Deep Domination (Bought by the Billionaire #2) Read online

  She half expected him to strike her, to drive his fist into her stomach as punishment for the smile she hadn’t been able to control.

  Instead, he squatted on his heels beside her, moving with a slow, easy grace that sent a chill across her flesh. She felt hunted, but there was nowhere to run. He owned her. He had bought and paid for the privilege of enacting his revenge and now her life was in his hands.

  He would decide whether the next month would pass in pleasure or pain.

  He would decide how she would pay for her sins and whether she would leave this island alive.

  The thought of him beating the life out of her with his large hands made her whimper, even before he brought one of them to her throat. His grip was loose, but his fingers were so long they completely encircled her neck, bringing her claustrophobia surging back with a vengeance, making her blood race and her head spin as he leaned down to whisper inches from her face.

  “I will tell you this one time and one time only, so listen closely,” he said, his voice thick with rage, but so smooth and controlled it somehow made his next words even more frightening. “I am not the man I was before. There is no softness in my heart for you. There is no heart left to soften. I am beyond your reach. I own you and I intend to break you and nothing you do will change your fate. Do you understand?”

  Hannah nodded as she swallowed convulsively, fighting to keep her breath under control as anxiety electrified her nerve endings.

  “You can smile while I break you or you can cry,” he continued, a smile curving his lips. “But the ending will be the same.”

  His grip tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to make Hannah’s anxiety creep toward full-blown panic. She was seconds from clawing at his fingers, when he suddenly released her and stood, wiping his hands on his neatly pressed pants, as if touching her had dirtied them in some way.

  “Clean up. The bathroom should have everything you need,” he said, pointing toward the opposite side of the room. “After you shower, you will stay in this room until granted permission to leave.”

  He turned to go, but stopped before he’d taken five steps and spun back to face her, making Hannah’s slowing pulse lurch back into high gear. “And if I learn you’ve disobeyed my order—any order I give you while you’re here—all the promises I’ve made to you will be invalidated. Think about that before you try to run. Because I will find you, Harley, and my punishment will make it clear how gentle I’ve been with you so far.”

  Harley? Hannah’s brows drew together, but she didn’t say a word.

  She didn’t know what to say, what to think. She only knew that she wouldn’t be able to organize her thoughts as long as he was in the room. His rage was a fire that sucked all the oxygen from the air and left her gasping, as shocked and confused as a fish dangling from the end of a fisherman’s hook.

  It wasn’t until the heavy door closed behind him and she heard his footsteps moving away down the hall that she dared to drag her trembling body into a seated position. Her movement set his seed sliding down the front of her chest. A wave of self-loathing turned her stomach as memories of their brief time together raced through her head.

  He must have thought she was Harley from the beginning. That’s why he’d kept insisting that she say her name and been so angry when she maintained that she was Hannah North. She’d thought maybe he was one of her family’s enemies and wanted confirmation that she was a Mason, not a North, but he’d been waiting for her to confess that she was her sister.

  Somehow, he didn’t know that her twin was dead and was clearly committed to punishing Harley for whatever sins she had perpetrated against him.

  Hannah would have liked to believe her sister was innocent of whatever had turned her commanding, but once beautifully passionate, stranger into a terrifying man bent on revenge, but she knew better. She would always love her sister and grieve the fact that Harley had been taken away from her too soon, but she didn’t believe in revisionist history.

  Dying hadn’t changed the person her twin had been before she was murdered. And Harley had been a spiteful, inexorable, often frightening force of nature. She had played with men’s hearts like a twisted child who enjoys torturing animals before putting the poor creatures out of their misery.

  Their shared psychiatrist had said Harley’s rough handling of romantic relationships was her way of protecting herself from becoming the kind of broken woman their mother had become, but that didn’t make Harley’s treatment any easier for her victims. Hannah had seen more than one strong man shattered after learning the woman he’d fallen in love with was an illusion and the reality was a sociopath who seemed to gain succor from breaking people’s hearts.

  Harley had always managed to walk away from the wreckage and disappear before her victim’s grief could transform to rage. But now her sister’s bad love karma had caught up with Hannah, who had been paid a million dollars to give a man a shot at vengeance.

  Hannah couldn’t tell her stranger the truth. If she told him that she was Harley’s twin, not the woman who’d hurt him, she would endanger her and Sibyl’s future.

  He wouldn’t want her if he learned the truth. Obviously a surrogate wouldn’t suffice or he would have taken out his frustration on other women years ago. He wanted Harley, the “vindictive, psychotic bitch he’d bought” and no one else would do.

  “What did you do to him, Harley?” Hannah whispered as she drew her knees in to her chest, shivering despite the evening sun streaming through the floor to ceiling windows behind her, warming the large room.

  Sometimes Hannah would swear she could feel her sister’s spirit lingering nearby, not ready to leave until they could go out of the world together, the way they’d come into it, but now the air remained quiet, empty. She was alone, defenseless, and had no choice but to play a dangerous game with a man incapable of compassion.

  But maybe Harley didn’t deserve compassion. Maybe she’d done something so horrible, so unforgivable that retribution was the only fitting response. And maybe Hannah would have no choice but to pay the price for Harley’s mistakes.

  As she came to her feet and padded silently toward the bathroom, she hoped she would find a way to survive being shattered by the only man who had ever made her dream about what it would be like to belong to someone—body and soul.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jackson

  Jackson stormed out of the master bedroom and through the kitchen, where the petite housekeeper with the steel-streaked hair was in the middle of cooking something he dimly realized smelled wonderful.

  But he was too angry with himself to pause to register anything good.

  He’d come so close to losing it. The first time Harley threw him a curve ball, he’d nearly broken all the promises he’d made to himself.

  A smile. A fucking smile was all it had taken to set him back to dancing when she tugged his strings. He’d had six years to prepare and she’d nearly broken him two hours in.

  But she didn’t. You didn’t let anger take control. And now you’re prepared.

  Now, you know better than to think this will be easy.

  His thoughts slowed his racing pulse, but he didn’t slow his pace toward the front of the house. He kept walking until he was striding down the wooden steps leading up to the lanai and down the gravel trail leading toward the sea. He needed to be alone with nothing but the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. He needed to stare at the place where rocks became sand and remember that steady and relentless wins out in the end.

  Rocks may seem more durable than water. But the waves washing in and out, lapping away at stone year after year, eventually wear the largest rocks to pebbles, then to sand, and then to particles so small they might as well not exist at all. He didn’t have years, but Harley wasn’t a rock. She was slippery and quick, but she wasn’t strong. A strong woman wouldn’t need to lie, deceive, and shape shift the way she did. Deprived of her usual tools, she would begin to break down much faster than a stone
losing its battle against the sea.

  He just needed to maintain his focus and keep from getting swept up in any game but his own.

  He reached the end of the road where gravel gave way to sand and stood watching the tide come in, the sea air whipping his hair from his face and filling his ears with the meditative rush of wind and waves.

  The owners of the property warned their renters that the ocean on this side of the island was dangerous. The shore break was brutal, with waves that slammed into the steep incline where beach gave way to ocean with the force of a wrecking ball.

  Even from a few dozen feet away, Jackson could feel the earth vibrating beneath his feet each time the ocean found its target. The first few feet of shoreline was pock-marked and jagged from the constant assault, but the sand farther up the beach remained untouched. It was mounded in peaceful dunes not found elsewhere on the island, where a gradual incline allowed the ocean to creep higher up the shore.

  Brutality had its place, but its reach was limited and Jackson didn’t want to hack away at Harley’s protective shell. He wanted to creep past her outer defenses, through the sophisticated diversions she’d erected to deflect focus from her weakness, all the way to the deepest, most secret parts of her. He wanted to find the private places she held sacrosanct and rig the halls with explosives. He wanted to destroy her from the inside out, and for that he would need stealth and strategy, not a hand balled into a fist.

  He was mentally running through his list of tactics and strategies, discarding those that seemed too blunt a tool to use now that he realized how quick and clever a viper he’d trapped under a basket, when his cell buzzed in his pocket.

  Jackson pulled the slim phone free and glanced down to find a text from his spy—

  Hoping you and Miss Hannah made it to your destination safely and will have a wonderful, relaxing vacation. I’ll be keeping an eye on Miss Sibyl and will make sure she’s taken care of. Please give Miss Hannah my best. She’s a lovely girl.

  Jackson’s lips twisted. He tucked the phone into his pocket without bothering to respond.

  Harley was only lovely on the outside and he couldn’t care less what Hiro did with her aunt. The man had served his purpose and was no longer of any use to Jackson. But the pearl farmer’s text did give him an idea…

  Harley seemed to truly care about her family. She’d rarely spoken of her father, but when she’d mentioned her mother or aunt, her voice had softened in a way that had made the younger Jackson envious. Fool that he was, he’d wanted her voice to soften that way for him. He’d wanted to be part of her inner circle, to be one of the few people in the world who had touched her heart.

  But Harley hadn’t let him in that deep. She was selfish and guarded with her affections. Whether she was incapable of romantic love or she had simply hated him too much to find a reason to care about him, Jackson couldn’t be sure, but he was positive he could use her love for her family against her.

  He just needed to figure out how to sharpen the weapon and where to thrust the blade to do the most damage…

  The thought had barely formed before he had his phone in his hand and Hiro’s number on speed dial. When the other man answered Jackson spoke over his bright hello.

  “I’d like you to get close to Sibyl North and see if you can find out her real last name,” he said, turning away from the sea, sensing he had absorbed all the lessons it had to teach for the day. “Become her friend and confidante. I want private details of her life with Hannah, family pictures, stories, secrets they might be keeping, the location of other family members, anything you can find.”

  Hiro cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t know Mr. Hawke. I feel terrible about the lies I’ve told already. The ladies are good ladies. They are very sweet and gracious and I don’t—”

  “I’ll triple your fee,” Jackson said, cutting him off, unable to handle hearing anyone sing the praises of Harley Garrett. “I’ll expect your first report in one week or I’ll find someone else to do the job.”

  He hung up without waiting for the other man’s response. Hiro would do as he was told. His flash of conscience would fade away in the face of the promise of more money. His family’s pearl farm had yet to recover from the global recession and Hiro had three unwed sisters with eight children between them to feed. He would ingratiate himself into Sibyl North’s life and hopefully report back with information Jackson would be able to use against Harley.

  In the meantime, he would do what he did best—get up, brush himself off, and start again. He’d come too far to be thrown off course by a bump in the road. Harley was quick and clever, but he held all the cards.

  Now it was just a matter of deciding which one to play first.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hannah

  By the time Hannah emerged from her shower that first afternoon, her clothes had mysteriously vanished from the floor and none had appeared to take their place.

  After an hour spent pacing the large master suite with nothing but a towel clutched around her breasts, Hannah searched the bureau drawers until she found a flowered sheet she managed to fashion into a toga. It wasn’t much to look at—and she wasn’t much to look at in it—but it covered her nakedness and stayed put better than the towel.

  She expected her stranger to reappear sooner or later—hopefully with something for her to wear since she hadn’t been allowed to bring a suitcase—but that first evening came and went without a sign of Mr. X or anyone else.

  She woke Saturday morning to the sound of her stomach complaining and watched the sun shorten the shadows of the fruit trees in the expansive back lawn while her belly did its best to digest itself. She was a few minutes from violating the order not to leave her room to go in search of food when a small, nut-brown woman with gray threading through her long black braid pushed into the room carrying a breakfast tray.

  The smell of hot buttery croissants, freshly cut fruit, and hot coffee in its own tiny French press was enough to make Hannah dizzy with gratitude. At least starvation wasn’t to be part of her punishment.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, smiling as the woman set the tray down on the low table near the window. “I’m Hannah. Have you worked here long?”

  “Eva,” the woman said, her expression guarded. “No English.”

  Refusing to be deterred, Hannah widened her smile and made her introduction again in French, the language of most Tahitians, but Eva didn’t seem to understand that either. Hannah was getting ready to try in Spanish, when a man’s voice spoke softly from behind them.

  “Mami, tu saves muy bien que no tienes nada de hablar con esa mujer.”

  Hannah turned to see the owner of the voice—a tall, slim dark-haired man with expressive eyes and a full mouth—motioning urgently for Eva to exit the room.

  “Why aren’t you supposed to speak to me?” Hannah tailed the older woman as she hurried across the room. “Please,” she said, reaching out a hand to hold the door open after Eva had slipped beneath the man’s arm and disappeared down the hall. “Please, I just want someone to talk to. I’m not dangerous.”

  “But the man we work for is.” Up close, the kid looked even younger. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one, but there was a dark knowledge in his gaze that made it clear he’d seen more than most men twice his age. “So we’ll do what Mr. Hawke says. You will be smart to do the same.”

  He turned and walked away before Hannah could recover from the excitement of being granted a piece of the puzzle.

  Mr. Hawke. She had a last name!

  Unless someone else owns this island. Maybe a friend of Mr. X’s, who is as dangerous and insane as his houseguest.

  The voice of doom had a point, but Hawke fit her stranger. It seemed apropos that he would be named after a bird of prey.

  If she’d had a few more minutes with Eva or her son, she might have been able to confirm that her abductor was their employer. She might have even learned his first name, which she would need as soon as she gained acce
ss to a computer or cell phone.

  She paced back and forth in front of the partially open door, thoughts racing, determined to make contact with the son again at the first opportunity. He was concerned for his mother, but he seemed kind, too. At least kind enough that he had spared the time to give her a word of warning. She sensed that he could be valuable to her if she could gain his sympathy. At the very least he might help her keep from losing her mind.

  Hannah didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but she needed human connection. She needed to ground herself in this world via someone other than her stranger. If he was her only contact with humanity, she feared it wouldn’t be long before she lost what remained of her composure.

  Her shoulders bunching with frustration, she shut the door and crossed back to her breakfast. She ate the two croissants and all of the fruit salad—she didn’t know when she would be fed again and it made sense to fill up—but the delicious baked goods and aromatic coffee didn’t taste as good as they should have. Anxiety left a bitter flavor in her mouth that tainted every bite.

  If someone had asked her yesterday, she would have insisted there was nothing worse than having her stranger standing over her naked body with murder in his eyes. But this…waiting for the other shoe to fall, for the first shot to be fired, for the monster to leap out from behind the trees with claws bared, was so much worse.

  She spent most of her first full day on the private island pacing her bedroom, staring out at the sunny day beyond the back patio off the master suite, growing progressively agitated. She had no work, no books, no television, no radio, not even a pack of cards to keep her mind focused on something other than the fact that she was the prisoner of a dangerous man who intended to destroy her.

  Dread was slowly driving her out of her mind, a fact she was sure Hawke—if that was his name—was well aware of. He clearly had no moral compass to prevent him from using every dirty psychological trick in the book to weaken her defenses.