Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Tatiana
My mother bends over me, smiling through her tears. The cold air from the AC blows wisps of blond hair around her angelic features. The crow’s feet on the outer corners of her blue eyes don’t deter from her beauty. If anything, her softly lined face gives her a more vulnerable and delicate look.
Mom?
She pushes the silver chain with the cross in my palm and wraps my fingers around it, cupping my hand in both of hers as she kisses my forehead.
Her melodic voice carries over the steady beeps that fill the room. “You’ll find everything you need there.”
My lips are too dry to speak. They’re stuck together. My eyelids are drooping even as I try to cling to her, but when she releases my hand, it falls like a dead weight on my chest, the silver chain buried beneath it.
No, Mom. Wait.
The overhead light forms a bright white halo around her head. Her face moves out of focus when she straightens.
I want to reach for her, but I’m paralyzed.
Mom!
Trying harder, I push sounds through my raw throat until a whisper forms on my cracked lips. “Don’t go.”
Her smile turns sadder. Her voice reaches me from somewhere farther off. “I love you, Tiana.”
“Mom.”
“Shh.” She pats my hand that lies uselessly on my chest. “I have to go to your father. You know how he gets when he’s like this.”
No one can calm him like she can.
She gives me a last, longing look, and then the light turns brighter, blinding me, and when I blink again, she’s gone.
I jerk awake with a gasp. I’m curled around Noah, holding his small body close to mine in the hotel bedroom where he sleeps. Sweat covers my body. My mouth is so dry it’s difficult to swallow.
Untangling myself carefully from Noah, I get up quietly and go to the bathroom. I close the door before switching on the light.
Since Dante has left, I’m not sleeping any better. The nightmares are getting worse again.
I splash cold water on my face and cup my hand under the faucet to drink.
Pressing my palms on the vanity, I study my reflection in the mirror. The face staring back at me is pale with dark circles under its eyes. The woman is a stranger. I don’t recognize her. She’s nothing but a ghost of my former self.
I take the crucifix that hangs on a chain around my neck from under my T-shirt and study it in the mirror.
Red crystals drip like blood down the long side of the ornate cross onto which a silver figurine of Jesus is nailed.
The Orthodox pendant isn’t worth much in itself—no one is going to rob me of a handful of shiny stones and nickel—but its value goes far beyond its actual price, and that’s not only because it’s the last thing my mom gave me.
A flashback of trying on a different necklace invades my mind.
Rows of diamonds set in scalloped chains with teardrops hanging down from the center stretched like an intricate lace collar between my breasts and over my shoulders.
The stones were cool against my skin, and the weight was surprisingly significant.
Grounding. Like the strong hands of a man resting on a woman’s shoulders.
Like I’d once seen my parents as my father had stood behind my mom where she’d been seated in front of her dressing table mirror.
He’d been cupping her shoulders in his large hands.
I’d been too young to understand the dynamic of their relationship then, but deep inside, I’d known there was something wrong with that picture. It had frightened me.
Not wanting to dwell on that memory, I leave the light on and go back to the room.
After reassuring myself that Noah is still sleeping soundly, I walk barefoot through the dark suite in the old T-shirt I slept in.
I went to bed with the scarf around my neck in case Noah woke up before me.
As I left the stupidly expensive watch Dante gave me in his room, I have no way of telling the time.
In the lounge, I open a curtain. A building across the road has an electronic time and temperature panel on the wall. It’s 4 am. My body’s internal clock is still set to the routine I had when I got up at this time to clean my house before getting Noah and myself ready for the day.
There’s no point in going back to bed. I never manage to sleep after one of my nightmares. I flick on a lamp and go to the coffee nook in the corner where I switch on the kettle to make a cup of tea.
Jazz enters from the lobby in her shortie pajamas and fluffy slippers, yawning. “Hey, can’t sleep?”
“Nope.” I sigh. “You neither?”
She walks over and flops down on the sofa. “I heard you in the bathroom.”
“Oh.” I wince. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She kicks off her slippers and crosses her legs on the seat. “I didn’t sleep well anyway.”
“Tea?” I ask by way of atonement, an apology for waking her up.
Yawning again, she says, “Why not?”
I take the only two teabags from the container and hold them in front of her. “Earl Grey or Chamomile?”
She makes a face. “Does housekeeping have something against us? They always leave the least appetizing choices. What happened to plain old English Breakfast? Wait.” Rolling her eyes, she continues.
“Dante is too paranoid to use the hotel staff. He’s got his own cleaners coming in, so this is his doing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he ordered them to only stock up on the tea I don’t like. ”
I laugh. “That’s a stretch, even for Dante.”
She crossed her arms. “Ugh.”
I shuffle them behind my back. “Pick one.”
She blows out a long breath before pointing at my right hand.
I bring it around to show her the Chamomile teabag.
She seems so offended—no, horrified would be a more accurate word to describe her expression—that I’m speechless.
Jazz never gets worked up about the small things that don’t really matter.
I’m about to tell her she can have the Earl Grey, it’s no big deal, when she looks up at me with wide, blue eyes.
“Tiana,” she whisper-exclaims.
I frown. “What?”
She drops her gaze back to my hand. “Your wrist.” She looks at my other hand where it hangs at my side. “What the hell?”
Shit. I forgot to hide the marks.
She’s on her feet in a wink, grabbing my hand to study my chafed skin. “What happened?”
I pull my hand from hers, resisting the urge to hide both behind my back. “Nothing.”
Anger contorts her features. “It’s not nothing. He did this. Dante.” She sounds shaken up. “Those marks are from ropes.”
“His belt,” I admit quietly.
“Tiana.” Disappointment mixes with concern in her expression. “You lied to me.”
I bite my lip.
She pins her arms at her sides and balls her hands into fists. “The bastard did hurt you.”
Guilt heats my cheeks. “Not exactly.”
She studies me. “What does that mean?” When I don’t reply, her jaw goes slack. “You had sex.” Her disappointment makes place for confusion. “Kinky sex?”
The tops of my ears burn.
“Tiana, no.” She puts a palm over her heart. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to. It just happened. One moment we were fighting, and the next…”
“What were you thinking?” she cries out.
I can’t even explain how I ended up back in Dante’s bed. I wanted to get him out of my system. I instigated the sex. Then he forced information from me and one thing led to another, which happened again when he punished me.
Jazz takes my hand while searching my face with a deep worry line running between her eyebrows. “Are you falling for him again?”
“Of course not,” I say quickly.
She tilts her head toward my wrist. “Then what is this?”
Honestly? “I don’t know.”
“Are you going back to him?” she asks carefully.
“No.” I pull my hand free and smooth my hair back from my face. “Never.”
“Then what’s going on between the two of you? What do you call this? Casual sex? Enemies with benefits?”
I don’t even know how to label our toxic relationship.
Forced? Yes. Coerced? Not entirely. Dante is the ruthless kidnapper keeping me hostage against my will, but he’s also the father of my child.
I can’t deny him a place in Noah’s life.
However, I can deny him a place in my bed, and that’s where the lines get blurry.
Because every time he touches me, he renders me helpless.
Nothing about how he touches me is forced, and that fills me with shame.
I can stand here and tell both myself and Jazz it will never happen again, that it was just a mistake, but deep inside, I know it will be a lie. My willpower isn’t that strong. Not when he puts his hands on me and traps me in the invisible hold of those cold, golden eyes.
“Oh, Tiana.” Jazz looks at me with pity. “You’re in so much trouble.”
“I’m not,” I maintain stubbornly. “As soon as Dante gets what he wants, I’ll carry on with my life. We can find an arrangement for sharing Noah that works for both of us.”
Dante’s ominous words ring in my mind, his vow that he won’t let me go.
I just have to be clever about it. I’m pretty sure he’s going to demand that I sign over my shares, so I’ll add a condition of my own.
I’ll give him the power to destroy my brother only if he promises to give me freedom in return.
“I’m over him.” The bitterness of that lie coats my tongue. “What happened should’ve stayed in the past where it belongs. I wish it did, but it’s not that straightforward.”
Her words are wry. “Now you’re going to say it’s complicated.”
“It is.”
“Tiana.” She grabs my hand again, urgency visible in every tense line of her face. “You’ve got to get out of here. Now. While you still have a chance.”
My voice is pained. “I can’t.”
“When will Dante go away again? Another opportunity may not come soon.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You’re no match for him.” Her eyes plead with me. “He still has a hold on you. If you stay, he’s going to destroy you again. You barely survived the last time.”
“Dante’s men are watching the hotel. They’re at every door and exit.”