Not Their Daughter, Just the Mistress Chapter 04

Not Their Daughter, Just the Mistress Chapter 04

The second she walked in, the comments exploded.

Ripping me apart and worshipping her in the same breath.

“Sorry… Boss. We have a situation at the company. You need to handle it.”

Her eyes were red-rimmed as she handed him a file. I used the interruption to slip out of Everett’s arms.

Everett ran two empires: Vaughn Holdings above ground, the syndicate beneath it.

“What’s so damn urgent?”

His thumb dragged across my lower lip, the one he’d just bitten raw, and he didn’t bother hiding his annoyance.

Sloane leaned in and murmured something only he could hear.

Everett sucked his teeth, transferred a clean half-million into my account like it was pocket change, and finally, reluctantly, let me go.

The second he disappeared upstairs to change, Sloane stepped into my path.

“Winona, can you stop being such a liability?”

She didn’t even try to hide the fury on her face.

“Do you have any idea how much that little stunt cost him? How many enemies he made last night, over your stupid watch?!”

Every word hit harder than the last. I backed up without meaning to.

I always assumed Sloane hated me because she couldn’t stomach watching Everett spoil me rotten.

Now I knew the truth. She wasn’t just a man in disguise. She was a woman. And she was in love with him.

And she was the true Hale daughter, the one my adoptive parents had been tearing the world apart trying to find.

[Next month, when the true daughter gets welcomed back into the Hale family, this sidepiece loses everything.]

[She’ll take back everything that’s hers AND finally work up the nerve to drug Everett and sleep with him, locking it down for good…]

Hadn’t I done the exact same thing?

The comments had me terrified. Every single day, I was walking on eggshells.

I stopped spending his money. Stopped picking fights.

When he tried to walk me through his schedule during the day, I waved him off before he could finish.

At night, when his hand found my ankle and tried to pull me closer, I froze.

I made excuses every time. “I don’t feel well tonight. We can’t…”

Everett never forced me.

But the man had a limit, and two weeks was it.

He came back from another overseas trip and didn’t even wait for me to wake up.

The moment my eyes fluttered open, confused and half-asleep, he lost what little patience he had left, and he stopped holding back.

“Babe, I’m sorry I woke you.”

I had a lethal morning temper. My hand flew toward his face on pure reflex and froze in midair.

…Damn it. I couldn’t hit him anymore.

I didn’t want to get shot.

I lowered my hand without a word. Everett’s eyes narrowed, dangerous and hungry, and he drove into me harder, like my obedience only made it worse.

…I was terrified he was going to hurt the baby.

But I couldn’t exactly kick a mafia boss off me. All I could do was squeeze my thighs together and bite down on my own hand.

“H-honey, please… be gentle…”

“Babe, you’ve been so good lately.”

Everett pulled my hand from my mouth, ran his tongue over the bite mark, then nipped it again, laughing, low and cold.

“But I still like the old you better.”