympathies. It wasn’t my problem he’d been through something when he was younger, wasn’t my responsibility to save him.

  Hadn’t he said that himself? That I shouldn’t try to save him, that there was no way he could be saved? And the way he’d said it -- so matter-of-fact, like I wasn’t the first woman to have that kind of crazy idea. London Banks. Vienna. Had they had the same idea? That they could be the one to break through his exterior?

  “I hate you,” I spit as I wrenched from his grasp like a child having a tantrum. I caught sight of myself in the mirror on the wall, and I looked crazy. There was color high on my cheeks, my eyes wild.

  But everything else about me was perfect.

  My dress, perfect.

  My hair, perfect.

  My makeup, perfect.

  My hand drifted to my head and I slid my fingers through my hair extensions. Suddenly, I wanted no part of him, wanted nothing of Liam on me. I wished I could rip them out, but I was afraid it would hurt, was afraid my real hair would come with it. So I reached down and pulled a tissue from the box on the desk and began swiping angrily at my makeup.

  “Emery, stop,” Liam said, and for the first time, I could hear emotion in his voice, could hear that dominating side of him threatening to come out.

  My body instantly responded, my pussy flooding with wetness, my pulse quickening, heat flushing hot through my body and searing my veins from the inside. He’d trained me well.

  But I was determined not to give in.

  “No,” I said, as I wiped off my lipstick and threw the tissue onto the floor. Next I started with the eye shadow. It must have been some kind of industrial strength eye shadow that rich people used, because it seemed determined to stay on my eyes.

  “You’re acting like a child,” Liam said, crossing the room to me in two full strides. I saw him appear behind me in the mirror, and my breath caught at how tall he looked behind me, how big and powerful. I’d never had that experience before, of a man making me feel so dainty and petite. Because I wasn’t. And I hated and loved that he could make me feel that way.

  “Isn’t that how you’re treating me?” I shot back. “Like a child?”

  He shook his head. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I brought you here for a reason?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Actually, it did occur to me that you brought me here for a reason. And the reason is that you’re an asshole.”

  “Jesus, Emery,” he said. “You’re being immature and childish. I brought you here because I wanted you to see your father, wanted you to see with your own eyes the man you’re protecting.”

  “And you thought what? That it would help me?”

  “Yes! I thought it would help you to see that you don’t need to do this for him, that you don’t need to be so concerned about helping him. You don’t need to be beholden to him.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Do you realize how
insane you sound right now?”

  “How insane I sound? You begged me to get ahold of your father, begged me to figure out a way for you to talk to him. And now I found him and I brought you here, and you’re acting like it’s some big betrayal.”

  “Yes, I wanted to talk to him, Liam. Get him on the phone, demand answers. Not be ambushed and brought here to see him.”

  “And what would a phone call have done?” Liam demanded. “He would have told you he was sorry, he would have told you that he didn’t mean it, that he was in a bad spot, that he needed the money or that they were going to kill him, that he was drunk, that he was out of his mind, that it wasn’t his fault.”

  “So what?” I said. “It would have been better than coming here and seeing it. God, Liam, just because you have no feelings doesn’t mean that I don’t!”

  “This has nothing to do with having feelings,” he insisted. “It has to do with the fact that you needed to see for yourself the kind of man you were protecting. A phone call was the easy way out.”

  “You mean the way you’re protecting your parents?” I shot back.

  “I’m not protecting my parents,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?” I reached out and lifted up his shirt, ran my hands over the scars on his abdomen. “Where did you get these, Liam?”

  His jaw twitched, a vein in his neck throbbing at my disobedience. “I told you. I did it to myself.” He grabbed my wrist again, this time to push me away, but I held the fabric of his expensive t-shirt tight, twisting it in my hand, taking pleasure in the fact that it probably cost hundreds of dollars and I was ruining it.

  “Those don’t look like the kind of scars you give yourself.”

  He stayed silent, his face stoic, the only indication that he was upset the throbbing in his neck, the set of his jaw, the way his hand tightened on mine.