Chapter Fourteen
Anya
I’m running down the stairs like the building is collapsing around me. The sparkly dress he told me to wear—to say yes to him—catches the light with every step, taunting me with what tonight was supposed to be.
People turn as I pass. Some stare like I’m unhinged, some whisper behind their hands, some look at me with pity. And some… some laugh. Do they know? Do they suspect it was me in that video? Are they laughing at the stupid girl who let a Morelli touch her where cameras could catch it?
A hot tear slips down my cheek. The stairs blur. Everything feels too loud and too bright.
And then I slam into something solid. A hard chest. Warm hands catch my arms before I fall, and when I look up—it’s Cassian.
What the hell? Wasn’t he just in his office fucking another woman? Did he teleport out of her pussy and into here? Or… it wasn’t him.
“Anya?” he sighs.
“But… but…” I still can’t process that he’s not actually fucking someone else.
“Come here.” He pulls me into his chest. I’m shaking so violently my teeth knock together. He leads me down a hall, through a door, into a private room that smells like leather and him. The moment the door shuts, I fall apart.
I’m not proud of it, but I hit him.
“You leaked it!” I’m hysterical. “You—you did it on purpose—you wanted to trap me—”
“Anya.” His hands stay loose at his sides, letting me hit him. “I would never leak it.”
“Liar!” I hit harder.
“How the fuck could I leak it,” he growls, “when I’ve been working with my team all day to get the posts taken down? I’ve got lawyers tracking IPs, and I’ve already paid men to find out who recorded it.” His eyes burn into mine. “Even though they can’t see anything but your hair, your shoulders, your legs… I’m still about to put a bullet in the wall because anyone saw what was mine.”
I feel like I need to vomit, or pass out, or wither away and die.
“Mine,” he repeats under his breath.
“Why?” I whisper. “I don’t understand anything anymore—”
“I promise you, I will get you justice. I promise you I’ll find the fucker who recorded that video. And when I do…” He drags in a breath like he’s holding back something monstrous. “…I’ll kill him for you.”
I have no doubt that he will, and that’s when my knees give out. I slide to the floor, body folding in on itself, sobbing so hard I can’t breathe. Cassian kneels beside me, pulls me into his lap. I cry until I can’t feel my face and panic turns into exhaustion.
“I don’t know if I can stay with you after this,” I whisper. “I don’t know. I’m so tired, Cassian. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
He strokes his fingers through my hair. “Do you love me?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
“Anya,” he whispers again, “do you love me?”
He exhales when I still refuse to answer, his lips brushing my temple.
“I love you so much,” he says. “I know all the moles and scars on your body. I know how many lashes your eyes have. I know the sound you make when I touch you. I can recognize your scent in a room full of people.” His forehead presses to mine. “I know you.”
“I love you too,” I breathe. “But I don’t think I can stay.”
His fingers tighten in my hair. “Well, I was never really giving you the choice.”
A hysterical sound leaves me. When I dig deeper into myself, I discover rot. Because that’s exactly what I wanted. For him not to let me go.
And Cassian Morelli is cruel.
He is powerful.
He is dangerous.
And I crave him like a sickness.
I lift my head from his chest. My face is a mess, my makeup ruined, my voice scraped raw. “I thought you were fucking someone else,” I whisper.
He literally loses color.
“I heard moaning from your office. I thought you left to handle some emergency but instead you were fucking someone in your office.”
“There is no universe—none—where I would touch another woman while I have you. The idea of fucking someone else feels like I’d be betraying my own bloodstream.”
His hand slides to my cheek, thumb brushing away what might be a tear or the last of my sanity.
“I only want you.”
My insides flutter and relief floods every cell in my body.
“Well, there’s a couple fucking in your office right now,” I say weakly.
He rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “It’s my idiot brother,” he mutters.
“What?” I laugh.
He gestures vaguely toward the ceiling. “His secretary’s apparently really good at tracking—digital forensics, data scraping, all that shit—so I requested her expertise to help me trace the leak.”
“And they’re… taking a break?” I say slowly.
“They’re ‘taking a fucking break.’ Yes.”
I explode with laughter, and it feels strange after so many tears and heartbreak. We’re still on the floor—his back against the sofa, me between his knees.
“You do realize I’d never let you go… right? The whole ‘week thing’ was just to make you more agreeable to spend time with me.”
I’m rotten. I don’t want the week to end, and I don’t want his obsession to fade. I want him exactly like this—dangerous, unhinged, tethered to me like he can’t breathe without my pulse under his mouth.
I want him ruined by me.
And I want to be ruined by him.
The realization is an ugly, rotten, awful thing.
“Anya, tell me.”
I should lie. Instead, my head moves before my brain can stop it. I nod.
“I’ll treat you like a queen,” he vows. “You’ll have everything you need. Anything you want. No one will touch you, look at you, breathe near you without my permission.”
Yes. Yes. That’s what I want.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he continues, his mouth brushing my jaw as he speaks, “in every way you didn’t know you needed. You’ll never worry about money, or safety, or where you’re going to sleep. You’ll never have to beg for scraps of affection, or settle for men who don’t know how to worship what’s in their arms.”