Chained: Reckless Desires (Dragon's Heart Book 1) Read Online Free

drive off. Maybe he’d look for her in a day or two, maybe not. He’d chalk it up to teaching her a lesson in humility, or respecting her elders, or something. The man used cold reason as a shield for his cruelty.
    “What are the rules, please?”
    “They are quite simple. I’m sure with your juris doctorate you will have no trouble understanding them.” He was the only man in the world who could make graduating law school at the top of the class sound like a mark of shame. “Primarily, you shall not leave the residence. That is the building where I reside. It is modest, but spacious enough for the two of us. No gallivanting around. No midnight explorations of the grounds. The Lord Winterborn detests intruders and we shall respect his wishes.”
    “Got it, what else?”
    “You shall be quiet when at home. No screaming or yelling, certainly no rock music or loud phone conversations.”
    “Sure, okay.” Was she fifteen again?
    “Lastly, there are things we won’t discuss. You are well aware of what they are.”
    Bella wasn’t sure exactly what he meant. Probably he meant they shouldn’t discuss money, religion, politics, his failure as a father, her failure as a daughter, old grudges, future grudges, and especially her late mother.
    “Understood,” she said, resisting the urge to snap off a salute.
    The door unlocked with a quiet thunk , which was all the welcome she’d receive.
    Bella slid her suitcase into the back seat. The car was immaculate. The leather interior was a deep red color, oxblood she thought it was called, and there wasn’t a smudge on it. Her father had left a neatly folded tarp to protect the car from Bella’s things. It felt like a metaphor.
    Once she was in and buckled, he turned to her and said, “It’s nice to see you, monkey.”
    “You too, Dad.”
    He always called her monkey when he wanted to soften the conversation. It was verbal punctuation to him—a sign that the stern father portion of the conversation was over, and they could discuss trivial things like books or movies. He meant it kindly, but Bella bristled at the pet name.
    Silent as smoke, the car slipped off into the night. Bella felt like she’d been awake for a week. She wanted nothing more than to rest her head against the cool glass and nap on the drive to the estate, but her father had very strict no smudging rules vis-a-vis foreheads and car windows, so she contented herself with staring ahead at the winding mountain roads.
    If she was going to stay awake, she’d need to talk.
    “Tell me about the estate, Dad. What do you even do here?”
    “More than I used to,” he grunted. “I was hired on as a landscape architect. Preserving the grounds, keeping away invasive species, and general grounds-work was my purview. I had a staff of thirty men. But times have grown lean. The former Lord Winterborn passed away some three years ago, you know.”
    “What? No, I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I’m sure I did. You must have forgotten.” It was his favorite excuse for never telling her anything of importance. “Now I try to do what I can by myself. The estate previously boasted a staff of almost two hundred souls, split between the main house, the vineyard, the farm and outlying territories. But that was before my time, back in the good old days. Now it employs a handful at best. I hesitate to speak ill of anyone,” he said and Bella had to fight back a laugh. He father spoke well of almost no one, aside from Ronald Reagan and whatever historian he was reading at the time. “But the new Lord Winterborn, heir to the estate, has driven away nearly everyone with his temper. He is a vain and selfish child.”
    “What’s with this Lord thing? This is America dad. We fought a war to not have to call anyone that.”
    “Actually,” her father began, and then launched into a monologue about the argument between the Founding Fathers over titles. Bella had heard it before, so she tuned him out. Actually