The Secret Mother And Her Cruel Tycoon

The helicopter didn't land at the gala. It landed on a helipad atop a glass needle in Midtown.

"This isn't the hotel," she said as the rotors slowed.

"This is the penthouse," Augustine said. "We have a stop to make."

The apartment was a fortress of glass and steel. It was cold, modern, and lifeless.

"I'm not hungry," she said as Marta set a plate of food on the dining table.

"You haven't eaten in twenty-four hours," Augustine said. He was already eating, cutting a steak with precise, surgical movements.

"I'm on a hunger strike," she announced. "Until you let me call my lawyer."

He didn't even look up. "Starve then."

She sat on the sofa, watching him eat. Her stomach cramped. The smell of the seared meat was torture.

He finished his meal. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.

Then he pulled out his phone.

"Come here."

She didn't move.

"Jericho."

The bodyguard stepped forward. He grabbed her arm and hauled her off the sofa. He dragged her to the table and forced her into the chair next to Augustine.

Augustine held the phone in front of her face.

It was a grainy video feed. Security footage. A prison cafeteria.

An old man sat alone at a table. Her father. He looked frail, his hand shaking as he tried to lift a spoon.

Two younger inmates walked up to him. One knocked the tray off the table. The other shoved him. Her father fell out of his chair.

She gasped. "Dad!"

The inmates started kicking him.

"Stop it!" she screamed at the phone. "Stop it!"

Augustine paused the video.

"He needs protection," Augustine said. "Protection costs money. Money comes from the commissary fund. I control the fund."

He picked up a spoon. He scooped up some mashed potatoes.

He held it to her lips.

"Eat," he said. "Fuel the body that's going to save him."

She looked at the spoon. Then at the frozen image of her father on the floor.

She opened her mouth.

He fed her. It was humiliating. It was intimate. It was a violation.

She swallowed, tears streaming down her face. She choked on the food, coughing.

"Good," he said softly. He wiped a smudge of gravy from her lip with his thumb. "Now you have the strength to face reality."

The limousine ride to the Plaza Hotel was silent.

She stared out the tinted window. New York flashed by in streaks of neon.

Her stomach churned, a mix of the forced food and nerves.

"Stop shaking," Augustine said. He reached over and took her hand. His palm was warm. "Prey shakes. Predators don't."

"I am prey," she whispered.

"Not tonight. Tonight you are Mrs. Hoover."

The car slowed. They were at the back of the line for the red carpet. Flashbulbs popped like strobe lights.

She looked through the window at the couple ahead of them.

Her breath hitched.

It was Grant. He looked dashing in a velvet tux.

But he wasn't alone.

A woman was hanging on his arm. She was wearing a red dress. A dress she recognized. It was a custom Valentino. Her custom Valentino. The one she had ordered for their engagement party.

She turned her head, laughing at something Grant said.

Yvonne. Her stepsister.

The world stopped.

Her stepsister. The one who had cried with her when Dad was arrested. The one who said she would talk to Grant for her.

She was wearing her dress. She was holding her fiancé.

"No," she breathed. "No, no, no."

Her vision tunneled.

She reached for the door handle.

"Don't," Augustine said.

"Let me out!" she shrieked. "That bitch! That's my dress!"

She clawed at the lock.

Augustine hit the central lock button.

"Look at yourself," he hissed. "You're hysterical. You go out there now, you look like the crazy ex. You validate everything Grant said in the press."

"I don't care!" She was sobbing now, hitting the window. Grant looked toward the car, frowning.

"He sees us," she panicked. "Let me out!"

Augustine grabbed her shoulders. He yanked her away from the window, pinning her against the leather seat.

"Shut up, Aislinn."

"Let me-"

He lowered his head and crushed his mouth to hers.