Chapter 47 Chapter Forty-six
ARA
I'd never felt this sore in all my entire life. My nipples, between my legs, my ass, my hips, everywhere hurt in the most delicious way possible.
My dress was ruined—not that I was complaining—so Thayne had to scoop me up in his arms, bridal style.
His escorts, especially Munroe and Sylvester pretended to find the sky interesting as we approached the doorman whose cheeks turned bright beetle red.
He stammered his greeting and refused to look at me. I was embarrassed as hell, but there was nothing I could do other than pretend I didn't look like I'd been fucked every which way.
The front of my dress was ruined, and the slit on both sides looked more like the dressmaker had forgotten to stitch the sides of the dress together.
As soon as we reached the lobby, my sisters’ loud screams of excitement forced me to lift my head from where I'd buried it in Thayne's polar bear arms.
“Ara!" Mollie cried, nearly flinging herself into Thayne.
I was too overcome with joy and happiness to do or say anything other than smile at my sisters.
They were safe and sound. I'd been worried sick, nearly going mad with thoughts of them being shipped off to greedy Arab human merchants.
“Ara, we heard you nearly drowned. Are you okay? Can you talk?” Millie's question prompted me to lift one brow.
How did she know I'd nearly drowned?
"Ara, people think you and Uncle Thayne make the best couple ever! We watched him dive into the pool for you.” Mollie said, giggling into her palm, shooting Thayne a dreamy look.
Okay, what the heck was going on? They watched him dive in the pool for me? It'd barely been an hour ago and there was a video already?
Oh God. Now the whole world would know I didn't know how to swim. Not to mention the envelope I'd stolen from Thayne's office.
My sisters didn't know much about the circumstances surrounding the video.
Infact, they looked like they would give out their livers in exchange of experiencing being saved from drowning by a hot-looking Greek god like Thayne.
They both didn't look like they'd been kidnapped by some psychopathic bitch named Madison.
I wanted to hug them, to kiss them on their foreheads and ask them to forgive me for bringing them into this tangled mess.
But right now, I wanted to understand what exactly they were talking about.
“Put me down, Thayne." I told Thayne whose arms didn't loosen the slightest bit.
"Stay put, Ara. You're practically naked, unless you want to let your adolescent sisters know I fucked you thoroughly and ruined you for anybody else.” His vulgar words caused my thighs to clench together as a bolt of heat went down and settled in my core.
"She can't talk now, but you'll hear all about it during dinner, I promise.” He said to my sisters.
Millie and Mollie exchanged knowing looks that I couldn't interpret. Sometimes the twins behaved like they possessed telepathy, the ability to communicate with each other through their minds.
"Okay, Uncle Thayne. We'll be unpacking in the main time. See you, Ara!" Millie waved, leading her sister away by the elbow.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask Thayne what my sisters had been talking about, Sasha's police-siren voice cracked through the quietness in the hallway.
What did she want now? Weren't the pictures we took earlier enough?
Thayne didn't stop walking. His grip only tightened, as if Sasha was a serious threat he wanted to shield me from.
“Congratulations, Mr. Slade. You and Miss Irvington are the world's most searched couple on Google right now. The video of you two emerging from the pool has surpassed five hundred million reposts, and the second video where you were carrying her away from the pool has a whooping three hundred million views." She was talking in between rushed pants, as if she'd raced all the way to the penthouse just to give us this piece of information.
I didn't know if to feel thrilled or alarmed by this piece of information. For days, I worried about the public's perception of Thayne and I together as a couple.
His father was hellbent on snatching his inheritance from him, Madison was playing a suspicious game, and coupled with the other obstacles we'd had to face before finally setting the date for the wedding I missed, it wasn't really looking like our union would happen at all.
Getting married wouldn't make sense if he would lose the inheritance to his father. If I'd been able to duplicate the signed deal with Thayne's fake signature, perhaps I could have ruined whatever game Madison was playing.
Now, the original signed copy was destroyed, and there was no way to claim his inheritance.
I strained my neck to get a better view of Sasha, to ask her if the videos were something to rejoice over, but Thayne's iron grip made it impossible to see anything other than her long legs trying to catch up with us.
“Mr. Slade, now would be the best time to make a press release. In the heat of the social media attention, announcing the new wedding date will solidify people's approval of your union.” Sasha kept rambling on and on until Thayne was forced to stop in his tracks.
In a low growl, he said, “I didn't employ you to help me seek the public's approval of anything about me. I've never cared what they thought about me, and I certainly will not start now. If they have issues about the woman I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with, they can burn all the way to hell. And while they're at it,” he turned, exposing my disheveled state to Sasha who gasped audibly. "They can screw the devil.”
Thayne turned around and resumed walking us to the elevator.
Sasha wasn't stupid enough to say anything after that, Thayne sounded ultra terrifying when he'd said he didn't care what the public thought about us.
In the elevator, Thayne finally lowered his eyes to plant his hot gaze on me.
“You're mine, Ara. Whether or not I lose my birthright to my own father doesn't change that. There's nowhere you can go that I won't find you. No matter what games you play, you will always be mine." His voice was thick with possessiveness, and I wasn't sure if to feel scared about the threat buried in his words or melt into a pool of desire and want at the way he'd claimed me with just his voice.
The elevator dinged softly and slid open, drawing me out of my disorganized thoughts.
Thayne led us straight to the bathroom. He watched me wash myself in the tub, and his eyes didn't leave my body once as I dressed up.
It was like he never wanted me out of his sight ever again. If he was pissed about the fact that I'd destroyed the only surviving copy of the signed deal, he didn't let it show.
During dinner, my sisters sat with us, bombarding him with questions which he answered with enthusiasm, as if they were his sisters and we were one family.
“Uncle Thayne, we want a baby nephew. Don't you want to have babies with my sister?" Mollie asked Thayne who choked on his food.
I pretended to reach for the glass of wine beside my plate, but in my haste, I knocked it over and red spilled over the tablecloth.
Thayne was saved from answering Millie's question when a displeased looking Sylvester emerged out of the hallway.
“You have a visitor," he announced in a strained voice.
"Who?” Thayne asked, wiping his full lips with a napkin.
"Ehm, it's… It's a woman. She used to be your…” He trailed off, as if he didn't know how to organize his thoughts and put them into words.
"Sylvester, I'm having dinner with my favorite people. Is there a reason you have decided to interrupt us?” Thayne asked, narrowing his eyes.
We were his favorite people? Well, maybe my sisters. I definitely wasn't in that group.
"A woman is waiting in the lobby. She claims you're the father of her unborn child.”
My appetite shriveled up inside me at once. The silence that followed after was so loud it rang in my ears.