Chapter 21 - LEO
Ethan texted me to meet him at his penthouse, and I’ve come over here without a second thought.
I need to speak to him and luckily Sarah is working late tonight as they have some book club event at the coffee shop.
We need to sort this mess out with the contract and his constant interference in my life.
When I left the work party, I went straight back home to re-read the contract.
I had to go over it at least three times to believe what I was reading.
What a fucking idiot I’ve been. But it’s my own fault for only scanning through the main parts.
Too concerned about the sex part, I didn’t even bother to read over the amendments on the following pages.
Arriving at Ethan’s penthouse, it doesn’t feel like it did the first night I came here for the meal from hell.
Since spending the night as Ethan’s fuck toy, the home has taken on a different light.
It’s a place of raw truth, where all your secrets come out, a torture chamber where you can’t help but be manipulated into telling the truth.
An older lady lets me in on her way out, a brief encounter of a hello and a goodbye, so I make myself at home in the living area where the glass walls stretch from floor to ceiling, the city laid out beneath them like a nervous system, veins of light pulsing through the dark.
Everything here is so clean and organized.
There isn’t a single object that doesn’t look chosen for a reason I don’t understand.
I stand closer to the windows and get lost in the hectic city, my coat still on, pulse knocking against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
“You’re late,” Ethan says, making me jump as I didn’t notice him in the room. He’s the silent assassin, whose only purpose is to destroy your world only to mold it into his own.
He’s seated at the long dining table near the windows, sleeves rolled to his forearms, playing cards laid out in neat, perfect stacks. The lights above him are low, controlled, setting a heavy mood. He looks carved out of shadow and money.
“You said eight,” I reply.
“It’s eight-oh-three.”
I scoff as I move over to where he is sitting.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“You said that last time, too.”
He gestures to the chair across from him.
“Sit.”
“I didn’t come to…”
“Sit, Leo.”
The way he says my name strips the argument out of my mouth. So like a good boy, I sit.
The chair is cold but comfortable, wrapping its luxury around me. I remove my coat and place it over the back of my chair as he shuffles the deck. The sound of the cards adds to the tension. I’m not sure I want to know what his game is this time.
“What is this?” I ask.
“A game.”
“I don’t want to play.”
“You already are.”
My stomach tightens, knowing that to be true. He’s been playing this secret game with me since the moment I walked into him on my first day at work. He slides a glass of water toward me, but I don’t touch it.
“High card wins,” he says. “One draw.”
“And if I win?”
“You can leave.” I lose my breath at the threat. Is he threatening to keep me here against my will?
“And if I lose?”
His eyes lift with zero life behind them, unblinking.
“You stay.”
“That’s not a game. That’s coercion.”
He smiles faintly. “Everything is coercion, you’re just too blind to see it.”
Fuck this. I’m over this bullshit so I push back from the table.
“You can’t do this. You can’t keep pulling me into your life like this. You’ve already interfered enough.”
“Have I?”
“My job. My marriage. My head —”
“Your marriage was already dead.”
The words land like a slap across my face. That fucking prick.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“I get to say what I want.”
I stand fully now, adrenaline pumping so hard I want to punch that handsome fucking face.
“You’re manipulating me.”
“Of course I am. Have you only just figured that out?”
Of course he doesn’t deny it, because why would he? He’s not normal. I know this but here I am. The irony is his honesty is worse than any lie because you can’t argue with the truth.
“You followed me. You cornered me at work. You invited my wife to dinner just to insult her while exploiting me. You —”
“I was trying to remove an obstacle.”
“She’s a person.”
“So are you.”
I laugh, sharp and broken, finding it hard to believe what I’m hearing from this man. This is surreal, it’s like talking to a wall. Ethan has no fucking comprehension of emotion or fucking manners.
“You talk like you’re collecting rare antiques. You’ve never treated me like a person, only an object. Something to add to a collection.”
I watch as his gaze darkens, briefly wondering how far I can push this.
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” he asks quietly. “You think obsession is lack of control? This is restraint, Leo. This is me being careful with you.”
“I didn’t choose you.”
“You’re wrong, and you know you’re wrong.”
He pushes the deck toward me.
“Choose.”
“This is insane,” I mutter in disbelief, my hands trembling under the table.
“Draw.”
I scowl at him before I stare at the cards like they are the ones doing this to me. My chest feels too tight to breathe, my throat so dry it’s hard to swallow.
“You stacked the deck, I can’t trust you,” I say.
“Probably.”
“That’s not fair, this whole thing is not fucking fair.”
“Neither is your life, now fucking draw.”
The words cut too close to home and I hate him for being so blunt, so cruel. He doesn’t care if he hurts me, or breaks me down. He only cares about his end goal.
I think of Sarah. The apartment. The arguments. The long silences. The way I disappear in my own home as I float off into my mind. It’s a prison of pure torment.
Then I look at Ethan and think of his voice in the dark.
The way he sees me like something singular.
It terrifies and weakens me because I get some weird kind of kick out of it.
He has made my mind a bowl of confusion.
I don’t know what to do, or how to think.
I can’t sleep because all I can think about is him, and how good it felt to be with him.
How I hate how he controls my life, how he thinks he can just take what he wants without a thought of my feelings, without respecting me.
I sigh in defeat as I look down at the cards. What’s the point in fighting with him, he always wins with his words of steel. So I give in and draw a card.
Two of spades. My stomach drops as I look over at him. Cool and collected like he expected it, he then draws one. King of hearts. Motherfucker.
I grab the pack of cards in front of him. All of them are low cards. I had no chance, he must’ve hidden or snuck in the high card. Anger swells to the point I don’t understand how I’m still breathing. I’m so stupid. This is Ethan. I should’ve checked the deck before playing.
“You cheated,” I hiss at him, ready to lunge over the table at him.
“Yes.”
“You promised I could leave when you knew it wasn’t possible.”
“And you were naive enough to believe me.”
I stand so fast the chair falls backward.
“You planned this. You planned all of it.”
“I plan everything, have you not been paying attention?”
“You’re sick,” I say with such disgust, my head feels like it will explode. But Ethan doesn’t care. Instead he rises slowly, unhurried in his movements.
“I’m the only certain thing in your life.”
“You don’t care what this does to me.”
“I care more than anyone ever has,” he says, and I want to scream as he moves around the table. I back away until the glass window presses cold against my spine.
“There are no rules with you,” I say as my body starts to weaken. Exhausted from the push and pull. I have no idea what to do anymore. There is no escape.
“Correct,” he says in a low voice that sounds like it comes from the depths of hell.
“No limits to how far you’ll go.”
“You don’t want to know how far I would go for you, Leo.”
“This will never end, will it?”
Ethan stops inches away from me, watching every emotion pass over my face. I know he’s taking notes. The bastard gets a kick out of hounding me, confusing me, forcing me into directions that he plans.
“You’re afraid,” he says quietly. “Not of me, but of wanting this.”
“I don’t want this,” I say weakly. But I don’t. I…I don’t. Do I? What has he done to me?
“You do,” he says again with more force, like he is becoming impatient with me.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you better than your wife does.”
“That’s not true.”
“She only sees what you provide.”
“And I see what a psycho you are.”
“You hate your life,” he continues calmly, ignoring my comment. “You hate your bed. You hate being touched unless it’s by me. You hate being invisible.”
“You’re twisting things, every marriage goes through bad spells. Everyone has that moment in life where they question things.”
“I’m clarifying them for you. You’re too close to it to see.”
“You don’t get to decide what I feel.”
“I get to notice,” he says as his hand lifts and stops just short of touching my face.
“You came back, Leo.”
I have no answer to that because its true, I’m standing right fucking here in his home. Like a fool.
“You could have stayed away.”
I close my eyes as his finger presses into my throat and makes its way up to my bottom lip, where he seductively runs his finger over my pout.
“But you didn’t, did you Leo?”
Deadly chemistry roars between us, so potent my brain briefly goes offline.
“This is just the beginning,” he says. His hand now leaves my face and wraps firmly around my throat. I panic for a moment, but soon relax into it as he squeezes gently, before moving his mouth over my ear.
“You don’t get to walk in and out of my world,” he continues, his voice harsh and smokey, full of dark promises. “You don’t get to taste this and return to pretending you’re alive somewhere else.”
“This isn’t normal, Ethan.”
“No such thing as normal, only the destined.”
“You’re going to destroy me.”
“I already have, and I’m going to keep you.”