“What the Hell!”
“This is perfect! You’ve already seduced the unnatural fucker, now all you need to do is seal the deal and get him to bite you while you’re at it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? Kitty, I know you have your morals and all, but for once I need you to do the smart thing and do as I tell you. You do this and you and me will be free and I swear you won’t ever hear from him or me again. I know you wish you could have nothing to do with me, well this is your chance.”
“How exactly would me sleeping with him, and getting bitten by him, help get us out of this situation?” Katherine hissed.
“I see that you’re not arguing over what he is anymore. You know what he is too. You’re perceptive just like your old man,” Kyle said eagerly, “you get those bite marks on your neck and we got ourselves evidence. Evidence that I’m gonna share with the press. I got a journalist lined up who is coming up there with me tomorrow. We’re going to expose him for what he is. If he doesn’t want it to get out: then he’s gotta payout.”
Katherine was speechless.
“No way,” s finally stammered.
“Yes, Kitty, you’re doing this. You’re gonna do this or I’m gonna disappear and he’s going to keep you there forever, cos he ain’t ever going to catch me where I’m going to hole up.”
“You’re blackmailing me into helping you blackmail him. Not only are you happy to pimp your daughter out but you’d also have her offer herself up as a meal on a plate to him, all so you can avoid having to pay off the debt that you worked up in the first place?”
“You are so fucking dramatic,” Kyle bit back, “you get that from your mother too. This is business, Katherine. I would’ve thought you had grown up enough to realise that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to survive in this world, otherwise you get fucked over.”
“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”
“And you’re my daughter; lucky you,” he sneered back, “look at it like this: you’re fucked one way or another. You act like a little bitch and don’t do as I say and you’re stuck there with that monster for the rest of your life. You open your legs for him and let him chow down on your neck a bit and you get to walk away a rich girl.”
“I cannot believe you.”
“It’s a short-term loss for long-term gain. You flex your morals and endure a little pain for a bit and you’ll be rewarded with a lifetime of freedom.”
Freedom. The temptation to be able to do as she pleased without any of the hardships and without the millstone of her father hanging around her neck was sorely tempting. And she’d be away from Lucian. He would want nothing to do with her and she would never see him again. There would be no more hurt, no more longing for something more with him that wasn’t possible. He would hate her but maybe that was what was needed.
“You promise to never contact me again, and I mean never?” She husked out quietly, the betrayal on her tongue tore at her.
“Never again. I won’t even send a Christmas card,” her father replied.
“When do you need this done by?” Her voice was emotionless, even to her own ears it was cold.
“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. This journalist and me are going to turn up during the day, get him when he’s vulnerable. All you need to do is get the bite marks and be prepared to go on record with it all.”
Katherine’s heart was breaking.
“It’s done.”
She hung up the phone and tossed it angrily at the bed. Tears flowed easily down her face as she sucked in desperate lungfuls of air between sobs that threatened to overtake her. She hated her father. She hated being trapped in his stupid gambit. She hated being held against her will by Lucian and she hated that she had fallen for him in the process. Most of all she hated herself.
She stared at the roses in the vase. Most had begun to wilt, the stunning fiery orange and red-tipped bloom shone out amongst the rest. He never had told her what it meant. Part of her didn’t want to know. No doubt it harboured some sweet sentiment intended to make her lower her defences.
That was what she had to remind herself. Lucian had played a game. He knew what he wanted and how to get it. He had wanted sex and a free meal and he had played the gentleman to get her to give it to him.
Well, that was all going to change, she was about to make all the tables turn. She sniffed back her tears, angrily wiping them from her face.
It was time to get her shit together, and put on her game face. Her foolish heart protested but she ignored it. She wanted her freedom and independence back and she knew how to get it. Katherine strode into her shower room, she had to make herself irresistible to a certain Lord Lucian Nightingale.
Chapter Twenty
Lucian
Lucian’s phone buzzed impatiently from the other side of the room. Since returning home he had spent his time pacing his room and finally taking a scalding hot shower to help distract him from the fact that Katherine was not happy. Not just that, she had retreated from him. Perhaps she was just picking up on his unease after discovering her rare blood type, although he couldn’t shift the feeling that there was something going on between them that he hadn’t been able to decipher.
He could find out, he mused as he padded barefoot across the room, a towel wrapped around his
