Their Forever - Chloe Kent Page 0,13

I'm saying to you?”

Liam didn't wait for an answer. He rose and adjusted his cufflinks as he strode to her. She was trying to get her father up off the floor and failing. Liam reached down and lifted the man, who shrank back in fear from Liam.

“Come,” he said to the girl.

She stood her ground.

“My name is Olivia Gray. I don't care what you do to me, but I want your word my family will be safe.” Even though she quivered in trepidation, her fierce pride returned.

“I don't make dead investments.” Liam chuckled softly, but she wasn't buying that. She wanted his word. It still meant something to her even surrounded by criminals. Two different categories of criminals, but criminals just the same. Her innocence ripped open his heart and softened the hard edges just a bit.

“You have my word: both you and your family will come to no harm under my protection.”

Her breathy sigh of relief stirred his cock. She nodded, pursing her lips, and finally relented.

He didn't know why he had waited expectantly for her approval. From where he stood, she hardly had a choice. Nunzio was going to kill her family, and her life would be hell. He realized she was calculating the lesser of two evils. And that amused him to no end.

He had assumed it was only her father she counted as family, but as he escorted them out of Nunzio's house, he found the rest of her family waiting anxiously outside with guns pointed at them.

She shoved aside one of the men, and when he looked to react, obviously lethargic at the turn of events, Liam intervened.

“They're with me,” he said in a tone that broached no question.

“This is Maggie; she's my stepmother,” she said hastily. “And these are my brothers and sisters.” She picked up one of four little kids, dressed in clothes that had holes in them and swung her onto her hip. Even still clad in only his jacket, she was as regal as a princess.

He couldn't help himself; he found her spirit incredibly sexy. Everything she said to him sounded like a challenge. As if she were waiting for him to disagree with her, so she could place him back in the box with Nunzio.

He brought them to his house and instructed John to take care of her family after Lydia and his chef fed them. When she prepared to leave with them, his fist clenched.

“Stay,” he ordered her, and she slowly swung around to face him, lifting her chin as she nodded. Every indication in her eyes told him for ten million dollars she was as good as dead if he touched her, but at least her family would be safe.

Since that day, Olivia had enthralled him.

“Why did you end up marrying her though?” Kade asked as Liam refilled their glasses.

“She didn't trust me.” He smiled to himself. In fact, he had asked her to marry him that very night he brought her home to his house, when he'd told her to stay. Well, to this day they debated the semantics about whether he asked or instructed her. His argument was that if she said no, it would have been a question and he would have asked her again.

But she had nodded, her gaze giving away everything. That she would end up as Liam Stone's wife for ten million dollars was the last thing that crossed her mind.

“What was all that about, then?” Kade asked, his jaw rippling as he avoided looking at Liam.

“She doesn't love me.” Liam slipped his hands into his pockets. His fingers instantly touched the little stone she had given him. It reminded him that she had confused love with gratitude, the line was fine and fragile already, so it made sense she had tripped up and realized the wrong thing for him. It also reminded him no one could love him.

“Liam?” Kade said, and Liam avoided looking at him this time. He didn't want Kade to assume he was thinking about his past. The truth was his past would haunt him until he died, but he’d learned how to handle it.

“She doesn't love me,” he said again. It had taken a while for her to accept that he would bring the world to her feet if she asked. But she was indebted to him because he saved her family. They currently lived in a nice house close to excellent schools and wanted for nothing and were on holiday that very moment.

When she realized he