33. Maricela
It’s been a month since he touched me. Since I felt him. For a month of days, we lay in the same bed, embrace and sleep together without sex or any true intimacy. For an entire month, everything is tainted.
People say that a lack of communication destroys relationships. To honestly communicate, I must dismantle the tower we’ve built with fragile tenderness over the past six months.
It’s my fault. I know it’s my fault. But I didn’t do anything to prevent it.
“Where’s my future husband? I demand to see him.” Small red curls bounce around Lila’s face. She’s looking at the documents in her hand, not at me.
“That’s enough, Plastic Doll.”
I adopted the nickname Maddox gave her, and I’ve been calling her that ever since because only a plastic doll doesn’t understand hints and lets people continue to humiliate her.
“This game is over.”
“What game are you talking about?”
Is she serious?
“This game, Lila. You’re only humiliating yourself. Killian never wanted you. He’s not going to marry you—even if I left tomorrow, he would never marry you. You’re a plastic doll with nothing of substance inside. You’re beautiful, I’ll give you that, but you need to face facts. Killian needs more than beauty and emptiness and a woman who’ll stand by him and say yes to everything he wants.”
“And that someone, is you? Someone who was sexually abused?”
Words are weapons, and she uses the only weapon she can against me, making me burn from the inside out. Maybe it’s because Killian is walking on eggshells around me.
Or perhaps because I’m not brave enough to tear the man I love to pieces. I know he blames himself. I also have no doubt that if he learns the rest of my story and what I did to my body, he’ll never forgive me.
Her green eyes annoy me. Why does she have to be so beautiful? Why was she by his side and in his bed all that time? Why her? Not that White Barbie Arina is better. I hate knowing that he fucked her. I know he had a life before me, and still, I hate it.
Fuck these two dolls.
“You want to come here every day? I have no problem with that. You want to be here and keep thinking that Killian Fierro’s going to be your husband. Keep dreaming. That doesn’t hurt me. But if you continue to come here, it’ll be as my maid.”
The momentary sorrow for speaking about things she shouldn’t is gone as if it was never there in the first place, and the poison returns to her beautiful plastic face.
If she was nicer, she could be a model, but I don’t think anyone would want someone who doesn’t know how to smile without poison in her eyes.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she whines.
If she could, I have no doubt Lila would throw herself on the floor of the office right now and start kicking and screaming like a toddler.
“She just did.”
We both turn to see Killian walking in, and something close to pride flashes across his face, but it’s gone the second his gaze shifts to Lila’s mortified one. It shouldn’t make me feel good about myself. He doesn’t touch me and doesn’t want me anymore now that he knows someone destroyed me from the inside.
“From now on, you will serve this woman, my woman. If she asks you to jump, you’ll ask how high. You’ll do whatever she says without rebuking her orders. You know why? Because your ass, your money, and everything you want in life belongs to me.”
Lila stares at him expectantly as if she knows something I don’t. She fucking might, but as if reading her intentions, he sends her illusions where they belong. To no-fucking-where.
“You will do whatever I and she tells you, and not because I’ll ever marry you. That won’t be happening even when hell freezes over with me in it, and my cock falls off.”
Liam steps up behind Killian and slaps him on the back.
“My boy is growing up. I’m so proud of you for that declaration, but take care of your dick, Mate.”
Liam grasps his pants, stroking his dick through the cloth. I laugh. I can’t help it.
Lila stomps her foot like the child she is.
“Why would I? If you won’t marry me, I’ll lose all my money and status, anyway. That’s what’s written in my contract. You don’t have a contract that obligates you to anything. You’re a man. But I have to marry you, and you know it. I hate you just as much as you hate me.”
“I doubt it. And you will do it because I hold your dear father’s balls. This contract is illegal. You signed it when you were eleven, and he knows it. He can refuse to give you your inheritance because it’s his money. You haven’t done anything useful the entire time you’ve been around except for bullying people. If there was work in that, you’d get the award for an outstanding employee.”
Liam chuckles and wipes his dry eye, brushing away an imaginary tear and makes crying sounds.I can’t hold back the snort that bursts from my lips in an unladylike way.
Lila ignores us both and asks, “What do you want from me, Killian?”
She looks so broken at this moment that I almost feel sorry for her, but then I remember everything she’s done to me, and my pity vanishes.
“If I got what I want, Dear Lila, you would cry tears of blood daily,” he admits in such a severe tone that even I’m startled.
It’s easy for me to forget who Killian is, especially when he takes care of the kids and me with a tenderness I didn’t know existed in him.
Killian says, “You’re still here, and still unharmed, for several reasons. The first and clearest is that you’re a pawn on the chessboard. Second, you’re here because you need to pay for what you did in front of the only girl who did nothing to you except be prettier and better than you in everything she does. You didn’t do everything you did because of my order to abuse her, and we both know that. I recall giving orders not to touch my woman because, yes, even then, she was mine.”
Lila visibly grinds her teeth. “Fine. I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll go to the hotel.”
“You will not move from here, and more than that, you will come here every day until Maricela decides otherwise, or I’ll see that your brothers get the fortune you want so badly. You remember what your father said? You’re only a woman in his eyes. You’re worth nothing to him. Our fathers have something in common, and that’s their hatred of women.”
With those words, Killian turns and enters his office.
He humiliated her in front of everyone. For you, the annoying voice points out. He doesn’t want me. I’m damaged.
“What will you do to me?” Lila asks, bringing me back to the present, and the smile on my lips must startle her because her green eyes stare at me with what looks like panic.
“Remember how you disliked the soup I prepared?”
I never served the food I prepared in college, preferring to work behind the scenes in the kitchen. But Lila loves to point out that I was inept at preparing food.
“Or maybe I’ll take your skirt. Killian prefers me in skirts.” I study my short nails like she used to do when she dumped her bullies on me.
“You can’t do that to me,” she exclaims with another stomp of her foot. I laugh again. I can’t help it, but then I approach her. Every step I take has her taking a step backward until she runs into Maddox. He raises an eyebrow as if asking if I need help.
I think about it and nod. She did the same thing to me more than once, having her friends hold me down in the school bathroom. I’ll never forget when she tore my uniform to pieces.
“Maddox, can you do me a favor?”
He smiles as if he’s proud of what I’m about to do. It shouldn’t surprise me. After all, I’m in the company of people for whom revenge is a language they understand and hold dear to their hearts.
His huge hands wrap around Lila’s torso in the intimate grip of a lover. Even Killian didn’t hold me like that when he played the role of my bully.
I don’t think about what I’m doing when I take scissors from my desk. They aren’t very sharp, but I’ll have to make do with what I have. I approach her blue cashmere skirt and bend down in front of her. Liam whistles at the show in front of him because...well, because that’s what the pervert would do.
I expect her to scream at me, to ask me not to do it, or curse me, but none of that happens. All she does is lean into Maddox’s chest and wait for her punishment.
I cut a hole in a circle right in the middle of her skirt so that her black lace panties are visible. Her legs close in an attempt to protect herself, but no one laughs at her or humiliates her further. Everyone just looks at her like what she is—a perfect plastic doll.
“Now we’re the same.”
My voice seems to wake her up from the trance she’s in. The sense of helplessness she naturally feels is more familiar to me than she can imagine.
“You’re going to walk like this all day at the office in front of all the clients who come in. You’ll serve them coffee, and you’ll kneel beside me on your knees the rest of the time without looking at me.”
Lila swallows, but she’s probably smart enough to realize she’s lost this little war she created for herself.
“I don’t know how to make coffee,” she admits in a small voice, which gets Maddox laughing. Then he picks her up and carries her to the kitchen area.
My gaze crosses with Killian’s, who’s standing in the doorway to his inner office. I didn’t even notice he came out to witness the show. He may not have touched me in four weeks, but he always looks at me. And now his eyes are full of pride, full of emotion, and a strong desire to fuck. I know that look. But he doesn’t do anything about it except smile at me, show me his rare dimples, and step back into his office.
I don’t know what pulls my feet in that direction, but I enter after him, closing the door and taking off my shirt. I need his touch on my skin, and I know he’ll give it to me.
“Maricela.”
The way he says my name causes me to flinch. Realizing the fact that I was raped ruined everything, I pull my shirt back on and leave his office to go back to work, just to stumble upon the wolf monster sitting in a wheelchair and smiling that same smile he held when he destroyed my body and my life.