Chapter Twenty
They scattered around each other on tender hooks. Lily worked at home, refusing to bring anyone else in to do the washing and the cooking. The two jobs she got pleasure from: cooking food and making her clothes clean. It was almost therapeutic.
Wayne stayed at home in either his office or following her around somewhere. He wouldn’t leave her side no matter what she asked of him.
Her father came around as much as he could. He was working for Wayne, trying to build his life back up after the disaster of losing so much of his life already. George has given her a few diaries and keepsakes he kept hidden from her evil stepmother. The name still made her giggle. Knowing Jessica wasn’t any relative of hers made her sleep easier at night and having Stephanie as a half-sister was easier to handle.
For a short while, she truly thought she’d end up like the spiteful duo who got pleasure out of tormenting her.
The question she’d had for so long was answered: why everyone hated her. She was living proof of her father’s love and the infidelity with another woman. Lily took another item of clothing out and saw the lipstick mark on the neck of one of Wayne’s shirts. After so long of being empty, the mark jolted something inside her. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her nerves. It had been a few weeks since she’d done the washing. Disgusting, but after everything she hadn’t got round to cleaning.
Screwing up the shirt, she put it on top of the machine and tried to blank out everything, to process her thoughts.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Wayne is cheating on you!
It doesn’t matter. I don’t love him. I never have.
Oh really, so you call mourning his loss in bed at night and craving his attention and wishing just once he’d turn around and tell you how he felt, hating him?
This was ridiculous. Grabbing the shirt, she charged down to his office. The door was shut, as usual before lunch.
Turn back around and pretend it doesn’t mean anything.
Nonsense, go in and confront him. Be a woman and take matters in your own hands.
Two voices were arguing amongst themselves. The child and the adult.
A child would skulk off and let it be. A woman would fight for her love.
Did she love him?
Do I have to do everything for you? Why do you think it hurts so damn much? You’re breaking inside, pregnant with his child and all you want is to be loved. Go in there and get him, tiger.
Nodding, she put her hand on the doorknob and froze.
More pain, is that what you want? Voice number two whispered along her brain.
Lily prayed. Other women had these moments, otherwise, she was putting herself in a sealed room with lots of fucking padding.
Lily jumped back as she opened the door. She screamed and tripped over, landing on her back.
“Lily!” Wayne took her in his arms and escorted her into his study, placing her gently down on the sofa she’d put in for his comfort. “I don’t want you hurting yourself. Why didn’t you just come in?”
“Hurting myself or the baby?” she growled.
Wayne jerked as if she’d burnt him with her words.
“Never mind, forget I ever said anything.” Lily moved out from under him. Having him so close and not thinking about touching him was too difficult to process.
“Lily, wait.”
“You know I don’t want to do this.” She flapped her hands above her head and moved away.
“Lily?”
“Actually, you know what I think. I’m sick, Wayne. I’m sick of you and everything you stand for.” Lily had no idea what she was saying, but she kept on. “You blackmail me with family that isn’t even mine to become your wife. I don’t even know you all that well! I have no honeymoon besides the cottage trip, which was lovely, but then you blurt out about the baby and that heavy contract and now all this and...and....” Lily took the shirt, stormed over to him, slapped him on the cheek, and pressed the lipstick mark right up in his face.
“What’s this? Another one of your floozies?”
“Lily, you’re not making sense.”
“Don’t give me one of your excuses. The shirt has lipstick on it. I don’t wear make-up, shithead.”
“You just called me shithead?”
“Yeah, and I’ll call you worse before the end of the day. I won’t have you....” Whatever she was about to say stopped as his lips took possession of her mouth, melting the coldness and shooting a spark to her heat.
Lily moaned and dropped the shirt to the floor. Her breasts ached, and her cunt was swimming for more of this man and his hard cock.
She stopped. Shit, she’d given in too soon. Pulling out of his arms, she shot him a fierce look, wiping her mouth.
Wayne picked his shit from the floor and looked at the lipstick. “It’s your sister’s.”
Lily saw red. How many other women would brush off a statement like that?
She charged at him, lashing out, and punching his chest. Her hormones were out of whack.
“Listen to me,” Wayne ordered. He grabbed her hands and thrust her up against the nearest wall. “Your sister came to my office and tried to seduce me. Do you think for the world I would fuck a bag of bones when I have you here and wanting me?”
Lily struggled against his hold. His leg inserted between her thighs rubbing the folds of her sensitive flesh.
Biting off a moan, she tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
“But she got lipstick on you.”
“The woman practically attacked me, but don’t worry, my cock only gets hard for one woman, and she’s squirming under me right now.”
In one swift move, he tore her dress from tit to waist. Her breasts bare, as the bras she used to wear hurt too damn much.
Wayne cupped her breasts, and she moaned. The cool air delightful on the heated nubs.
“This is the woman I want. I love you, Lily.” He growled as he took a nipple with his lips.
Lily jolted. “What? What did you say?”
“I love you, Lily, always have and always will.”
He didn’t give her time to think about what he’d said, instead he showed her. Their clothes went in a heap on the floor. He took her up against the wall, his cock thrusting inside her, taking her to newfound heights of completion. Next on the sofa, where she rode him, their climax fast and furious. Lily couldn’t get enough of his cock, and they lay panting in a mass on the sofa.
“I love you, Lily,” he said again, kissing her shoulder and moving her hair out of the way.
“How do you know?” She shivered from his touch, her body tingling all over from an afternoon of rigorous sex.
“Some time ago you were at a ball, nineteen, one of the few times I’d seen you attend. I knew back then.”
“But you’re older than me.”
“Do you really think this has anything to do with age?” He touched his heart and touched her breast.
“You’re trying to distract me.” Lily arched up to his touch.
“Lily, I love you with all my heart.” He went serious on her, and she knew in that moment, he was telling the truth.
“But everything you’ve done?”
“Look. I’ve got shitloads to tell you about my life.”
“Then tell me.”
Wayne glanced at her, and Lily sent him a smile.
“Okay. For some time, I’ve been on my own. My family are monsters, Lily. I was born to two people who are more selfish than the whole world put together.”
“That’s a bit extreme.” Lily could see the emotion breaking through the blocks of ice and walls he’d erected around himself. Is it possible he was protecting himself from hurt? The very Beast himself had a weakness?
“That’s the problem with our world. It’s either one extreme or the other. We don’t do stuff like half measures.” He licked his lips and cupped her cheek. “As a young boy, my parents...they....” He couldn’t finish, and Lily got the message loud and clear.
“They hurt you.” There was so much more to this man than a big cock and reputation. A broken child lay beneath the surface, lost and alone exactly like her.
“Yes.” He sobbed. Tears formed in his eyes, and she watched in total amazement as the man who was always in control, brutal in his approach, weakened before her.
Lily caressed his cheeks and stared in wonder as the tears spilled. She leaned down she kissed them away.
“I’m a horrible man. I’ve hurt you more than I’ve ever hurt anyone else.” His large hands encircled her waist and held her close. His head nuzzled her bosom as he let the sobs release. Lily held him, consoled him.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered, stroking his hair back from his face. Her breasts were coated with his tears. After some time, he stopped.
Wayne looked up about to talk, but she stopped him with a finger over his lips. “You don’t need to tell me. I understand, and thank you for giving me some of yourself already.” She kissed him on the lips.
“I want to show you something.” Wayne picked her up, placed her on the sofa, and went to his desk.
Lily recognized the contract she’d signed in Richard’s office, and her heart beat rapidly in her chest.
“Why do you have that awful thing?”
“Because I want to give you every copy that was ever made.” He handed her the paper copies and a disk. “That is everything linking to that contract. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my wife by choice not by contract.”
“What if I walk out of here?” Lily tested him.
“Then my heart will go with you wherever you want to go, but I’ll warn you now, you’ll never find a man out there who’ll love you the way I do.”
Lily watched him freeze. He stared at her, but his hands fisted at his sides. Getting to her feet with the contract in her hands, she walked over the fireplace and threw the documents and disk onto the fire. The paper went up in flames, and the plastic began to melt.
Her heart lifted in her chest.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I don’t need any contract to tell me how I feel. For some strange reason, Wayne Brown, I’ve fallen deeply in love with you, and I can forgive everything you’ve done, and everything you’re going to end up doing to me. I forgive you.”
Lily walked over to him and hugged him tight. They stood naked in front of the fire, the heat radiating to them. Wayne put his arms around her waist. She giggled when his cock bumped her back.
“Someone’s pleased to see me.”
“I’ll always be pleased to see you, baby,” Wayne said, nuzzling her neck. “I’m going to do something I should have done at the very beginning.”
Lily stood while Wayne moved to his clothing. He came back to her and went on one knee. “Lily Jones, the light of my life, the love of my life. I’ll love you forever with my heart, mind, body, and soul. I’ve been an utter bastard, but I do love you with everything that I am. Will you make this Beast whole and become my wife?”
As far as marriage proposals go, it was the most beautiful she’d ever witnessed. Nodding, she accepted the new ring he presented her with.
****
A few days before Christmas, Lily Jones, who was once blackmailed by a beast, was suddenly the very reason for him to open up and become the man willing to love her, and she willing to love the man with all of her heart.