"Does it hurt?"
Ethan Caldwell dug his fingers into the hollow of my waist, pinning me beneath him, his smile wicked and seductive.
Three years ago, he had knelt on the floor to tie my shoelaces—a live-in son-in-law beneath contempt. Now he had become the patron I fawned upon.
I could still remember our wedding night three years past, when I had sneered: "You think you're worthy of touching me?"
After marriage, I treated him like a dog, beating and cursing him without mercy.
Until the day the Mercer family went bankrupt, when he slid the divorce papers across the table.
"She's back. It's time to end this."
I clutched the signed agreement and fled the villa.
But the debts crushed me until I couldn't breathe. My father threatened suicide, and I had no choice but to come to his executive suite in the deep-V dress my mother had bought, trembling.
He loosened his tie and bit my shaking fingertips. "Beggars ought to look like beggars."
"Be my darling, darling."
