Empire of Desire(Empire #1)(21)

I’m about to break her fucking hand and risk an assault charge, but I don’t need to. Gwyneth grabs her step-grandmother's finger and throws it away as if it’s disgusting. “I told you I’ll protect Dad’s assets until my last breath. Now, leave and don’t show your face here again. I’m filing a restraining order for reasons of aggressive, threatening behavior so you can never get near Dad.”

Susan jerks back as if she’s been burned. For someone who practically lives in court and pays a fortune to her lawyer, she has a poor sense of knowing when she should stop.

Which should’ve been after her husband died.

Or better yet, a few decades ago when she decided to kick King’s mother out and thought he’d forget about it.

But she doesn’t matter now, or ever, because I can’t help feeling a sensation of pride at how Gwyneth put the woman in her place. She’s King’s daughter, after all, even if she is more empathetic than he’s ever been.

“This isn’t over.” Susan clicks her tongue and turns and leaves in a swish of blinding, annoying pink and loud clicks of her shoes.

I track her movements, making sure she doesn’t try anything funny. Aspen is with the doctor in case Susan goes there to attempt to get a legal document out of him. Not that he’d hand over anything if he doesn’t want to risk losing his license. But I don’t trust people like Susan.

They might use the law to fight, but they wouldn’t hesitate to resort to illegal, immoral methods to get what they want.

“Is it true? Do you want to marry me?”

My attention slides back to the woman who’s snuggled to my side, looking up at me in that fucking way that stabs my guts and twists my damn insides.

Her eyes spark in a myriad of blue, gray, and green. Bright fucking green that I thought wouldn’t make an appearance again after King’s accident.

I hate the way she looks at me. I fucking loathe it.

Because it’s not just a gaze, it’s not mere eye contact. It’s words and phrases I don’t want to decipher.

I let her go and she staggers a little, as if she’s been floating on air and her feet are finally touching the ground. It’s where she’s supposed to always be—on the ground—not in the clouds she sometimes ascends to.

But even though I’m not touching her anymore, she’s still touching a part of me. My jacket is held snugly to her chest as if it’s some sort of armor—one she won’t let go of.

And I need to stop thinking about what that jacket is touching, because that’s just fucked up.

“It’s not that I want to marry you.”

A swallow, a clink of nails, a slight jump in her shoulders. I’ve always hated how expressive she is but that she can still hide more than she shows.

“Then why did you say that to Susan? Oh, was it a lie? A smokescreen to scare her away?”

“It was to scare her away and it is a smokescreen in a way, but it’s not a lie.”

“I…don’t understand.”

“I meant what I said. We need the joint property for the house and the shares since you now control them, and you have to give me power of attorney. That way, I can manage your assets until you can touch them when you’re twenty-one. I'll draw up a contract that joins both our assets, even those owned prior to the marriage. The only way you can do that is with a husband. Hence the marriage idea.”

“So…you do want to marry me.” The spark returns, turning the green bright, the blue light, and the gray almost nonexistent.

“Did you hear a word I said, Gwyneth?”

“Yeah, you want to marry me.”

“Aside from that.”

“To protect my and Dad’s assets from Susan, which, of course, I want to do but don’t have the power to due to my stupid age.”

Her nose scrunches at that last bit. My stupid age. Her brows dip, too, like whenever King tried to make her eat any flavor of ice cream aside from vanilla and she told him, “I love you, Dad, but I don’t like you all the time.”

To which he’d buy her unhealthy gallons of ice cream. Vanilla, naturally.

And because she’s a bit of a sheltered princess, she has a lot of things to learn. Things King was too soft-hearted to teach her.

Softheartedness is the last thing anyone could accuse me of.

“Shouldn’t you be wondering about the joint property part? With that, and the power of attorney, I’ll be able to strip you of every last penny and toss you aside.”

“You wouldn’t.” No hesitation. She doesn’t even stop to think about it.

“What if I do?”

“No. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a backstabber. Also, I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t. Blind trust is plain stupidity.”

“It’s not blind. I carefully built it up over time. Besides, there needs to be some sort of trust if we’re going to get married.”

“This marriage is only for convenience. Do you understand, Gwyneth?”

“Oh.”

“It’s a yes or no question. Do you understand?”

“Does…does this mean you won’t touch me?”

My jaw clenches in two rapid tics and I shake my head. “No. It’ll be on paper only.”