Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 64176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 321(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 321(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
My eyelids fly open. I’d turn my head, but I can’t because he’s right there. Cheek against my cheek, scruff rubbing against my skin as he moves his mouth to my ear and takes my earlobe between his teeth.
“Sweet, innocent, naïve Cristina,” he says, lifting off me. He makes a point of wiping off his hand off on my hip before gripping a handful of hair. He hauls me up painfully, turning me to face him.
I close my eyes to manage the pain or the humiliation, I’m not sure which. No, I know. The latter.
“Look at me.” When I don’t, he squeezes his fist in my hair. “I said look at me.”
I open my eyes to meet his dark gaze, and I see desire. A base, primal want, but alongside those things, there’s more.
It makes me tremble, the barely contained rage inside him. The fury just beneath the controlled exterior.
I see him like he was that first night eight years ago. The moment he told me the monsters don’t hide in the dark.
And I see the monster he warned me about inside his eyes.
“Don’t push me again,” he says, voice a low, deep warning. “You’re no match for me.”
When he releases me, my knees buckle. I drop down onto the bed.
Damian looks me over, crosses the room to pick up his jacket and, without another glance backward, walks out the door. The sound of the lock turning firmly in place, something I’m growing too familiar with.
25
Cristina
I manage to get a few hours of sleep sitting up in the bed—his bed—but all I dream of when I do sleep is him.
His hands on me.
His mouth on me.
His breath against my neck as he spoke ugly words to me.
And my body betraying me. Wanting to be his. Becoming his. Even as he humiliated me.
I shake my head. I’m angry and exhausted, and I can’t stop wondering where he went last night. In whose bed he slept.
A man like him is probably used to release. To a woman giving him what he needs. I’m sure he got it somewhere because I felt his need, and I don’t think he’d let that go unsatisfied.
And I should be grateful for that. Grateful he didn’t do what he threatened to do. But I hate him a little for leaving and going to someone else after that.
I get up off the bed and walk to the door which I’ve refused to try until now, but I just need to get out of this room. Get out of my head. I’m showered and dressed and not even close to ready for what I’ll have to face today.
But just as I get to the door, I hear the lock turn.
Instinct has me stepping quickly backward. I brace myself, my heartbeat picking up speed, my belly fluttering in anticipation of seeing this man whom I hate and want all at once.
He is your enemy. He murdered your father.
Even if he wasn’t the one who wrapped the rope around his neck or kicked the chair out from under him, it may as well have been him. He was there. He knew what was happening. Does he feel guilty about it? Does he even think about it at all?
No. You’d need a conscience to feel those things, and monsters don’t have a conscience.
He humiliated you. I remind myself. He’ll do worse to you.
But it’s not him who opens the door. It’s the soldier he’s assigned to me. Cash.
Cash nods once. That’s about it for a greeting. Can they even speak?
“Good morning,” I bite out.
“Breakfast is ready. Car leaves in twenty minutes.”
“Where’s Damian?”
“I’ll escort you down in twenty minutes,” he says and turns around to walk away, leaving the door open behind him.
I guess that’s code for if you don’t eat now, you don’t eat, so I step out into the hallway and walk to the kitchen where a woman stands washing dishes.
It’s not Elise, but I guess he’d have separate staff for each house.
She turns around and smiles, actually says good morning.
I smile back, but I feel like crying. I’m not wanted here. Damian doesn’t want me. His father would kill me if he could. Elise looks at me with disdain. Cash, well, I guess to Cash, I’m a nuisance.
And this woman’s smile, it the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Seeing Liam last night only makes me feel lonelier today, and now, this woman’s simple smile, it just makes me feel sad.
I’ve never felt so humiliated. So unwelcome and unwanted. And it hurts.
“I’ve cut up some fruit and there’s yogurt, Miss. Would you like something warm?”
I look at the large table where a lonely place is set for one with a bowl of yogurt and berries and a silver pot of coffee.
“No, thank you. This is perfect.”
I sit and glance at the clock mounted on the wall, refusing to look at Cash standing beside the door in what must be the uniform for Damian’s men—a dark suit. He holds one hand over the other, and I wonder how long he can hold that pose. He’s like one of those British soldiers who doesn’t even blink when you jump up and down in front of their face.