Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“Not now,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
His voice was strident enough to send the timid knocker away. He turned back to me, the bright glare from the window outlining his powerful frame, and glinting in his blond hair.
“I don’t give a flying fuck about Simon Baldwin’s death. I don’t care,” he said. “What I care about is you being safe and protected—”
“Protected? You keep saying you’re protecting me, but you don’t care about anything but your own interests!” He stalked toward me, but I kept talking, spitting out words. “You’re jealous of Simon, jealous of anyone who has a part of me. You want everything. You want me all to yourself.”
“We both know that! We both agreed to that. I earned you, you little bitch. You’re mine.” He grabbed my hand and showed me the ring on my finger. “You wear my collar, you live in my house, you belong to me.” He snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me roughly against him. “And you know how that goes, starshine. I decide who you have in your life. I decide who you help, and who helps you.”
“Let go of me.” I struggled in his grasp, but he only held me tighter.
“I’m never letting you go. I told you that at the beginning.”
“But someone died,” I shrieked. “Someone died, and it makes me crazy that you don’t even care.”
“I don’t care because he was an asshole who hurt you.” He shook me until my eyes met his. “I don’t care because you were always meant to belong to me, and Simon was always meant to flatline in a fucking nightclub bathroom, and you need to fucking get over your emotional victim bullshit.”
I slapped him. Hard. When he didn’t react, I launched myself at him, scratching and flailing. We struggled until he caught my hands in his. The arrogant nonchalance had left his face.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m finished with you.”
His whole body tensed. He looked really big when he was angry. “You’re wrong about that,” he said, his blue eyes pale and cold as ice. “When this fucking tantrum is over, you’ll still be mine. Remember that.”
I shivered at his tone, and subsided in his grasp. I couldn’t bear to think about a future between us, much less the repercussions of this confrontation.
“This conversation is over,” he said. “I have to go back to my meeting. I have work to do.”
I stared at him in befuddled silence. He had to go back to his meeting. Nothing I had said to him mattered, nothing about my feelings or my emotional pain managed to permeate his armor of control. You need to fucking get over your emotional victim bullshit.
He claimed to care, but he didn’t fucking care. I pulled out of his arms and ran away from him, because I needed some space to breathe. I left his office, ran down the hall and through the lobby, and out into the corridor toward the elevators. I listened as I ran, straining to hear if he was coming behind me. That was when I realized I wasn’t looking for a place to breathe. I was looking for a place to hide.
Chapter Twelve: Control
I didn’t expect her to leave the building. I didn’t expect her to literally go, but when I went back to the meeting and switched on the feed to her studio camera, she wasn’t there. I kept watching, but she didn’t show up. And didn’t show up. And didn’t show up.
She’d left.
I resolved not to panic. She was in slave revolt mode, which sometimes happened. I finished out the meeting and went home, and waited for her there. Nothing. She didn’t come home. Of course, I’d never given back her goddamned phone, so I couldn’t call her. My mind ran in circles, hot anger mixed with regret. She’d left me. I knew she’d do it eventually. Now I had to figure out how to bring her back, because Simon wasn’t going to be the one to steal her from me, especially from the grave.
When eight o’clock arrived with no Chere, I texted Andrew.
Is Chere at your place?
No, he texted back.
But he was an idiot, because if she wasn’t at his place, he would have texted something appropriately dramatic like OMG WHAT HAPPENED or OMG IS SHE LOST?
I had to go get her. She was wrought up. I understood that, but rules were fucking rules and she couldn’t just blow up in my face and run away to her friend’s house. I took a cab to Andrew and Craig’s building and helped a woman with her grocery bags in order to get through the door. I walked down the hall and knocked on the door of 24B.
Andrew answered with a pout on his face, and his arms crossed over his chest. “She’s not here.”