Eleanor WitchBourne had been having a perfectly ordinary day, she’d been reviewing quarterly reports. Boring stuff. But it ca with the territory of being grood to eventually run the WitchBourne hospitality empire. Twenty-six years old, MBA from Cambridge, corner office in the Bristol headquarters with a view of the Avon that most people would kill for.
Perfectly ordinary.
Perfectly fine even though she knew she was marrying soone to help her family grow stronger.
Now, with a rare pocket of free ti in her schedule, it was ti to let loose a little. Eleanor was half out of her blouse—top buttons undone, silk parting to reveal the lace edge of her bra—when the door opened without a knock and a pervert walked into her office.
She didn’t turn imdiately. Assud it was staff. Assud the soft knock she’d missed in her focus, the murmured apology, the quick click of the door closing again.
But no apology ca.
No click of retreat.
The door stayed open.
And then footsteps—heavy, deliberate—crossed her threshold like they belonged there.
Eleanor looked up.
A man stood.
Late twenties, maybe early thirties. Handso in that generic, trust-fund way that rich boys often were—dark hair styled with too much product, jaw sharp enough to cut glass, suit that probably cost five figures and slled faintly of expensive cologne even from across the room.
Smile that said he’d never been told no in his entire pampered, entitled life.
Behind him, she could see shapes. n in black suits—big, filling the doorway like they’d been poured into the fra. They’d pushed past her own staff, past assistant at the front desk, past every single checkpoint that existed between the lobby and this private sanctum.
Like they owned the place.
Like he owned the place.
"Can I help you?" Eleanor asked, and her voice was ice.
The man’s smile widened—slow, predatory, eyes raking down her half-undone blouse like he was already ntally stripping the rest.
He didn’t answer.
Just walked toward her desk with that lazy, confident stride. Like a predator who’d spotted sothing interesting.
Like a collector approaching a new acquisition he’d already decided was his.
"Excuse ." Eleanor stood, blouse still gaping, heart suddenly hamring. "I asked you a question. Who the hell are you and how did you get past my—"
He reached for her.
One hand shot out—fast, proprietary—fingers curling around her bare waist where the blouse hung open, digging into soft skin above her skirt. His other hand rose toward her face, thumb brushing her cheek with the casual ownership of a man inspecting livestock he’d already paid for.
Then lower—bold, uninvited—tracing the edge of her bra through the silk, knuckles grazing the swell of her breast like he had every right.
He was smiling.
Smiling.
His thumb dragged across her lower lip—rough, invasive—trying to part it, trying to slip inside.
Eleanor’s brain short-circuited. Motor function dropped. Every synapse screaming MOVE and the body doing nothing because this wasn’t—this couldn’t—
His fingers tightened on her waist, pulling her closer, hips bumping the edge of her desk. His breath was hot against her ear.
"Relax, princess. You’re going to like—"
Sothing snapped.
Eleanor’s training kicked in before her brain caught up.
Six years of Krav Maga.
Four years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Two years of mixed martial arts with a forr SAS instructor.
All of it compressed into approximately three seconds of extrely focused, white-hot violence.
Her palm connected with his nose first. Cartilage crunched like wet gravel. Blood sprayed in a hot arc across her desk, her blouse, her cheek. He staggered back with a choked, gurgling scream—the universal noise of a man who’d just discovered that the world didn’t actually revolve around his desires.
She followed with a knee to the groin—hard.
Harder than necessary. Full force, no rcy.
The fabric gave way; she felt the soft give of flesh and testicles compressing under the blow. He folded in half with a high, strangled wheeze, hands flying to cup himself.
Eleanor grabbed fistfuls of that stupid, overproduced hair—yanked his head down—and introduced his face to her mahogany desk.
Once. Twice. Three tis. Four.
The fourth was for the way his thumb had tried to push into her mouth. The fifth was for the hand on her breast. Wood thudded wetly against bone; blood sared in bright streaks across polished surface and antique inlay.
By the ti his security burst fully into her office—shouting, guns half-drawn—Eleanor was standing over him with her heel pressed against his throat and a letter opener in her hand, breathing hard, blood on her blouse, on her hands, on the rug, absolutely fucking incandescent with rage.
"Get him out," she said, voice low and lethal. "Get him out of my office, and if I ever see his face again, I will finish what I started."
The security n—his security n—stared at her like she’d grown a second head.
Their boss was on the floor. Nose shattered, lip split, cut above his eye weeping red, cheek already swelling purple. Moaning softly. Definitely concussed. Possibly worse.
And this woman—this slip of a girl in her pencil skirt and designer heels—had done it in less ti than it took to brew a cup of tea.
"Now," Eleanor added, and pressed her heel down slightly—enough to make him choke on a whimper. "Or I call the police and we find out exactly how much diplomatic immunity your paperwork actually covers."
They moved.
Dragged him out by the arms, leaving a sar of blood on her antique Persian rug and a trail of crimson droplets down the hallway.
The door closed behind them.
Eleanor stood alone in her office, heart hamring, hands shaking with adrenaline, blood cooling on her skin, wondering what the hell had just happened.
She found out two minutes later when Edmund WitchBourne called—shouting before she could even say hello.
Thirty minutes after that, his helicopter landed on the building’s roof pad with a roar, and he stord into her office with a face like a thundercloud, her mother two steps behind, pale as milk and wringing her hands like a Victorian widow at a funeral.
When Eleanor saw the look in their eyes—not concern, not relief that she was okay, but raw, naked fear—she realized whatever she’d done, it was worse than she’d imagined.
"Do you have any idea," Edmund said, and his voice was a controlled explosion, each word bitten off like he was chewing glass, "what you’ve done?"
Eleanor blinked, still wiping blood from her cheek with a trembling hand.
"I defended myself. A man walked into my office without permission and tried to—"
"That man," Edmund cut her off, "was Evan Price."
The na landed like a bomb.
Eleanor’s blood went cold.
"The second son of the Price Legacy Family. The man you were supposed to marry. The man whose family could END US with a single phone call."
He was pacing now. Back and forth across her office like a caged animal. His composure—that legendary WitchBourne composure that had survived centuries of political upheaval—was cracking at the seams.
"He arrived a day early. Wanted to surprise you. Wanted to et his future wife before the formal introductions. And you—" He spun on her, finger jabbing at the air. "You broke his nose. Gave him a concussion. Nearly blinded him with a letter opener. His family is going to demand blood—literal blood, Eleanor. They’ll want yours."
"I didn’t know who he was!"
"You should have asked!"
"He didn’t give the chance!" Eleanor’s voice rose to match his. "He walked in like he owned the place. His guards pushed past my security. No announcent. No introduction. No anything. And then he just—reached for . Grabbed my waist. Touched my chest. Tried to shove his thumb in my mouth like I was already his property. Like I was—"
Her voice cracked.
Like I was property.
Like I was already his.
"What was I supposed to do?" she demanded, tears burning hot behind her eyes. "Stand there and let him have his way? Let so stranger put his hands on just because his guards were bigger than mine? I have training, Father. Training you paid for. Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t? Was I supposed to be helpless?"
"You were supposed to show restraint! That’s what your mother and I taught you!"
"He was molesting ! Care about that first!"
The words echoed off the walls.
Silence fell.
Heavy. Suffocating. The kind of silence that precedes either violence or tears.
Eleanor’s mother spoke for the first ti—voice small, trembling.
"Darling... the Prices don’t forgive. They don’t forget. And they never—ever—let slights like this go unanswered."
Her voice was soft. Trembling. "You have to understand, darling. The Prices... they’re not like us. They’re Legacy. Do you know what that really ans? Do you truly understand?"
Eleanor’s laugh was brittle, sharp enough to cut glass. "I understand that a man assaulted in my own office and I’m sohow the one being blad for it, Mum."
"It’s not about bla—"
"Then what is it about?!" Eleanor spun to face her mother, tears burning hot in her eyes now—angry, furious tears she refused to let fall. "I was in office, mom! And this—this person walked in like he had every right to be there and tried to put his hands on without so much as a hello and molested . What was I supposed to do? What would you have done?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers