Chapter 20 THAṆKSGIVING
I’m trapped here.
Unable to focus, I set down a book I’d taken from the living room bookshelf.
Radical Acceptance in Dark Times
I wonder if the asshole left that there as a message for me. Radical acceptance, my ass.
It’s been two and a half weeks since we moved to Chicago, and aside from avoiding me like I’m contagious with the plague, he only communicates via texts or Ren. My silent bodyguard looks like he wants to put a bullet in his head to end his misery.
I don’t blame him.
Something needs to change. I can’t spend day after day waiting for PR assignments to pass the time, having no meaningful conversation with anyone.
I miss noise. I miss little Levi’s giggles. I miss my brothers’ bickering and gossiping with my girlfriends.
Thanksgiving is next week. I’ve never spent the holiday away from my family, and I miss them so damn much.
I’ve been accommodating—absolutely the perfect prisoner, really. I haven’t gone out. I’ve completed every task he sends my way. And while Elias has finally removed the barricade—suspicious in and of itself, but I’ve stopped trying to figure out his games—I haven’t even tried the third floor yet.
Because I want something from him.
I just want to go home for the holiday. One little trip back home is perfectly reasonable. If he doesn’t want this marriage to be a living hell for both of us, he has to compromise.
Balling my hands into fists, I head downstairs. I’m going to find my husband and make my case. Then I’ll see my family.
The infuriating man strides out of his office as I reach the hall. He looks too good in a tailored shirt and vest, collar unbuttoned, a hint of skin glinting under the light.
His gaze narrows the second he spots me.
“I have a proposal,” I begin.
“No.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, forcing calmness. “You haven’t even listened to it.”
“I don’t need to. The answer is no. Simple. Or are you hard of hearing?”
Air hisses through my teeth. “Is this how it’s going to be? I can’t go anywhere, do anything? I’m to sit around until the end of February?”
“My spoiled princess getting bored?” He flicks his lighter open.
Click.
“I can’t stay locked up like this. I’m going crazy. I want to go home for Thanksgiving.”
“No.”
“This might be foreign to you, Elias, but I have a family. They love me. I love them. I miss them—”
“Don’t you tell me about family!”
He slams his fist into the wall, and I jump.
A muscle beats at his temple. His chest heaves as if the air hurts.
For a second, I see pain in his eyes—then it’s gone like a ghostly apparition.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He exhales, his anger vanishing too.
I swallow. “I-I’m trying to be reasonable. Even if I don’t go home, we need to work together to get out of this situation.”
Click. The damn annoying lighter again.
Fury tightens behind my shoulder blades. “You can’t possibly want to be married to me! I was there in the room, Elias. The Berishas forced you into it. I swear, if we just—”
“There is no ‘we,’ Lana. Let me make that very clear.” His eyes flash, and the hallway shrinks. “You aren’t going to mess this up for me.”
Mess this up for him?
I clamp my teeth on my cheek, barely registering the sting. Uprooting my entire life is an inconvenience for him?
Click.
I snatch the infuriating lighter, ready to hurl it down the hall.
In a blur of motion, Elias grabs my wrist mid-throw.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
His voice is pure venom. Wrath and thunder.
“I won’t have anyone, including you, jeopardize what I’ve worked for. And that includes going home and giving your brothers a chance to play hero and fuck things up.”
He leans in until barely an inch separates us. He steals the air from my lungs.
“Don’t try anything funny. Obey, or your family dies.”
Then he stalks off, leaving silence in his wake.
Snow blankets the world outside the window on Thanksgiving, daylight fading fast into winter gloom.
The fireplace roars in my room, but I’m chilled to the bone.
My eyes sting as I look at the care package spread before me.
Geraldine’s Chocolates courtesy of Belle; a slice of carrot cake from Estelles, Taylor’s favorite; Grace included a photo album of her baby.
Olivia sent over aromatherapy lotions with a note saying she and Rex miss me and the lavender is very calming if Elias pisses me off.
Alexis bundled up trinkets from her travels.
They think I’m sick with the flu. That’s why I couldn’t fly home for Thanksgiving.
Ever since my argument with Elias, our relationship—if you can even call it that—has plunged from cold to subarctic.
Cece meows as if to let me know she’s here. I scoop her up and hug her to my chest before crossing the room to the windows.
I fiddle with my emerald pendant and listen to the soft purrs of my cat.
Another reason this Thanksgiving feels heavy—it falls on November twenty-fourth this year.
Kian’s birthday.
Back home, I’d light a candle on a slice of cake and blow it out.
I hope he’s alive and happy, celebrating with his loved ones.
What happened to you, Kian?
That’s the thing about loss—it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. And when you have no closure? The ache never ends.
Wind beats against the glass pane, snow swirling in the air. Hollow Gardens is nearby. If only I could go out, I’d light the candle there, by our tree, our carving.
But I can’t, because the bastard won’t let me leave.
I picture Elias again, the terrifying man I now call my husband. He used to be a puzzle I wanted to solve because I thought there was more than meets the eye.
“Ew, numbers.” I peek over Kian’s shoulder, watching him scratch his pencil against paper.
It looks like a grid. Tic-tac-toe with numbers?
“Words are hard for me,” he says. He wraps his arm around me when I climb onto his lap. “But with numbers, we get along.”
“What’s this?”
He erases a number and writes another one in its place. “Sudoku. You need to add to nine.”
“Sounds boring. I’d rather read.”
Kian chuckles and kisses my hair. “Puzzles are like books, I think. There’s a mystery to solve. And mysteries are always worth solving.”
His words echo in my mind and I shake myself. Elias isn’t a puzzle.
He’s just mad.
I won’t let a madman ruin my day.
Determined, I stomp to my goodies, pick up the carrot cake, and head downstairs for a candle.
Minutes later, I round the corner toward the kitchen.
“Fuck!”
The crash of glass shattering cuts through the quiet.
Then a deep, delirious chuckle. Someone mutters under his breath.
Elias.
Glass clinks. Liquid sloshes.
I square my shoulders and step in, fully intending to ignore the man and grab my supplies.
But the sight stops me cold.
He’s slumped over the granite island, his normally tamed hair a disheveled mess, his dress shirt halfway unbuttoned. He looks like he’s brawled with a tornado and escaped with his life.
But it’s his eyes that stop me. The agony in them. The self-derision.
And a broken whiskey bottle, a victim on the floor.
“Wife,” he slurs. “Why are you down here?”
That’s when I notice the crimson streaking down his hand.
“You cut yourself!”
I set down the cake and grab the first-aid supplies I discovered last week.
I should ignore him, let the man hurt himself, but against all logic, I can’t. Not when he looks so broken.
Elias stills when I pull up a stool next to him. He hisses as I lift his hand and carefully clean the wound with wipes.
“Why are you doing this?” he rasps, his whiskey breath drifting over my skin. Awareness thrums between us like a living being. “If I bleed out, that’d make your life easier, wouldn’t it?”
I snort, wrapping the bandages. “You aren’t bleeding out from that. If only it were that easy.”
“Then why help me?” He chuckles darkly. “You hate me, don’t you? Because I hate you.”
My lungs tighten, a dull ache flaring. I tell myself his words don’t hurt.
But then I look up.
His green eyes, glazed with pain and something else, lock on my parted lips. My mouth dries. Elias dips his head slightly and trails a finger over my cheek.
A gasp escapes me. Liquid warmth pulses through my body in shivering waves.
“I hate you so much, Lana,” he repeats.
I flinch, drop his bandages, and step back. “Seriously, why do I even try?”
Shaking my head, I add, “Bandage yourself. Bleed out for all I care.”
But before I can take another step, he grips my wrist and yanks me onto his lap.
“What on earth?” I struggle in his hold, but he’s too damn strong.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Moving. Leaving. Whatever.” Elias presses me against him, his breathing rough. “Don’t leave. Please.”
The anguish in his tone stops me. He tightens his hold as the air between us heats.
“Why? Why do you hate me?” A sharp pinch catches behind my sternum. I glance into his eyes. “What did I ever do to you?”
Elias clenches his jaw while his gaze skates over my face before settling on my lips.
He doesn’t answer me.
But he doesn’t look at me with hate. He looks at me like I’m precious. Like I’m a dream he can’t believe is real.
My heart throbs now, the ache stealing my words. There’s confusion too, because I don’t understand what my sins are, but I know they’re real to him.
This is nuts. I don’t care what he thinks of me.
But still, I finish wrapping up his wound.
“All done.” I affix the tape and get off his lap.
He doesn’t let me.
Instead, he digs his fingers into my waist—almost painful—but then my body comes alive. My skin tightens as I take in his broad chest, the pulse throbbing in his neck, and those emerald-green eyes, wild and untamed.
“Lana,” he whispers.
My lips part. His eyes zero in on the motion.
The world swirls as my vision narrows. His face dips closer. My eyes flutter shut when his hot lips brand my neck.
Sparks explode at the point of contact, and I moan. My legs clench to relieve the sudden pulsing in my pussy.
Elias growls and manhandles me until I straddle him.
“What am I going to do with you?” he says, then drags his hand down my back and over my ass. “Fuck me.”
My panties dampen. Common sense flees the scene. I can’t help but move on his lap.
Once. Twice. Small gyrations that drive him wild.
A warning flickers in my mind. I’m his prisoner. He’s a monster.
But my body has other ideas. It wants this virile man to touch me, to hold me like he wants to possess me and never let go.
“Elias.” I bare my neck to him. “I don’t. I need—”
“Yes, princess.” He reaches up and palms my tits, playing with my beaded nipples. I whimper. I need more. So much more. “What do you need from the man who hates you?”
His words are a slap across my face, snapping me out of my haze.
I scurry off him, and the cold air crashes between us like a tsunami.
I miss his warmth.
My lips are swollen even though he didn’t kiss my mouth, and I refuse to analyze the regret that follows.
What am I doing? He’s my enemy. And I’m down here to grab a candle for Kian.
Kian, the sweet boy who would never hold me captive.
Shaking myself, I hurry to the drawer by the dishwasher. I spotted some candles and a lighter there before. I grab them, a fork, and pick up the cake, eager to flee the stifling room.
“I’m sorry.”
His words halt my escape, and I swallow my gasp. I’ve never heard Elias Kent apologize before.
“I’m drunk. Ignore me. Nothing I say means anything right now.”
Another beat of silence.
“What’s the cake for?” Elias exhales. “Please. Come back.”
I stare at the carrot cake, the earlier lust finally fading to the background.
Tears prickle my eyes again because loss once again reminds me of its presence. Faces of people who are not here with me—Mom, Kian, Dad, my siblings—flash behind my eyelids. Maybe it’s loneliness, maybe it’s Thanksgiving and I’m away from home, but I don’t want to be alone.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I won’t take your bullshit.” Slowly, I turn back and take a seat across from him. “You’re skating on thin ice.”
Those beautiful green eyes warm a smidgen, and he nods. A truce.
“The cake is a tradition.” Carefully, I remove the plastic lid and stick the candle in the middle. I click on the lighter, but it sputters uselessly.
“Here, let me.” He reaches over with his silver lighter and lights the candle.
My heart heavy, I stare at the lonely flame emitting its warm glow. It can’t chase away the darkness in this house.
“Today is November twenty-fourth,” I murmur, needing to confide in someone. Elias is halfway to drunk, so he probably wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, anyway. “It’s the birthday of someone important. I light a candle for him every year.”
His breath hitches, and I look up, finding his gaze dark and riveted on me.
“Someone important?” His fingers are white-knuckled around his tumbler.
“Yes.” Heat creeps up my face at his intensity. I want to look away but can’t. In this moment, I’m a willing prisoner. “He’s someone I miss a lot. Someone who wasn’t family, who loved me for me, not because of my name or my money.”
Elias’s throat ripples and nostrils flare. The flickering flame casts his face in shadows, but emotions still swirl in his eyes.
I’m hit with an urge to solve him again. The same feeling that something lies beneath the surface. Something worthwhile.
I grip my pendant, and his gaze flicks to it.
“He gave that to you.” A statement, not a question.
I nod.
“And you kept it all these years.”
“He’s not someone you forget,” I reply.
The air stills as we stare at each other, both of us snared in its intricate web.
For a heartbeat, the violence, the fake marriage, all fall away. I stop remembering how much I hate the man before me, who’s looking at me like he’s beholding the cosmos.
The ache eases a smidge in my chest.
I close my eyes, needing to break our connection, and make a wish.
Kian, wherever you are, I hope you’re happy. I hope all your dreams came true.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Elias,” I whisper.
Then I blow out the candle. The darkness sings, warm for once, before swallowing us whole.