Fourteen
Amelia
My instinct is to call Lucy and warn her.
But if I do, she’ll want to run to Serranto anyway, offering herself to save me. That’s not happening.
Instead, I put on a brave face for Sierra, unable to tell her the news, the remainder of the afternoon crawling by. I can’t wait to leave and get home.
I need a good cry. Then I need a fucking plan.
But what the hell can I do?
I could run the exhibition with old stock, but it won’t be the artists we’ve promised. All those people coming, and I have nothing for them.
That would be worse than canceling.
The truth is simple: I’m fucked.
I take a cab home, even though I now can’t afford it. I just can’t face the subway, not after all this. Six months ago, I inherited two million dollars. Four months ago, I bought into my dream.
Now I’m on the verge of bankruptcy.
Damn Serranto, that evil, conniving, manipulative, vengeful bastard.
Damn me, for thinking I could keep a man at bay with threats against a conscience he doesn’t have.
And damn Van Wyk—or me again, for being so fucking stupid as to think he’d actually keep his word.
I sit on my sofa, staring unseeing at my TV, making my way through a tub of chocolate ice cream. But even that isn’t satisfying and I give up after only ten minutes, throwing it back into the freezer and heading to bed. I need sleep, I need a clear head.
I need options I don’t have.
I jolt awake. I’m not alone.
The room is dark.
Someone is pressing against my back. A man, his body firm and naked. His breath against my bare shoulders.
I jerk in reflex. My hands don’t move. Something has them bound to the headboard.
Adrenaline washes through me, instinct kicking in. One moment I freeze, the next I’m thrashing, my legs caught in the duvet, my arms straining at my shackles. There’s no escape. I scream, desperate to get away, but a hand closes around my throat, squeezing just enough to choke away my cry.
“Shh, my Little Stray.”
Van Wyk.
My chest is heaving, and it takes me several seconds to find my voice. “You scared the shit out of me, you bastard.”
“Don’t fret. You’re with me.”
“I wasn’t fucking fretting,” I hiss at him. “Release me and get the hell out of my apartment.” Then, as my wits return, I add, “How the hell did you get in?”
“Keys,” Van Wyk murmurs in my ear. His hips press against my ass, his cock hard and nestling between my cheeks. “I missed you; I couldn’t wait until morning.”
I try to squirm away, but his hand on my hip stops me. I can barely move with my wrists cuffed.
“You have keys to my apartment?” Like that’s the most important thing right now. I’m changing the locks, first thing tomorrow.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asks, like it’s the most reasonable thing. “You’re mine.”
I’m lying naked in my bed with him, my wrists bound, as vulnerable as I’ve ever been. There’s no question what he came here to do, but he won’t get any response out of me. I’ll fight him every step of the way, with all of my spirit.
It’s all I’ve got left.
“No.” I shake my head. “No. I am so done with you. With Serranto. With men.”
Van Wyk goes still against me. “Serranto?” he asks, tone a hundred degrees cooler.
“Steven fucking Serranto,” I spit. “You remember him, don’t you? The man you promised would never bother me again?”
“Has he touched you?” Van Wyk growls, urgency in his voice.
I laugh, the sound brittle. “Why would you care?”
“Trust me, I care.”
“No, he hasn’t touched me.” My voice quavers with rage. “He’s blackmailed me. If I don’t give him my sister and myself, begging and on our knees, he’ll destroy my business.” I blink back tears of frustration.
“When was this?” Van Wyk bites off every word, like his rage is barely suppressed.
Maybe he does care. Or maybe he blames me. Who the hell knows?
“Today.” I feel a need to qualify. “He went straight back to Lucy—my sister—almost immediately after the gala. I told her to stay away from him. In revenge, he targeted my gallery.” The words are bitter on my tongue, not least because I know I’m wasting my breath.
“I found out all about it today. He’s sabotaged an exhibition I had next week, and… ” I don’t know how I’ll recover.
“How has he sabotaged it?” Van Wyk asks.
I press my face into my arm. It’s all the escape he allows me. “Just get out. I’m not in the fucking mood.” I know he’ll probably punish me for that, but unlike him, I’m past caring.
His body presses firmly into my back, and his hand brushes the hair from my neck. It’s almost tender. “Tell me, Little Stray.”
“No. Get out.” All my rage, all my helplessness, all my frustration returns at once, focused on this man who won’t leave me alone. “Get out!” I’m screaming it now. “Get out, get out, get out!”
He doesn’t move; he doesn’t even speak. He lets me rail against him, screaming and struggling as much as my bound wrists will allow, until I tire myself and give up, because my arms and throat are sore and no one will ever come anyway.
The whole time, his hand rests softly on my neck, the ball of his thumb brushing back and forth against my nape. I don’t even realize until I’ve calmed enough for my anger to have become sobs, then for those to fade away in turn.
It might’ve been two minutes, it might’ve been ten. He hasn’t spoken the whole time, but his gentle, subtle caress is unceasing.
“Stop touching me like that,” I grind out.
“No, I like it.”
“I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
He’s right, damn it. I do.
But not from him. Anyone else, yes. Him? Never.
“I hate you,” I tell him. “You promised me Serranto wouldn’t bother me or my sister. You gave me your word.” I scoff. “It’s as useless as you are.”
I know I’m provoking him, but I can’t help it. I don’t care. I want him to suffer my contempt.
“I’ll address that tomorrow,” he replies, voice cold and lifeless once more. But his tone is far warmer when he speaks again. “It’s you that needs me right now. Sleep, Little Stray.”
I don’t need him. I’ll never need him.
And sleep? As though he won’t try to fuck me, or punish me?
His cock is still hard, pressed warm against me, but he makes no effort to move.
Instead, his thumb keeps stroking back and forth against my neck, over and over, so light it’s almost as if I’m imagining it. But I’m not.
“Will you leave?” I ask, resigned that he won’t, no matter what I say.
“No, don’t worry,” he replies softly. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
So not what I meant. Yet strangely comforting.
No, not comforting. Just me being at the end of my rope. Unable to resist after all that’s happened.
“You didn’t keep me safe,” I mutter. “You said you would; you didn’t. Why should I believe you now?”
I’m not sure if I’m complaining or provoking, but Van Wyk doesn’t bite.
“Sleep,” he says instead, and places a kiss on my shoulder.
“I was asleep,” I say sullenly, jerking away. “Until you broke into my apartment and climbed into my bed.”
“I told you, I missed you. I didn’t expect to be gone for so long.”
“You didn’t have to come back at all.”
“Of course I did. I don’t want you escaping. You’re mine.”
I huff against my arm. “I am so fucking not yours.”
He doesn’t argue the point, and his thumb keeps brushing against my neck. I try to move my head away, but it doesn’t deter him. I can’t reconcile that gentle touch with the actions of this man. He treats me like property one moment, something precious the next.
It’s confusing.
“You were married,” I say, the words slipping out. I don’t know why I’ve gone there.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Twelve years.”
That’s a long damn time to be married for a man who’s a borderline psychopath. “Kids?”
“No.”
I want to ask why not, but that sounds too personal even in my head. “You said she died. How long ago?” No less personal, but I feel like I have a right to know.
“Ten months, now. Last December.”
It’s not long enough. That’s grief that hasn’t settled. He misses his wife, and I’m filling that hole. He’s already calling me his, but this isn’t about me at all. It’s simply comfort, to a man that’s hurting.
It doesn’t excuse his actions—any of it. But maybe I understand a little more.
“How old was she?” I ask quietly.
“Thirty-four.”
“Way too young.” I bite at my lip, thinking of it. Twelve years married, in their prime, and a dead wife. “What was her name?”
“Juliette.” His voice softens.
“It… uh… must be difficult.” No shit, Sherlock. “Getting over her, I mean.” Great. That makes it better.
But I want him thinking that he isn’t over her, and I’m not the solution.
“To be honest, it’s a relief,” he says. “For both of us, I think.”
What?
Both who… him and Juliette, or him and me?
“Uh… I…” …don’t know what to say to that.
He doesn’t speak for so long I think the conversation is done. I’m lying there, wondering how insane this man is, when his voice comes again. “She was ill.”
I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t.
“A long illness?” I ask tentatively.
He clears his throat. “Nine years.”
Whoa.
Almost all the time they were married.
He watched her fade away.
“My God,” I whisper. “I’m… so sorry.”
And I am.
He’s more human in this moment than he’s ever been, and my heart goes out to him.
No wonder it was a relief she died. Maybe he is done grieving; he’s had nine years of it.
He falls quiet, and I lie there, cuffed to my bed, thinking of the life he’s led, the marriage that he lived through. Juliette, fading away and dying before his eyes.
His thumb never ceases brushing the back of my neck, and it’s both soothing and soporific. I don’t intend to, but I fall asleep.