+ Amelia +

The mood in the room shifted and Willem automatically picked up on it. I didn't know how to tell him that Bradley wasn't Pieter's son.

I delivered bad news to parents almost on a daily basis and this one wasn't any different in that sense. The only difference was that I knew Willem personally. I knew the sacrifices he'd had to make to raise Bradley as his son, only to find out that Bradley was his half-brother all along?

And that whatever pieces of Pieter he'd been holding onto had been nothing but smoke?

"Why are you so serious all of a sudden?" he asked, following me into the bedroom, his towel hanging low on his hip. "I also have something to tell you," he added almost as an afterthought.

"What is it? You can go first." I opened my suitcase on the couch, looking for something suitable to wear, delaying the inevitable.

"I saw Jessie today."

I turned my head to look at him. "Your side chick? I don't expect anything good to come from this."

"It's not like that. I would never do that to you. I would never be with you like this and have another woman on the side. For what? I have my hands full with you."

"So now I'm a handful?" I sighed.

"A handful of goodness, that's what you are. I ran into Jessie today, that's all." He tightened his towel around his waist and came to stand next to the couch. He regarded me with his cool gaze, his vulnerability written on his features and I wanted to believe him when he said that was all.

"Where did you meet her? I thought you had meetings all day?" I continued searching through my suitcase.

"I did, but I had a break in between."

"What did you talk about?"

He rubbed the stubble on his chin. "She's jealous of you and wanted to know why she and I didn't work out. I told her that I had moved on and any ideas she has of us ever being together are just that. Ideas."

I stood up straight, holding onto a plain white T-shirt I was thinking of wearing with a colorful A-line skirt.

"I would also like to know why it didn't work out with her," I said, crossing my arms, annoyed that he'd done all those things he'd done to me with Jessie. That he'd murmured sexy words in her ear and made her come on his dick.

"The connection wasn't there," he answered.

"But you fucked her nonetheless," I accused.

"And that's all it was. A fuck, nothing more. It's nothing like what we have. I wasn't in love with her."

"Love?" I laughed. "You talk as if you only had sex with her once."

"And that's important how? You weren't here and I couldn't very well go ten years without having sex. I'm not a monk. You should be glad it was only one woman and I only slept with her a handful of times."

"Get out," I stressed, pointing at the door. I didn't care that I wanted him out of his own room.

He raised an eyebrow in concern. "You ask me how many times we did it and now you're upset?"

"Because you're a liar. A handful of times? And she's this obsessed with you? Just like Tessa's obsessed with you when you've never slept with her?"

"Jessie and I only had sex a couple of times because I couldn't get it up. All I could think about was you. There, I fucking said it." His face contorted with pain and I could tell that he didn't want to talk about this with me.

I dropped the shirt I was holding. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"What do you want from me, huh? I didn't sleep with Jessie to hurt you. I was this close to being addicted to porn because of this bullshit and I won't let you patronize me for alleviating a basic human need that you were unable to fulfill until now." He sounded angry, his words lashing at me every time he raised his voice slightly.

I tried to wrap my head around what he was trying to tell me. He was a virile, potent man, and clearly, sex was ingrained in his DNA.

"I understand," I said slowly, swallowing my jealousy because I had to. Otherwise, his stint with Jessie was going to ruin this marriage before it started. "Jessie was in the past. Let's leave her there, shall we? I promised myself that I was only going to look forward from this point on."

"That sounds great to me," he said, relieved. "Anything else you want to get off your chest before we move on?"

"I almost had sex with Hunter," I quipped. "And if you hadn't shown up that night, we would have."

His eyes darkened at the mention of Hunter's name. "When you said you had something to tell me, was that it?"

"No."

"Why are you telling me this then? You think I like the thought of another man touching what's mine? Kissing what's mine?" He advanced toward me and tugged on the towel wrapped around my body until it fell on the floor. "This is mine," he said roughly, grabbing the mound at the apex of my thighs, the tip of his fingers finding my wet slit. He squeezed my breasts tightly with his other hand. "Fucking mine. All of it. Don't you ever forget it."

I squared my jaw. "I am not your property, Willem."

"You're my wife!"

I gulped.

"And that means I'm the only one who has access to your body. Don't provoke me with thoughts of another man touching you. I won't have it." He slipped a finger inside my dripping core and I clutched his strong shoulders for support.

"Say you're mine," he said gruffly against my ear.

"I'm your wife."

"Damn right you are. You're my wife. The possessive is loud and clear, schatje." His finger slipped out of me, leaving me feeling bereft. I watched him lift my suitcase as if it weighed nothing, eventually dropping it on the floor next to the couch before sitting down to face me.

He opened his towel, letting the ends fall to the side. My mouth went slack at the sight of his rigid arousal.

"What's the meaning of all this?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Don't play coy with me. You're not a virgin anymore. Come here."

I hated when he made me tingle like this. It was hard to keep a clear head when every time I looked at him and all I saw was sex.

I straddled his lap and he leaned forward to kiss me. I couldn't get enough of him it seemed. He was highly seductive and charming when he wanted to be. No wonder Tessa and Jessie were craving for more of him.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the feel of his soft lips moving against mine, his tongue delving into my mouth with skilled precision.

The butterflies in my stomach went wild, wings fluttering with madness.

He squeezed first my right breast and then my left, continuously alternating between the two while he strongly pulled on my nipples with his mouth.

I hoisted myself by getting on my toes, reaching between us to grab his thick girth. He pulsed in my hand as I gently stroked him. A moment later, I lowered myself on his length, loving the way he filled me up.

I kissed his neck, longer than I should have because when I leaned back there were blotches of red on his skin. For the first time, the contrast between our skin color stood out to me.

Looking back at his hands grabbing the dark curve of my butt cheek was quite a turn on.

I rode him slowly at first and then faster until we were both panting for air. My orgasm was strong and swift, leaving me spent. Willem followed right after, his seed spurting inside of me.

We were still locked in each other's arms when a loud knock sounded at the door. It was Mr. de Vries saying, "Willem, we need to talk. Your mother and I will be leaving soon to go back to the Netherlands. Thought we could discuss some business before then."

Annoyed, Willem shook his head and then stood up with me in his arms. He kissed me. "Go get dressed. Wear something sexy. I want to take you out tonight." He paused. "That's if you want to that is. I can sound domineering sometimes. I'm sorry."

I kind of liked his dominant streaked but I wasn't about to tell him that.

"Where are we going?" I asked, once my feet were planted firmly on the ground. I wrapped my towel around my body.

"Beach party."

Mr. de Vries sounded muffled as his voice came through the door. "Willem, are you there? I hope I'm not disturbing you but this is important."

Important as in Bradley's-my-son kind of important? I hoped not. I bit on my bottom lip when Willem went to answer the door, his towel wrapped around his hips.

Maybe he would take the news better coming from his father. I didn't have the answers to the many questions I knew he was bound to ask once I told him about Bradley.

But his father did.

That conniving, two-faced harlot named Tessa did.

Willem cracked the door open just a bit and that was enough to allow Mr. de Vries to scan the room until our eyes met. I looked away. His grey eyes, although quite similar to Willem's were bleak and dead looking.

"You have half an hour, dad," Willem said. "No more. If you wanted to talk business you should have been present at the board meeting today. Give me a second to get dressed." The door slammed shut and I wondered if he'd done that intentionally.

If Willem couldn't stand his father now, what was going to happen when he found out that his father had slept with his sick brother's wife and had gotten her pregnant?

I didn't want to be the one to tell him the truth. Was it even my place to tell him?

😣