Chapter Nine
Lindsay
HIS ANGER AT me is like a weight. Crushing me. I’m furious that I feel guilty. I shouldn’t. The man kidnapped me; why do I care even a little bit about whether or not he’s upset? For God’s sake, I’ve been manipulated this whole time. Can’t I do a little manipulating back?
Asshole.
I’m a survivor, and I’m going to survive this. I know I will, and he should know that about me too. I’m not just going to lie back and think of backwoods Alaska, England or any power or principality. That’s not in my nature.
Kissing him… I do my best not to think about that. I do my best not to let myself get hot just thinking about the way his mouth felt moving over mine. The way his body looks without that suit covering it up.
The real issue was, I wasn’t thinking. Not about my plan, not about anything.
I was…touched by the things that he shared with me.
And it meant something for me to share with him.
I was being small and silly, and letting myself get caught up in the fine things.
The comfortable things. Letting myself get bowled over by the impact of him. I’ve never had a crush on a man before.
There’s no way you can have a crush on a mobster, is there? Crushes are for a cute barista at a café or the guy with the lopsided grin in your econ class, not for dangerous killers.
Still, there’s something.
Maybe it’s a biological imperative because I’m pregnant with his baby.
Which kind of doesn’t make sense because a sexual drive like that should be tied to the desire to reproduce, and we’re already doing that.
But it makes sense in the way that it seems somewhat reasonable that my body would crave the father of my child, almost as protection against me being with other men, in spite of the fact that I’ve never even been with one.
I don’t know what to do with this aching need inside of me, and I feel stupid about how painful it feels to have caused him the kind of upset that I did earlier.
When I came out of the cabana—and I made him wait about twenty minutes because I didn’t want to leave right away, partly because I didn’t want to give him what he wanted—he was so filled with icy rage that I was struck mute, which never happens.
And I’ve been obsessing about it since. He didn’t threaten to lock me in the room again, so I suppose there’s that. He also isn’t the one who brought me dinner.
I’m sulking about that, as stupid as that seems.
I should be grateful for the break from his arrogant gangster ass.
I pace back and forth, wearing the robe that I put on after I took my shower after the beach, and nothing more.
I don’t just want to manipulate him.
I want him. But…
I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what the endgame is of any of this. I’m pregnant with his baby, and I’m not equipped to raise a child. I really don’t believe he is either. But if he were trying to tell me that I couldn’t have a child that I wanted…
Empathy is not my first port of call. It’s never added anything to my life. Caring about the problems of others, making them have equal weight to mine, is a fool’s game. Especially when my life is so volatile.
So I don’t let myself. I really don’t try.
But right now I feel choked with it. And not only that, regret.
Not only that, but need. Today was upsetting in multiple ways.
Because it’s true. I’ve never been to the beach.
I haven’t done these exceedingly normal things.
I don’t have real friends. I don’t have real connections, and it is absurd to me how much in common I have with this man.
This man who was raised by wolves, where I was raised by a different pack, with the same results.
He and I both don’t know how to rely on people. Don’t know how to connect.
And we almost did. For a brief moment earlier. And I destroyed it because I needed to put distance between us.
That’s the real truth. I didn’t suddenly decide to twist the knife. Didn’t suddenly try to reveal my plan—it’s just that his kiss felt too good, and I couldn’t accept it. It’s just that his kiss felt too good, and I was afraid to want it.
Wanting makes me mean, apparently. As does kindness I don’t know what to do with. I’m completely thrown off by the fact that he and I are alike. That we can connect the way that we did, and that’s with all sexual attraction set aside.
I’ve never known another person who understood me like he does.
That’s an indictment of my life, for sure.
It’s hard to be too salty about that when it’s also one of the more amazing things I’ve ever experienced. But…
I feel like I’m being torn into pieces. Part of me wants to lean into this. I want him, and that’s never happened for me before. I like him, when I don’t hate him, and that’s something extraordinary too.
Guilt pricks me and I feel so irritated by that guilt. What I did was justified. But the sad reality is…
I want the connection with him more than I want justification. Which is completely unasked-for character development on my part.
I chew my thumbnail and scowl.
I decide then and there that I’m going to explain myself to him. Tell him that I was trying to manipulate him, but I regret it. That I actually just want to have a conversation with him about the fact that I’m afraid. I’m wringing my hands, trying to get around that descriptor. I’m afraid.
This entire situation is out of my control, and I’ve been trying to wrest it back into my control from the moment Vittoria disappeared, actually.
No. From before that. It’s what I’ve been trying to do always, forever. Never miss a beat, stay in control. Don’t admit that everything is bad. Don’t admit that it’s hard. Don’t admit that I’m spiraling out of control. While I am.
I am.
It was that kiss. I wanted to be the one in charge of the game then, and I thought my past ambivalence about men would help with that but I’m not ambivalent about his mouth, his hands, his body…
I fling open the bedroom door, and I make my way down the stairs.
I need to find him. This is such a new experience for me.
All of these mixed-up emotions tangling in my chest. All of these conflicting ideas.
Normally, I’m laser-focused. The one thing that matters is that I get out, and make myself better.
Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones. Maybe it’s just finally reaching the end of my tolerance for life.
For life being so ridiculous. Because haven’t I been through enough? Hasn’t he?
He didn’t ask for this, and I can’t say that I feel pity for him but…
I don’t know what I feel. Because I’m actually feeling. I’m not just scrapping my way toward survival on a prayer; I’m coping with complexity, and I really don’t like it.
When I find him I don’t know if I’m going to try to talk to him or fling myself at him. My willingness to seek him out anyway, with no plan, no control, is terrifying.
And freeing.
For some reason, I have a feeling I’ll find him in the library. If I don’t, then I’m going to head back to my room. I’m going to call all of this stupid. My worry about him, my desire to fix the situation, this foolish notion that maybe there’s a little bit of a connection between us.
Do I even want a connection? The last one I had was with his sister, and that ended badly.
I take a deep breath, and I go into the library.
There he is, sitting right by the fire, his glass of whiskey resting on the armrest, his face turned to the side, aquiline profile set off by the firelight.
He takes a drink of the whiskey, and I’m powerless to do anything but watch.
Even the way his throat moves when he swallows is captivating.
And I’m a fool.
Or maybe just a girl.
I’ve never been anything of the kind. I’ve always been strong, brave, immune. Tough, dangerous. I’ve never been soft. I’ve never been needy.
He makes me both of those things.
I’m completely out of my depth with him. And I can’t decide if there’s something interesting in that, or if it just terrifies me. Leaves me feeling weak.
Maybe it’s both.
And there’s something completely terrifying about that. But fascinating all at the same time.
Addict behavior, I tell myself. This deep desire to surrender myself completely to a sensation. To a moment. To something I know isn’t good for me.
I am at the mercy of things that I don’t fully understand.
Is this inevitable? Has it always been?
I’ve avoided substances, but maybe my personal brand of heroin has been out there in a custom suit all this time, waiting for me to take my first hit.
I’m not sure that I want to understand intellectually.
I’m tired. That’s the problem. And being here has allowed me to rest in a strange way, which I feel guilty about, afraid of.
And yet I’m so desperate for it. Because even while I’ve been here I’ve been thinking so much about what’s going to happen to the baby.
And I’m torn in two different directions.
The one that wants to lie around on the soft, plush bed, and the one that feels like a captive to all of this.
To the way that I’ve been pushed into this, to the way that he’s locked me up here, all of it.
“You’re upset,” I say, breaking the silence with perhaps the stupidest introductory phrase of all time. Because obviously he’s upset. It’s clear to anyone looking at him. And certainly anyone who’s spoken to him in the last couple of hours.
“I’m not in the mood for games.”
“I’m not playing games.”
I did this. And I want to do something about it.
I don’t know what’s driving me. It’s not a desire to manipulate him.
There’s not even really a goal. But I feel something for him, and in addition to that, the ache of attraction is this beautiful, unfamiliar sensation inside of me.
A melody that I’ve heard before, but don’t know by heart, winding through me, soaring high notes and bass notes laden with heaviness and a keen sort of reverberation that sends a chill down my spine, and an ache between my thighs.
I’m just feeling now.