Precious Gems - Sierra Hill Page 0,16

told him you’re holding me until he sends you what he promised?”

Faron clenches his jaw, pursing his lips in an angry glower, the dark stubble over his lips and chin joining in response.

“Indeed, I have. And his bargaining chip and part of this new price increase is actually you.”

He scans my face waiting for a response to this claim. But all I have is confusion.

“I…I don’t follow.”

He chuckles humorlessly. Ominous to a cynical degree.

“Hmm…that says a lot about your, shall we say, inexperience.”

Yes, I’m inexperienced in this business, but it shouldn’t be to my father’s benefit. Why would it be? What does that give him as an advantage in this situation?

“Um, okay. What did he say?”

Faron crosses his arms over his chest, one hand scrubbing over his scruff. I notice his stance, his long, tapered legs hip width apart, the strength clear underneath the tailored material and fit.

“He sold you. Or rather, he offered me your virginity as an incentive to finalize this deal.”

Chapter 9

“He did what?”

My jaw drops, the room shifting and blurring as I try to come to terms with what Faron just said. An acute and very sharp pain stabs me in the middle of my chest. A knife being jammed in and then slowly removed by the audacity of my father’s actions.

Mudd Phillips has never disguised his dislike of me since the day I was born and as long as I can remember. I wasn’t the second son he wanted, and I drove my mother away, according to him. I was a nuisance, an annoying female complication that he couldn’t figure out how to use to his advantage.

Yet, once I hit puberty, his entire outlook changed. When Mudd was sober, he drilled into me the importance of keeping myself pure because he didn’t want to raise a grandchild. And when he was drunk, he would do a one-eighty, calling me names and slut-shaming me just for being a woman.

I ignored all of it because I had no desire to be any of those vile names he’d labeled me so cruelly and so often. I believed my virginity was the one and only thing I truly owned and had control over, so I protected it with everything I had.

Whereas every other aspect in my life was managed and controlled by Mudd. He dictated when I ate, what I ate, where I went, who I went with, when I would or would not attend school, where I lived, who my friends were, and what I would do to contribute to the family business.

In essence, I wasn’t his daughter. I was his servant.

But this time? This time, it isn’t just names. This time, he’s created some sick game with my life, sending me on a mission to fence a fake diamond, and then disrupts the entire scheme by changing the rules.

Mudd has what Faron wants - the diamond – still in his possession, and Faron has the money to pay for it. And now I possess something of value, that has been factored into this crazy, convoluted equation.

I growl angrily, jumping out from the warm comfort of the bed to pick up the pile of clean clothes Faron hands me.

“He has no right to give what doesn’t belong to him.”

Faron tilts his head, an arrogant smirk painted on his face. “Maybe. Maybe not. But it could’ve easily been mine for the taking ten minutes ago. Your body seemed ready to willingly offer it up to me.”

I stop in my tracks on my way to the bathroom, spinning around to stare at him wide-eyed at how casually he just threw that out there.

He steps in toward me, prompting me to stare up into his dark cavernous eyes. Getting lost so quickly in the pull between us. Losing all semblance of how fucked up this situation is and falling into a trance his gaze produces in me.

He flicks a loose strand of hair behind my shoulder, brushing over the bare skin that sends ripples of sensation down to my toes. A flock of birds taking flight in my stomach.

“Trust me when I say, Gemma, that I don’t buy innocence,” he assures me, his head bent to whisper in my ear. “But I will take it. And before this thing is over, you’ll give it to me freely.”

It’s shocking. I want to deny it. Tell him he’s wrong. That there is no way in hell I’d ever hand over my virginity to him, this arrogant asshole of a man holding me against