Chapter 11 #3
I let her go with a shove that sends her tumbling backward, crashing straight into the dirt.
For a split second, it strikes me how pitiful she looks. How, as she lands in the flower bed, her wide eyes meet mine and fill with tears that show my own reflection.
Then I stamp out the thought and regard her like she’s an insect I’ve just squashed under my shoe.
She lets out a warbling little cry and then turns over onto her knees, obviously no longer wanting to even look at me.
Fine by me. I don’t give a fuck what the girl thinks.
It takes me another second to realize what she’s really doing—she’s returned to weeding. Rather than give me any kind of response, she’s gone back to the work she was doing with Sorcha.
If I was a kinder man, I might feel sorry for her. But it makes no difference to me either way if she sits and cries or goes back to toiling away.
I’m about to stalk off when she releases a sharp, pained hiss. She’s accidentally cut her palm open on one of the weeds. Likely because she wasn’t paying close attention or being careful enough after our confrontation.
“What is it?” I snap.
She doesn’t answer, keeping her back to me and cradling the bleeding hand in the other.
“Let me see what you did,” I insist, taking a step toward her.
She shifts forward on her knees to put further distance between us, back still to me.
“Hey!” I bark, reaching for her. I grab her by the wrist and yank her up to her feet. “I said let me see what the fuck happened. I wasn’t asking.”
My gaze falls to her palm that’s been sliced open in a crooked, crescent-shaped line. Droplets of blood bead to the surface and dribble down her wrist.
“It’s just a scratch.”
“This is more than a scratch.”
“I’ll ask Sorcha to help clean it up,” she mumbles. She tugs to pull her hand out of mine. “Please let go.”
I ignore her, my thumb running across the gash and coming away slicked with blood. It needs to be cleaned and bandaged and will likely scar.
“Come on,” I grunt. “Inside.”
“Sorcha will—”
“Now.”
I hold onto her by the wrist as I turn and start back toward the wide-open French doors. She has no choice but to let me guide her through the house ’til we’re in the east wing and I’m walking her through the door of Grandpa Finn’s office.
“Sit.”
I jut my chin at the accent chair by the bookshelves and she obediently plops down. I stride across the room to the desk I’ve commandeered and start dragging open different drawers.
Pretty sure I saw a dusty and faded first-aid kit that must be as old as I am. But bandages don’t expire, do they?
The second to last drawer has what I’m looking for. I snatch a couple of Band-Aids and then head over to grab her hand and flip it palm side up.
She tenses at my touch. Practically stops breathing when I’m near.
The girl is that terrified of me, no matter how unbothered she acts like she is.
Once again I’m ignoring her as I wipe the blood away with a tissue and then peel the bandage off the paper strip to apply. She winces as I press it over the crooked gash.
Maybe I’m too rough. I’m handling her too harshly.
Cara used to say that about me; she claimed my hands felt like gravel and gripped too tight. I always assumed it was more that she hated when I touched her and would’ve recoiled anyway.
We were never in love. She always saw our marriage as a prison sentence, and so did I.
Ironically enough, she was free the day I was actually sentenced to prison. Funny how that works, huh?
Yet Chantal flinching as I apply her bandage makes me reconsider how rough I must be. How my touch probably feels a lot more jarring than I realize—not that it matters.
“Hold still,” I snap.
“I am holding still,” she mumbles. “You’re just squeezing my hand like you’re trying to break it. Sorry if I’m human and winced.”
I let go, her hand dropping limply to her lap. “I forget you’re so fragile. Daddy’s spent your whole life keeping you in a glass house.”
“Daddy didn’t do anything—and I’m not fragile.”
I grunt out a laugh. “You, not fragile? The girl who squeals about a spider and cries when she breaks a nail? That’s rich.”
“I didn’t ask for you to treat my cut. I would’ve been fine bleeding in the dirt.”
“Yeah right, that’s what you say now. Then you would’ve cried yourself to sleep again up in your room.”
She stands up from the accent chair, shuddering out a breath, expression pinched. “I’m crying because I’m being held hostage by a psychopath. You might not get it, Lochlan, because you’re dead or whatever, but any normal person would.”
“Tears shed about the loss of your pampered little life. Very tragic indeed. But you might want to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Where the hell do you get off ridiculing me for my upbringing? Don’t act like you didn’t get where you are because of your daddy!”
As my eyes narrow and I glare at her, she only doubles down.
“You… you heard me!” she exclaims stubbornly despite the slight stammer.
“You were the heir to your family’s criminal empire because you were your father’s son, NOT through hard work and merit!
You lived a charmed, privileged existence just like me!
You’re just mad at the world because it all backfired on you.
Throwing a tantrum because you didn’t get what you were promised!
Guess what, Lochlan? Take your own damn advice and stop feeling sorry for yourself! ”
Loud silence follows her outburst.
A silence that’s so tense and deafening we both stand where we are, glaring into each other’s faces and listening to the tick-tock of Grandpa Finn’s old grandfather clock.
I’m looking at the pampered little brat like she’s lost her fucking mind—and she had to have to talk to me like she has.
Once again mouthing off as if she doesn’t give a damn about consequences.
Mouthing off in a way Cara never would’ve dared to; hell, most of my men never would, knowing they’d be risking certain death.
But Chantal does it anyway. The girl’s my prisoner, having been stripped of everything she loves and tormented for days.
Despite this, she still pushes back in her own way. Maybe she was right when she said she’d always be herself.
It should piss me off. It does, as another wave of fury rushes me and I flex my hands at my sides, tempted to throttle her again.
Make her whimper and make her cry and realize every time she rises up, I’ll knock her back down.
Instead, I reach for her, but it’s not to strangle the girl. It’s to grab her by the face and drag her toward me so I can crush my lips to hers.