Blackmailed
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
2932 Ross Clark Circle, #384
Dothan, AL 36301
Blackmailed
Copyright © 2006 by Annmarie McKenna
ISBN: 1-59998-111-4
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: May 2006
Blackmailed
Annmarie McKenna
Dedication
Thank you,
Steve, my hubby who puts up with all my time on the computer,
Sasha, you know what “that’s” about,
Sharis, Amanda, Colleen, Cathy, Anna, Ann,
And all my CORE buddies, who didn’t get to read the sexy parts.
Mom—love you.
In memory of James Shaw.
Blackmailed
Chapter One
Brianna Wyatt stared at the arrogant, red-faced man sitting across
from her and snorted. She should have known better than to get into the
limo with him. Her father, only in the sense he’d provided the sperm that
had created her, was demented. She let her eyes fall to a speck on the
red-carpeted floor.
He’d cast her aside for all her twenty-six years, and
now
he suddenly
needed her?
“I will have a grandson, Brianna, my heir, and since you’re the only
legitimate vessel I have, you’ll be the one to give him to me!”
Where did her father get these ideas anyway? Did he suppose she
was going to become the next Virgin Mary? She glanced up and sobered
at the serious look on his face.
Straightening in her seat, she stiffened her spine and her resolve,
vowing not to let him get away with shunning the two children he already
had.
“You have a son, remember?
He
is your heir.” Her teeth hurt from
gritting them. Andrew Wyatt was more than aware of the son he had, but
chose to ignore. She hated him for that. In his eyes, females were
worthless except for bearing their husbands males to further the family
line and take over the business. Non-perfect males were to be kept in
secret, banished as if they didn’t exist.
That’s exactly the way he’d treated her and her brother. Even more so
when their mother abandoned them. Brianna had been just ten years old
at the time, her brother, six months.
Her father threw a hand in the air. “Silence. That boy will never be
able to do anything I need him to.”
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Annmarie McKenna
He would if you gave him the chance.
Brianna seethed as she glared
at him from beneath her lashes. Damn him to hell. Thank God she’d
been able to shelter Scottie from most of the intense hatred and
indifference running through their father’s veins.
“So what, you expect me to get pregnant by some stranger just so you
can have another penis in the house?” She couldn’t stop her hands from
clenching into white-knuckled fists.
“You’ll do whatever I tell you to, if you ever want to see Scott again.”
Ah, there it was. He’d played his trump card knowing she would do
anything for Scottie. Anything for the “imperfect” baby boy who she’d
single-handedly raised since his birth. In the dim interior of the limo, she
could see the red fury of her father’s face ebbing. A sure sign he knew
he’d just won.
Her breath wheezed out of her lungs, a symptom of an impending
asthma attack, as the delusional man sat across from her like a king on
his throne.
A creak of leather as her father relaxed back into his seat refocused
her attention. The redness of his jowls was gone now and a feral smile
split his lips. What had he done?
“He’s not a stranger anyway. He’s Cole Masters.” There was a
triumphant gleam in his eyes.
Brianna barely refrained from laughing out loud and thought about
what she knew about Cole Masters. He was in the top echelon of St.
Louis’s “Who’s Who”. He may even be the top. She’d overheard her father
and his business partners speak of him often enough. He was rich
beyond measure, many times over her father’s own wealth, had a
powerful corporate drive, and was way younger than most of his
competitors.
He owned and lived on a prime piece of real estate which overlooked
the Missouri River. The mansion itself had been scrutinized more than
once for its architectural brilliance, having been designed by somebody
famous, and had just recently been featured on the cover of a magazine.
As for the man himself, she had seen him many times in the media.
He was a handsome, much coveted bachelor who regularly dated
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beautiful, sexy women. Women who fawned over him, batting their
eyelashes and cooing like imbeciles. Women who had far more experience
than Brianna could ever hope to have.
He was also rumored to have extravagant and shocking sexual tastes
that ran from bondage to sharing. The gossip she’d heard through the
grapevine had left her panties damp and her heart racing.
No, the gazillionaire would never agree to be a sperm donor.
Still, the mere thought of a man like Cole mastering her body and
stroking her into oblivion made her stomach muscles clench. She
crossed her legs in an effort to stave off the moisture pooling between her
thighs, cringing when her now tight nipples sent an electric tingle
throughout her body as they rubbed against the soft cotton fabric of her
bra.
“If you’re thinking you’ve just gotten out of this, it’s already done,”
her father gloated.
Brianna’s head snapped up, the blood rushing from her face.
“And stop that infernal noise you’re making.”
She fumbled in her pocket for her inhaler and somehow managed to
give herself a puff despite her shakiness. Tears blurred her vision,
though she couldn’t decide if it was from wanting to laugh, or fright that
he may have done something stupid. He could not be serious. This was
the twenty-first century. Fathers did not give their daughters away to the
highest bidder anymore. And daughters did not go willingly.
Cole Masters would laugh himself unconscious the second she
walked through the door. Brianna would never measure up to his
standard of women. She was five foot six and sometimes clumsy, not tall
and graceful. She pulled her mouse-brown hair into a ponytail everyday
and never let it fall in a cascading waterfall down her back. Her eyes were
blue. Not cerulean, not Caribbean, not even sky. Just blue. She guessed
her body was curvy and plump in all the right places, but no diet in the
world would ever make her look svelte.
Her father sat taller and straightened his impeccable tie, indicating
he was through talking to her. He pressed on the button which allowed
communication with the driver.
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Annmarie McKenna
“Where are you going?” Her stomach twisted in a knot, and for the
second time she sorely wished she’d snubbed him and walked away.
“Not me. We. We’re going to Cole’s house. He’s expecting you. Must
you always dress like a slob?” he sneered.
Brianna lurched forward in her seat, strangling herself on the
seatbelt in the process. “You cannot tell me who to have sex with!”
The fury returned to his face as he brought himself nose to nose with
her and gripped her shoulders with fingers strong enough to crush her
bones. “I’ll damned well tell you who to fuck, and when, and if I have to
hold you down while he does it, I will.” Spittle shot from his mouth with
his anger.
Brianna paled, the blood rushing from her brain and threatening to
cause her to faint. “That’s rape.”
He shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“You’re insane. There’s no way to even guarantee you’ll get a boy!”
How could she possibly get him to see reason?
Her father sat back again. He inspected his immaculately manicured
nails as he spoke. “I am well aware of who controls the gender of a child,
Brianna. Do not think to undermine my intelligence. Cole comes from a
very long line of males. There’s not a single, worthless female for five or
more generations. I trust his sperm to do the right thing.”
“I won’t do it.”
His bark of laughter quickly turned into a snarl as his hand snaked
out to strike her cheek. It stopped just a breath away from her face.
“I would think you would not want Cole’s first time meeting you to be
hampered by a black eye or bloody lip, on top of your less than stellar
looks. Surely you don’t want his first impression of you to be one of an
uncontrollable woman. After all, in a few short hours he’s going to have
his dick inside you, filling you with his remarkable DNA.”
His words hit their mark and Brianna sank in her seat.
“Just think about Scott, all alone, without his precious sister
protecting him. You’ll never see him again, I promise.” He leaned in close
enough to where she could smell his whiskey-laden breath and her
stomach turned over. His lip curled into a snarl. “As soon as you give me
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a son, you can pack both your things and Scott’s, and get the hell out of
my house.”
Brianna trembled as tears slid down her cheeks. Her father didn’t
want a grandson. He planned to pass her baby off as his son! He didn’t
even want to keep her around as the baby’s mother. She truly was just a
vessel.
“Make yourself presentable, Brianna. You have forty-five minutes to
do so.” His tone brooked no argument.
She stared out the window of the limo and thought wildly about how
to get out of the mess she was in.
“The doors cannot be opened from the inside, Brianna. I made certain
of that earlier today.” He spoke calmly now as if they were going to
church, not to her scheduled rape. “Resign yourself to your fate, my
dear. I’m sure if you do everything he tells you to, he’ll go easy on you the
first time.”
He patted her knee like she was a child. Brianna jerked away from
his touch and squeezed against the door, fresh tears falling with his
snort of amusement. She could do this. For Scottie, she would do this
horrible thing. She didn’t think there was any chance of Cole agreeing,
but they would soon find out.
“I’m telling you, Tyler, this guy’s for real.” Cole swung his feet up and
settled them on top of his desk, then leaned back into his leather desk
chair as he spoke on the phone to his security specialist and best friend,
Tyler Cannon.
“Yeah, well,” Tyler said, “I ran the check on him, and on her. No one
seems to know much about her. The mother’s not in the picture, hasn’t
been since Brianna was about ten. No one I talked to could tell me
anything about Lydia Wyatt. I got the same story over and over.
Apparently it was rare to see Lydia in public, but impressions were she