Twenty-Five
Amelia
“Has there been any news from Van—Lukas?” I ask Linda the next morning.
“No, dear.”
I guess he hasn’t checked the camera feed yet. If there even is one.
“But that’s not unusual,” she adds reassuringly. “He sometimes goes weeks without a word.”
Weeks? I can’t sit here alone for weeks.
A house full of people, but alone is what I am. I can’t even contact my sister. Or Sierra.
They must think I’ve dropped into a black hole. I can’t even access my email. Lucy must be panicking. She gets a call from someone she doesn’t know and then there’s no word from me. Has she called the police? Am I reported as a missing person?
How has Van Wyk convinced her I’m fine—if he even has?
And the gallery. Shit… I needed to give a statement to the fire department. How could I have forgotten? They’re going to think the fire was an insurance scam, and I’m to blame.
I sit there staring unseeing at the breakfast counter, pressing my fingers to my temples, swallowing hard so I don’t throw up Linda’s pancakes.
My life has gone to total shit, and there’s one man responsible for everything.
Damn Van Wyk and his way of getting girls.
Doesn’t he know kidnapping went out of fashion after the Vikings?
“Are you all right, dear?” Linda’s voice drags me back to the present.
“Do you know how he brought me here?” I ask, wondering if she really knows her boss.
She turns to put some glasses back in the cupboard. “He drove you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he drove me. Gagged and tied in the back of his car.”
She freezes, then laughs nervously. “You young people and your sex games. I swear, my ears are too old for such things.”
I let it drop. I don’t really want to offend her, not when she’s been so kind to me.
My eyes catch on the artwork lining the hallway, the color palette in the kitchen, the way every room carries the same warm, considered touch. Van Wyk’s idea of décor is leaving bloody smears.
“Did someone else decorate this place?” I ask, gesturing at the room. “It doesn’t feel like a house a man put together.”
Linda’s smile falters, just for a second. “No, dear. It doesn’t.”
That’s not an answer, not really, but it’s close enough to one.
“Did you know Juliette well?”
Linda looks at me in alarm before she manages to school her expression.
“Yes, dear,” she says finally, the words heavy with emotion.
“I became the housekeeper here six years ago.” She gives me one of her trademark matronly smiles, but it’s strained, and she can’t hold it for long.
“I knew Juliette five of those before she… died.”
“They were married for twelve years, weren’t they?” I ask gently.
“Yes, that’s right.” She looks toward the window. “I would’ve liked to have known Juliette, back then.”
I nod in understanding. “She became ill, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” Linda turns away. “We don’t talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry, of course not,” I say quickly, not wanting her to close down completely. But what illness lasts for nine years and is taboo to discuss? Shit… did he do to her what he’s doing to me, until it broke her?
The thought has ice running over my skin, and I can’t suppress my shiver. I have to know, but how far can I push?
“Lukas said she died last December,” I try, tentatively.
“Yes.” Linda takes a breath and lets it out. “Terrible business. She’s very missed.” She forces another smile. “Now, are you heading to the pool?”
So that’s as much as I’ll get.
“Yes.” I force a smile of my own. “Nothing else to do with the day.”
“Jorge is waiting outside for you.”
“Thank you, Linda, and I’m sorry about Juliette.”
“That’s kind, dear. I’m glad Lukas has you, now.” She turns away, facing the window, lost in memories.
I slip out quietly, leaving her to it.
Van Wyk called Juliette’s death a relief. Linda calls it a terrible business and doesn’t want to talk about it.
Is that just different perspectives, or is there something I’m missing?
I give Linda space for a day or two, then try again. Yet each time I raise Juliette, she changes the subject. The third time this happens, I give up. There’s no point alienating her or stressing her out. Maybe there’s another way of unraveling this mystery.
I won’t get any help from Jorge. He stares impassively back at me, no matter what I say to him. I’m almost tempted to swim nude just to see if he blinks, but I also don’t want Van Wyk to kill him.
Tony’s a non-starter too.
“Drop it, Princess. If any of them wanted to talk about her, they would.”
“So you don’t know anything?”
“I didn’t say that,” he replies darkly, and doesn’t engage again.
It’s beyond frustrating.
In this way, the days go by, and with nothing else to occupy me, it’s getting to me.
Lucy must be going crazy too. I have no idea what’s going on with the gallery, or Sierra, or whether I’m now the primary arson suspect in an insurance scam.
Am I going to get out of here only to find an arrest warrant?
At least I don’t have to worry about explaining the loss of over a million bucks’ of art to the never-seen Bastien Fournier. I can simply point a finger at Van Wyk and make a dry comment about freedom and women’s rights—or I could, if he ever turns up again.
I’m certain I’m going slowly mad. At least in prison I would be able to get access to the news, but Van Wyk doesn’t even own a television.
There’s an eight-seat cinema with surround sound that I found in the basement during my explorations, but there are only so many times I can watch The Fifth Element.
Perversely, the gilded cage in which I’m kept only reinforces the helplessness of my situation.
With a beautiful setting, expansive (fenced in) grounds, home-cooked meals and a swimming pool, it’s almost like I have no right to complain, and that feeds my frustration and only makes me feel guilty.
Some days, I wonder if I’m becoming the princess Tony accuses me of being.
And that’s me. A prisoner in an ivory tower, as lonely as I’ve ever been, sick of feeling sorry for myself, and unable to do a damn thing about it.
Then Tuesday night, almost two weeks after I arrived, I walk out of the en suite in my bathrobe, my damp hair tied into a braid and my brush still in hand, to find Van Wyk standing in my bedroom. Our bedroom.
I stop in mid-step, staring at him.
He looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him, down to the black pants and close-fitting long-sleeved shirt, save that he’s always been clean-shaven, and now he has a week of stubble.
My first thought is how well it suits him.
My second thought is more violent.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I don’t wait for an answer before the brush leaves my hand, missing his head by inches and cracking off the wall behind him. I barrel across the room, launching myself at him with fists and feet. He grabs my wrists, and I kick his shin. That hurts my foot, but it doesn’t stop me.
“Amelia—” he begins gently, but I’m not in the mood to listen to anything he has to say.
“You left me here, you bastard! You won’t let me talk to anyone!” I drive my knee between his legs, but he twists, wincing as he takes the blow on his thigh. “I wake up and you’re gone! No note! Don’t you own a fucking phone?”
“Amelia—” he admonishes, voice hardening.
“What the hell did you say to my sister?” I manage to get a wrist free, breathing hard, and go for a slap on his too-handsome face. He catches my hand again, twisting me around, pulling me back against his chest while his other hand closes around my throat.
“Enough.”
“Get off me you, asshole! You don’t ever get to touch me again!”
He walks me toward the bed despite my struggles. I’m no match for his strength and size, and I can’t kick back at him while I’m fighting for balance. Then the edge of the bed hits my thighs, and he traps my legs against it as he bends me forward.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” he growls, pulling up the back of my bathrobe while pinning me to the bed with his other hand.
The first blow on my bare ass breaks through the fog of my anger, and I cry out in shock, realizing how vulnerable I am.
I attacked him. I tried to knee him between the legs. No man will accept that, especially one who kills whenever he needs to, without compunction or remorse.
An instant later, the second blow lands on my other cheek, his strength behind it. In the space of a heartbeat, anger gives way to pain, pain to fear, fear to arousal so damn intense that my legs tremble and I have to grip the sheets, gasping at the force of it.
He’s pinning me down, helpless. I’m more naked than not, my ass on fire. He’s never spanked me with so much of his strength. His hand presses between my shoulder blades, keeping me in position as he rains down spank after spank.
I’m gasping in seconds. Crying out in moments. Moaning my defeat as my body reacts to him, the heat from my ass rushing directly to my pussy.
He pauses, the only sound in the room my sobs. He draws in a breath like it pains him, hissing through his teeth, then lets it out with a wince. How is this hurting him? Is his poor hand bruised? It’s nothing compared to my ass.
His fingers dip between my legs, rubbing through my folds, and my soft cries turn to high-pitched gasps.
I know I’m wet, but he takes his time spreading it around, brushing across my clit.
I can’t help the whimpers that escape. My ass rises of its own accord, because I want more than just his fingers.
I want him.
“I’ve missed this ass,” he murmurs. “This tight little pussy.” He pushes a finger inside me, brushing his knuckle over my g-spot, and I press my face into the bed to muffle my moans. “So wet. So mine.”
How dare he make that claim when he’s abandoned me here?
“I’m not yours,” I spit. “I’ll never be yours.” I press my hands into the bed, trying to push myself up, but he just adds more weight between my shoulder blades.
“You are. Or were you trying to show me something different when you fucked yourself with that blue dildo and moaned my name?”
Shit. I knew there were cameras.