Chapter 7 Chapter Six
ARA
She has no idea what next will hit her?! Madison had obviously paid Nina to swap the dress Thayne must have arranged with this one.
The message implied that the dress was just the tip of the iceberg. What more did they have planned for me?
There was very little time to start weighing the implications of Maddie's text. I needed to take action.
I dropped the phone quickly and started heading for the door. I would let Thayne know that his ex was trying to sabotage me.
Before I even reached the door, it slid open to reveal Thayne, dressed in a razor-sharp velvet suit that fitted his muscular frame like it was designed from heaven with him in mind.
There were no words in my vocabulary to describe the look of desire I saw in his eyes the moment he laid his eyes on me.
“Ara…” He whispered, looking momentarily stunned by the sight of me in the outrageous outfit Madison had arranged through Nina.
Thayne's eyes darkened and his jaw tightened when he realized I wasn't wearing the dress he had arranged.
“Why aren't you wearing the dress I sent up to your room? And why aren't you ready?" He asked, closing the distance between us.
“Nina gave me -"
Nina's voice interrupted me, drowning out the rest of everything I wanted to say.
“Her hips were too wide for the red dress, and we ruined the zipper while trying to get the dress to fit. I had to order a replacement quickly.” Nina's lie flowed like water, and I couldn't even blame Thayne for believing her.
She hadn't even tried to resist the urge to body shame me.
All the while, Thayne's eyes never left mine.
"Leave us,” He said to Nina who nodded once and left the bedroom noiselessly.
Before the door even slid close, Thayne was already in front of me, his lips crashing down on me and teasing my lips open.
Nina's eyes widened just as the door closed in her face, and I found myself smiling.
I instantly forgot about Maddie and Nina's wicked plans and gave in to the pleasure Thayne was offering me.
He ran his finger up and down my sides, his fingers causing warmth to explode on my skin.
Thayne tasted like everything I'd been warned about, but I couldn't bring myself to back away.
Thayne's hand went to my thigh, and he began to inch his fingers upward slowly.
Then, he stopped abruptly and took a step back. I was panting, and it felt like he'd taken all the air in the room by just moving away from me.
“Put on those quickly so we can leave. I'm not a fan of tardiness." His sudden change of mood was confusing, but I tried to mask my surprise by doing as he said.
He'd been the one to kiss me first. Who was a fan of tardiness now?
Suddenly, it dawned on me that I would have to twist myself in order to wear the heels, and that was going to be an impossible feat in the dress I was wearing.
Thayne seemed to sense this, too, because he immediately stepped forward and did something I'd never believe he would do.
He knelt in front of me and lifted my right foot carefully, placing it in one of the heels. I watched him with my jaw hanging open, all the while praying to God that I wasn't flashing him my underwear.
He didn't let go of my second foot immediately. He ran his thumb over my ankle, almost affectionately, then rose to his full height so he was towering over me.
“I will have to kill any man who looks at you longer than required, or touches you without your permission.” He growled.
I shivered at this new protective and possessive side of him. A sick part of me liked it.
We went out of the room together, and on our way to the elevator, I saw Nina in the other wing, speaking into her phone.
I would have to watch my back at the dinner party. Madison would certainly be there, no doubt to make everyone think she wasn't hurt in the slightest bit by Thayne's rejection.
Thayne led me out of the elevator, and once we were outside the penthouse, he drew me closer and wrapped his arm around my waist.
His escorts beside us lifted their brows but said nothing. News must have circulated by now that Thayne had dumped Madison over me.
The contract form I signed mentioned that in public, I was to act the role of his wife-to-be and put on a convincing show.
I tried not to think about the way he'd kissed me back in the bedroom. Was it all part of the act?
There were nine cars lined up, all expensive black beasts that made me feel like all of this was a dream.
“We won't be flying today because the venue is quite close. Inform Pedro and let him know I want the drones activated." Thane said to one of his men.
Drones? Of course. A rich mogul like him would want to be sure of the security status of the perimeter we were about to step into.
Thayne opened the door to the backseat of the very Rolls-Royce I'd been kidnapped in, and I was reminded of the fact that I was nothing but a glorified prisoner in Thayne's world.
I tried not to give his escorts a generous view of my underwear as I tried to climb into the vehicle.
The dress wouldn't let me swing my leg up, and I feared that the dress would rip if I forced my body to move the way I wanted it to.
Thayne was already behind me, his large hands on my waist, lifting me up as if I weighed nothing.
“If we weren't already late, I would force my men to swear an oath never to look at you in this sinful dress throughout tonight." He whispered in my ear.
My cheeks heated up at that, and it didn't help that it was in this very vehicle he had asked me to straddle him.
Heavens knew if he asked me to straddle him right now, I would.
Did that make me a slut?
He helped me settle in the backseat before shutting the door and striding over to the other side.
All of my thighs were on display, and all it would take was for me to take one deep breath and my dress would turn into a top.
If I survived tonight, I would find a way to get back at Madison.
When Thayne climbed in beside me and his eyes landed on my exposed laps, he froze, then cursed under his breath.
I couldn't move, for fear of ruining the dress.
“Tell Gilbert and Munroe that I want the road cleared of traffic. Have the drones been activated?” He asked the man sitting shotgun beside the driver.
“Yes, boss. Pedro has his eyes on the three-sixty. I've just communicated to Munroe to clear the traffic." The man responded in a too serious tone.
"Good,” Thayne remarked.
As we eased out of the penthouse, I tried to regulate my breathing by taking calm breaths. Thayne's presence beside me made it impossible to think straight.
There was something about him that pulled at the thing inside me which was yet to acknowledge that he was a cold-hearted man.
I was doing all of these for my sisters, but what if I was doing them because I liked the wildness about him?
No. That was bad for me.
I watched the skyscrapers and the tall skyscrapers as we drove past, taking in the beautiful evening scene of New York city life.
We veered off the road and when we started approaching Time-square, I sat up straighter.
The other cars in front of us had pulled up already, and their occupants were filing up to come and take up positions beside our own vehicle.
I was yet to locate the venue of the dinner party, but I was sure we were parked really close to it. Thayne wouldn't have us trekking to the venue.
When one of his men opened my side of the vehicle and gave me his hand so I could climb out, Thayne let out a low growl and flared his nostrils like a caveman.
“Don't you dare touch her. All of you, back up away from her." He barked. They obeyed at once, and only then did I realize they'd been blocking my view of the venue.
There was a red carpet not too far from where we were parked, and I began to wonder how exactly I'd gone from eating from hand to mouth with my siblings to climbing out of a billionaire's Rolls-Royce.
Thayne gave me his hand, and the moment I stepped one heeled foot on the ground, the sound of cameras clicking rent the air.
There were other people like us emerging out of their rides, but none, I realized, struck the look of the perfect couple that Thayne and I were giving off.
Thayne's hand went to my waist, and together, we hit the red carpet.
Despite the tight circle Thayne's men had formed around us, journalists found the right angles to shove their microphones in our faces.
Midway through the red carpet, a plump woman with Harry Potter glasses breached the circle and took a clean shot of my face.
Next, a microphone appeared a few inches away from my lips.
“Miss Ara, a legitimate source has confirmed that your stepfather's debt is the reason you are trapped by Thayne Slade's side like a housefly in a net. Is that so?”