8. What
EIGHT
WHAT
HAVEN
This isn’t my home. This is his home. Not mine.
He has to know that… right? He brought me here because he couldn’t go to the hospital or the Fortress, and he has no idea where I live. This was his only choice, but it’s not my home.
I shake my head.
He nods. “Yup. This is where you live now.”
What happened to my apartment? Did they evict me? I’m on automatic payment from a basically endless bank account. I have a home, and even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be with a member of the Owed who has spent way too many years working my last nerve even if he did help bring me home again.
To Harmony Heights, though, not the Heyward family home.
I inch toward the door. His grin slides off of his face, his expression becoming determined as he holds up his free hand.
He folds his fingers back toward him. “Come to me, Haven. Breakfast is done. Let’s eat, and then we can talk about it.”
Talk again. Doesn’t he understand? I can’t talk!
I press my lips together, taking another step toward the front door.
He notices.
“Haven. Be reasonable. You need to eat. You need more sleep. Look at you… you’re in my shirt. You can’t go out like that.”
Try me.
I mouth his name, followed by one word: no.
The gleam in his eyes says yes.
“Listen to me, honey. You passed out because your body is exhausted. You’ve gotta be dehydrated. You’ve lost too much weight. And I know I’m not supposed to comment on a woman’s weight. Sue me. You can hate me all you want after I see you eat something.”
Another shake of my head. Another no.
Connor purses his lips.
“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay. If that’s what you want, babe, you got it. We’ll do this the hard way, then.”
I have no idea what he means by that, but I’m not about to stick around to find out.
Unfortunately for me, I haven’t had a full meal in days.
I slept last night, but before that, I was up for more than forty-eight hours.
Sleep came in snatches throughout my captivity, and I never knew when it was day or night.
I have at least two broken toes, a bruised rib, and my entire body aches from lying on the concrete floor.
Even though he looks like he’s also lost weight since I saw him last, the stocky, athletic Connor has a good four inches on me, maybe forty pounds, and he hasn’t been held captive for six weeks.
That’s why, when I take his words—you are home—to mean that he’s not about to let me leave and immediately make a panicked run for the door, I know deep down that I can’t outrun him.
I can’t outmuscle him. He was always stronger than me, and that was back when Mom insisted on me taking tennis lessons because that’s the only sort of exercise deemed appropriate for an Owed wife.
I tried, though. I won’t say I didn’t. I jerked in place, then I turned and ran for the door, but Connor had enough time to place his mug of coffee on the floor, eat up the distance between us with his legs, and wrap his arms around me before I even begin to figure out how to unlock his front door.
Credit where credit’s due. Connor must have figured out that I would sneak out after my shower if he gave me the chance. I guess he left the hall to go down and make breakfast in the kitchen, but just in case I tried, he locked the front door up tight.
Just like how his arms pinning mine at my side has me locked-up tight.
Upstairs, after I slapped him, I was afraid he would hit me back.
Now? The shower gave me more strength than I’ve had in weeks.
With his arms around me, I’m a wild thing, thrashing in an attempt to break out of his hold.
I almost manage it, too. It becomes super obvious right from the start that Connor is not trying to hurt me.
He’s not even really trying to restrain me.
He’s just holding onto me, waiting until I lose my fight.
I hear him whisper that it’s okay, that I’m safe, that he won’t hurt me…
but he doesn’t let me go, either, until I lose all of my strength and sink against him.
I’m not okay. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay.
I was faking it up until the moment he had me held against him, and once I give in, I just let go.
Like I’m back in the cell, the fight knocked out of me, I let him do what he wants to me.
Only Connor… what he wants is to guide me into the kitchen and lower me down into one of the two seats at a small circular table.
“Kitchen,” he said, more to himself than me before he basically began to carry me that way. “Just the kitchen. You eat, and then you can go back upstairs. Or sleep. Or throw something at my head. Your choice.”
So there’s that, I guess. The ‘hard way’ means that Connor maneuvers me like I’m a doll, putting me where he wants me, dropping a surprising kiss to the top of my head before he tucks a strand of drying hair behind my ear.
He’s humming under his breath as he ducks out of the kitchen, returning with his coffee mug before it even occurs to me to try again to leave this place.
My choice? I have no choice. Until I eat, he thinks he can keep me here, and I currently don’t have the strength to fight him on this.
I can’t scream for help, and apart from catching him by surprise, kicking him in the nuts, and breaking for the front door only to have the rest of Harmony Heights judging me in this state… there’s nothing else I can do.
The entire time I was held captive by Winter and his goons, I didn’t shed a single tear.
At first, I was too scared to cry; later, once I knew about the cameras, I was too proud to let them see what they did to me.
Tears were a luxury I couldn’t afford. They belonged to me, and I hoarded them—until now.
They fill my eyes, angry and hot. I don’t shed them, but they’re there, and I can’t tell if it’s a relief to see that I can still cry—since I can’t talk—or if I’ll do anything to keep Connor from seeing them, too.
He can’t right now. After checking that I’m where he put me, Connor heads to the counter. He grabs a plate, fills it, then turns to bring it to the table.
On the table, there’s a cardboard box about the size and shape of a shoebox. Connor nudges it to the side before setting down his plate. It has crispy bacon on it, a pile of scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, and some sliced strawberries.
I love strawberries. I don’t cook—I can’t cook—but, when it comes to eggs, I can manage a decent scramble so that’s how I usually eat them.
My bacon has to be crispy, my toast sloppy with butter because Mom…
she always insisted that an Offering go without the fats, and never, ever eat carbs if she can help it.
This is the perfect breakfast for me and that only makes it so much worse. My stomach folds in on itself, and I wrap my arms around me, hugging my middle.
“Just a bite,” Connor says. “Anything. One strawberry. Half a piece of toast. I don’t care. But I’m not letting you leave this room until you eat.”
I don’t know why he cares. I don’t know why he’s pushing this.
I’m nobody to him, just the woman one of his closest friends was supposed to marry and never did.
He should’ve been happy to pawn me off anyone else after my ordeal, but there he is, taking a seat across the table from me, waiting to witness me taking a bite.
I can’t. I probably should. I’m pretty sure my body needs the food more than anything after a long sleep and a shower. And yet… it’s impossible.
The instant I imagine putting any of this food into my mouth, my throat closes up. My stomach remembers only getting to eat because they fucking allowed it. My shattered mind recalls each of the times Mickey dropped a tray of food in front of me, commanding that I only taste it if I crawled for it.
Shit. I wanted to forget. I was done with remembering. It hurts so much, and I hate feeling as weak as they made me. I’m not weak. I was never weak. But now… I’m nothing.
Even worse? Connor Heyward has a front row seat to see how far the high and mighty Haven Smith has fallen.
I can’t help it. The way he’s sitting there, encouraging me to eat like I’m a two-year-old child perched in a high chair, I break again.
A tear drops onto Connor’s shirt. Then another. I don’t even realize that they’re streaming down my cheeks until they dampen the material of his shirt. I’m even more horrified that I can’t stop, even as I free a single hand to shove roughly at my eyes.
Across the way, Connor goes very still.
I don’t know what he’s going to do. There’s that same flash of something I saw earlier, right before the thud and the hole in the wall. He’s angry again, but not at me. It’s almost as though seeing what happened to me… what my captors did to me… is somehow affecting him.
Of course that makes the whole thing so much worse…
He breathes out through his nose. Then, in a soft, gentle tone, asks, “You’re not hungry, are you?”
A single shake of my head. No.
He nods. “You will be. When you are, I’ll feed you. You let me know, no matter the hour, and I’ll cook for you. Deal?” He doesn’t even wait for a response from me before he says, “Deal. Good. I’m glad we have that settled.”
Settled? We don’t have anything settled—
Connor rises from his seat. Stalking back into the kitchen, he returns with a napkin in his hand. Then, to my absolute shame, he drops to a knee at my side. One hand goes to my shoulder. The other? He lifts the napkin up, dabbing at my eyes.
I jerk my head out of his reach, not sure if it’s the sudden touch that has me eager to bolt or how unexpectedly gentle Connor Heyward is being with me.
Doesn’t matter. I can’t bolt—as though part of me realizes that, if I do, he’ll just chase after me again—so I do the only thing I can: I shut down completely.
“Cry if you need to, Haven. There’s no one here but you and me. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to have you in my home… our home. I want you to be comfortable. I want you to feel safe. Do you hear me? Nod if you can, grey eyes.”