Page 13 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

And a man who turns me on more than any other man ever has.

6

ANTONIO

I pause for a moment in the door to my office, staring at the desk in front of me. Without warning, my mind fills with memories of last night.

Julia, bent over, wedding lingerie discarded next to her dress on the floor, those impossibly sexy little gasps of pleasure she made when she was getting close. Back arched, body submitting to mine, as if this was what she had been waiting for since the second she agreed to marry me.

I push the thought from my mind.

Fuck it. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but there’s no way I’m going to let my head get caught up in the memories of what happened. A mistake, sure, but at least we have consummated the marriage now—which means it’s legal in pretty much every part of the world that matters, and nobody can question it.

Which, I keep telling myself, is the reason I did it.

Even if I know the truth good and goddamn well—that I would have done it anyway, that I wanted her when she walked in there, that the moment she asked me to help her out of her dress, I knew what was going to happen. In the mess of the wedding she was meant to have, this was only one more step. And now that it’s been taken…

I don’t know what the fuck to do with myself.

I slip into my seat with a sigh, planting the coffee down on the dark wood before me. I had a few too many drinks last night. I had been prepared for that, but I’d imagined that I would be celebrating the fact that my son was married, not knocking them back to try and forget that he had abandoned his wife and left me to take care of her.

And that note from Salamanca, fuck, there’s no other way to read it. My son has betrayed me. And the information that he has might be enough to topple this whole business if I’m not careful.

I should have known he would pull something like this, fucking idiot that he can be at times. Always has his head turned by whatever sounds good in the moment, never keeping his shit straight when it comes to managing his expectations.

And yeah, I’d sensed that he was starting to get frustrated, pissed that he wasn’t earning more power yet, but I saw how quickly he could be tempted by something—not exactly an ideal approach for someone to take at the top of a business like mine. I figured that getting married would curb some of those desires, at least when it came to women—that’s always been his biggest issue, the promise of some hot girl who wants him getting in the way of every bit of good sense I’ve tried to instill him with.

Maybe that’s why he wanted to marry Julia so much in the first place. Thought it might prove to me that he was ready for whatever was thrown his way.

But he left me to pick up the pieces, got a better offer from Salamanca. Hard to believe he’d turn his back on me like that, but if it was a matter of instant gratification, I can see why he would have been pulled in by whatever bullshit he had spun to him.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t reach him.

I’m his father, after all—I know him better than anyone. At least, I think I do. And if I promise him the chance to walk this back, to come back to the fold without having to pay for his crimes, maybe he’ll think about undoing this and forgetting the shit he tried to pull.

Of course, I might have to explain what I’m doing with the girl he was meant to marry on, but shit, if it gets that far, I’ll confess whatever it takes to get him loyal to me again.

I reach for my phone as I take a sip of my coffee. I haven’t tried to reaching out to him directly yet. I figured he would have changed his number as soon as all this shit went south, but maybe it’s worth a try. I don’t want to think that my son would do something that stupid, but I can’t help but see this as some sort of tantrum intended to force my hand. Maybe, if I give him what he wants, I can get this over with, get him to give up on this bullshit tantrum that he’s throwing and admit that he was in the wrong.

I dial his number and lift my phone to my ear—and I’m surprised when I hear it ringing.

He hasn’t even blocked me? Jesus, he truly has no idea what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s expecting me to reach out to him, wants to rub it in somehow, as if he hasn’t done enough to me as it is.

He picks up the phone, and my chest tightens at the sound of his voice.

“Dad.”

I hate hearing him like this, so absent, so distant, clearly planning something. I don’t know what he thinks he has managed to get over on me, but I sure as hell am not going to just stand aside and let it happen.

“Andreo, what the fuck are you playing at?” I demand, before I can stop myself. My discomfort turns to anger now that I can hear his voice, everything in me drawn taut as I wait for him to explain himself, but he makes no move to.

“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago,” he replies.

I can hear something in the background of the call, and I strain my ears to figure out what it is, something that might give away what he’s doing or why.

“Which is?”

“Working with someone who actually values my input.”