Free The Letter by Rebecca Bernadette Mance Page B

and Victoria looked away from him, willing herself not to let him see the terrible, unthinkable truth.
    She was in love with the bastard .
    But how could this have happened? She wanted to sob in frustration and outrage.
    Love at first sight was for the Sunday paper short stories. It didn’t happen in real life, it couldn’t. Yet, somehow it had. However, whatever reason this had happened, she must fight him and the licentious lures he cast, otherwise she would get wounded. Very badly wounded.
    “ Then what is wrong with a friendly arrangement where we both benefit and find pleasure?” he asked softly.
    “ You think you can just purchase me? Just like that?” Her voice was uncharacteristically bitter. “You assume I would find pleasure with you?”
    “ Purchase is such a harsh word, Victoria,” he said. “This is an arrangement that is mutually beneficial. You will be better off with me because I will give you everything and anything you could ever want. It is a small price on your part, a very small price. And I will endeavor to give you exquisite pleasure.”
    “ Stop saying such things to me.” She was breathing quickly. Separate warring factions of pain, humiliation, and desire churned inside of her.
    “ It is the same thing as asking me to be a . . . well, you know ... you might as well call me a prostitute.” She turned her hot face away from him while her treacherous mind formed a scene of the two of them naked in bed. She should feel utter and complete shame at the image, but did not.
    Oh God forgive her, she did want him that way.
    “ No, you are wrong, Victoria, it isn’t the same as being a prostitute and lying with many men. This sort of thing goes on all the time. Respectable women, many of them, are mistresses.”
    She was visibly trembling and could not stop.
    “ Look at me, Victoria.” His hand closed over hers and held it when she tried to pull away.
    “ I like you, I want you. I thought it was best to be honest, to tell you what I want, and I am willing to give you anything you want in return. Please darling, I am just asking you to consider my proposition.”
    Anything she wanted? Please darling? How could someone give another anything she wanted? Yet, it was obvious he could. He had at his fingertips more than she had ever even conceived and his fingertips tempted her in ways she never imagined.
    Could she or should she consider his proposal? She at least needed to buy time to find a new plan.
    “ I would like time to consider your offer.” She tried to think coherently while she swam in his smoky tempting gaze. Had he been just any man, she would have simply said no. But he wasn’t just any man.
    “ What about children, I don’t want any children to come out of this…this...” Victoria hesitated with embarrassment over the practical words that needed to be said even if she truly wasn’t considering his offer.
    “ Do not worry about that sweetheart, I know how to prevent these things,” William assured her.
    “ That doesn’t mean I have agreed because I most certainly have not.”
    “ Of course, you must consider my offer. I understand. Take as long as you need.” Pausing, he looked thoughtfully out at some unknown point beyond the doors of their private dining room.
    When he looked at her again he said, “I will tell you this, Victoria, I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman.”
    “ What if I don’t do what you want?” she asked.
    His eyes, previously warm and persuasive iced over and pierced into hers chilling Victoria to the bone.
    “ Then I will have to take the store, I will take everything. I have no choice. I cannot send you back to continue to struggle.”
    “ You are a horrible man to give me no choice but call it an offer.”
    “ You are very wrong Victoria, what I am offering is the world, it is up to you to chose foolishly.”
    She shivered with the numb reality of her circumstances. She wanted to weep in her obvious defeat. Instead, Victoria