Chapter Twenty-Six
Isabella
My sleep is peaceful, almost alarmingly so, but I still wake up in a frenzied panic. My heart is in my throat, the same place I left it when I fell asleep. I can’t help but feel my wrists heavier than usual, a hot pressure burning on my wrists where I realize rope tangles my arms.
I pull at it gently, finding the rope connected to the other wrist and then tied to the golden headboard of the bed frame. My body aches in a sluggish pile, and I stifle a breath, trying to pull free until I realize I’ve been here before.
The ornate wall mounts, the large window with a bay seat that overlooks the woods outside. There’s a city in the distance, far, far away from here. I have woken up here once before, and not in much better condition than I am now.
“Carter?” I ask, my throat sore and my voice raw. “Carter!”
His name echoes through the mansion, and the door to the bathroom squeals open. Carter is wearing nothing but ripped white-washed jeans. There’s something about the expression on his cold features that I recognize right away, and it steals focus from his perfect, shirtless body.
“Dove, you and I are going to talk.”
I shake my head, wincing as that picture returns to my scattered memory. “I don’t want to talk to you, Carter. I saw the picture. You… It was… It was her, wasn’t it?”
“Dove, you will let me talk.”
“I won’t listen.”
I shimmy backward, resting my arms against the headboard where I can turn my face away from him for good. I shut my eyes tight and ignore anything that comes out of his mouth, but this isn’t the kinder version of Carter Blackthorne that I’d come to know.
He’s back in his element again, the house we fled to so we could escape Jacob Lacey.
He is ruthless again.
His hand crawls up the back of my head and into my now-dry hair. He clenches a fist and yanks my head sideways, my eyes flying open in shock. I stare up at him, the fingertips on his free hand circling under my chin and stroking down to the base of my neck. He tugs at the shirt slightly as if wondering how to rip it off of me.
“Who gave you this shirt?”
“Rich did,” I whisper.
He shakes his head in disapproval. “Wearing another man’s shirt?”
“Better than watching another woman give you a pole dance,” I bite in bitter anguish. “How could you, Carter? Why would you ever—”
“Ssshh,” he says, his fingertips pinching my lips together. I wince slightly, the forming bruise still sore where he touches my mouth, but it’s not too painful to make me fight him. “You need to listen to me, Bella. These new enemies are not Jacob Lacey. They don’t fight with their guns or their cocks.”
I inhale sharply through my nose, my lips still preoccupied.
“You’re going to learn things, dove. Things that I’m trying to protect you from. And if you’re going to react this way for all of them, then you’ll be sequestered until this battle is over. I don’t want that, and I know you don’t, either.”
I nod in agreement. I don’t want to be set off to the side. I just want Carter and I to be happy.
That doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the case anytime soon, though.
“You love me, don’t you?”
I hesitate. Of course, I love him, but if he did cheat on me, does that mean he really loves me? Could I love a man who tosses me to the side so carelessly? I can only imagine what he would do if I were found giving a pole dance to another man, let alone in the lingerie Carter bought me!
A searing heat fills my chest, and I feel sick with the pressure.
Constant, never-ending pressure.
He doesn’t move his fingers off my lips yet. “You know I wouldn’t cheat on you. They’re going to try to prove otherwise or angle a sting operation on me to make it look like I’m cheating or that you’re having a fling with my once-rival.”
He leans forward, his lips nearly touching mine, still pinched between his fine grip. “You can tell me the truth, dove. Do you think I did something to hurt you? Do you think I cheated?”
While the photo was a daunting thing to see, I doubt Carter would have the ability to cheat on me and then come home and fill me with cum as he had. He’s got excellent rigor, but he’s not Superman. He needs a break, too, no matter what he may say during sex.
I shake my head in finality.
“Good girl,” he praises, kissing my forehead. “I didn’t want to punish you. Not after everything that has happened the last few days. But this doesn’t excuse you from wearing another man’s shirt. We will handle that later, though.”
He releases my lips and stalks to the end of the bed toward the bathroom.
My lips purse on their own before I blurt, “What? You get to see another woman half-naked, but I can’t wear Rich’s T-shirt to be modest?”
He stops, the muscles in his back flexed and unkind. “Repeat that, dove.”
“I could have walked around his penthouse naked. There was blood on my shirt, Carter. There was blood on everything I was wearing. I ran from the detective. I was arrested in our living room, and I was scared, okay? I wanted something to wear, and he offered it.”
He turns slowly, hands gripping the footboard of the bed. “I didn’t appreciate that slut giving me a dance. Whatever camera she hid didn’t show how I figured out it wasn’t you and how I threatened her life if she tried something like that again. I fought her off because I don’t find her the least bit appealing.”
“But you did at some point, right?”
His nostrils flare. “What the hell are you talking about.”
“She looks like Brooke!”
We both shiver, and I can’t believe I have to bring her up again, but it’s the truth. Carter was using my likeness to get over Brooke, and even though that wasn’t the case when we fell in love, it was the original purpose of his interest in me.
It’s the same as every long-haired, petite brunette in the city with a curvy figure. He wanted to get what he could never have, and I’m not going to pretend that this slandering journalist doesn’t look just like Brooke Blackthorne.
When his teeth finally unclench, his eyes dart through me. “You want the truth?”
I nod steadily. “Tell me what I already know, Carter. You’ve fucked her before, haven’t you? And now what? Do you want her again? Is that it?”
“Goddammit, I don’t want anyone but you. I’m not making that clear again.”
“Then explain it to me, Carter. Please. I want to understand why she’s trying to do this. She’s trying to get under my skin, telling everyone I’m cheating on you, and you’re cheating on me. For what purpose?”
“She wants me to pay.”
“Pay for what?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but something cold flashes in his eyes instead. He shuts his mouth and shakes his head at last. “I won’t say.”
I swallow hard. “What did you do?”
“Why are you assuming that I did anything, dove?”
“Because if you scorned her, she’s not going to stop until we’re just as miserable as you made her.”
He stands up, his hands sliding around the belt loops of his jeans. I’m happy to see that his belt is missing; part of me worried I’m tied up to take punishment. Which does remind me, why the hell am I tied up? I ignore it, though.
“I want to know, Carter,” I plead, fighting back heavy tears. “Why can’t you be honest.”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you, dammit. We’re here to regroup, and I have a Donahue huddle downstairs waiting for me to come and find a way to take down the mayor and this woman trying to hurt us, but I needed to be sure of something first.”
“Sure of what, exactly?”
“Sure that you love me, Isabella. And that you know I wouldn’t cheat.”
As much as the memory of that photo does ache, I know the truth.
“You wouldn’t cheat. We don’t have to keep coming back to this, Carter. It just… looks bad, that’s all.”
He nods slowly. “I understand how it looks. I’m not happy that she managed to trick me into that situation, but it happened. I love you, Bella. I love you more than I’ve ever loved any woman before. I just want to drop her as a topic for now.”
“And what about the next article?”
He looks uneasy with that question, asking instantly, “What next article?”
I can only shrug, my hands uncomfortable behind me. “I don’t know, but we do know she isn’t going to stop. There might be another one in the future. She might go for something more personal, too.”
“We will deal with it when it comes. If it comes.”
He looks relaxed at last as if I had some information on her that he didn’t want me to know. Either way, he wipes his face and looks toward the window at the setting sun. I know the Blackthornes operate like nocturnals, which means he will work something out with the Donahue family downstairs. However, this doesn’t explain my last searing question.
“Why am I tied up, exactly?”
He tips his head sideways and stalks to the bathroom, only to return with a little suitcase. I can’t imagine what could be inside of it other than clothes, and I know he’s probably upset to see me in Rich’s shirt, but it was this or my bloodstained garments.
He would probably prefer the latter, but it wasn’t ideal at the time. Besides, I’m wearing a thong. That counts as something when I’m covered up with the bed blankets, where I fell asleep pretty fast.
He undoes the suitcase, exposing a couple of toys I’ve never seen before.
My stomach falls like it’s tied with concrete bags and tossed into the harbor.
He looks up at me through dark, long lashes, and I can’t subdue my tremble.
“Dove, you’ll learn the same lesson again, but I’ll have to make it more memorable.”
I gulp hard. “Yeah? How are you going to do that exactly?”
“Spread your legs.”