Chapter 6 #2
“You are. You're trying to confuse me, to make me think—” She's crying now. My hardened heart breaks again. “You must be one of his enemies. Someone who has a problem with him, right? We're getting married. We're going to have a life together. And you, you're just some psychopath.”
“I saved you, Bianca. I know you don't understand right now. I know.” I put my hands in front of me as if to calm a wild animal.
The words hang in the air between us. I didn't mean to say them out loud or to give that much away.
But watching her defend the man who was going to destroy her—it's too fucking much .
She stares at me, tears falling. Confusion and fear war in her eyes.
“Listen.” I keep my tone soft, coaxing. “The sooner you accept this, the easier it will go.”
“That's probably what they all say,” she whispers.
“I told you. I've done everything to keep you safe.”
“By kidnapping me?” Her voice rises again. “By drugging me and taking me away from my life?”
“Lass, it was necessary.”
“Let me go home,” she whispers.
“No.”
“You can't keep me here.”
“I can.” I hold her gaze, letting her see the truth in it. “I will.”
“He'll come for me,” she says. “He'll find me, and he'll?—”
“He might try,” I growl. The goddamn fucking pussy. When I get my hands on that motherfucker… “But he'll have to come through me.”
The certainty in my voice finally breaks through to her. I watch her face shift. Watch the reality of her situation sink in. She's trapped here with me, and there's nothing she can do about it.
“What do you want from me?” she says .
Everything . I want everything. I want her safe and happy and mine. I want to keep her in this cabin forever, where nothing can touch her. Where I can watch over her the way I've been doing for six years, but closer now. I want her to look at me without fear.
I want her to understand that I am not the enemy. Not hers, anyway.
But I can't tell her any of that.
“I want you safe,” I say. The simplest answer. “That's all.”
She laughs, but it's not a happy sound. It's bitter and tired and sad. “Right,” she says. “How ironic.”
“Bianca.” Her name feels like a prayer on my tongue. I've said it a thousand times in the dark but never to her face. Never where the lass could hear it. “I know this is hard to understand?—”
“What's your name?” she says, suddenly interrupting me.
Fuck. She can't know my name, at least not my surname.
“Why does that matter?”
“Because you know everything about me, apparently.” Her eyes search my face, looking for something I'm not sure I can give her.
“You know where I live and who I'm engaged to.
You probably know that I just graduated from university.
You've apparently been watching me, and I don't even know your name.”
“It doesn't matter,” I say quietly .
“It matters to me.”
“No. Names don't matter. What matters is that you're safe, lass. That's all you need to know.”
Her jaw sets, that stubborn tilt to her chin I've watched a hundred times when she's arguing with her mother or defending a point in class.
“I hate you.”
“You don't know me well enough to hate me.” I hold her gaze and shrug. “Once you do, you might. Give me time. Now, let's get on with the practicalities. Are you hungry, lass?”
“No,” she says petulantly. I watch her try to fold her arms across her ample breasts, but with her wrists still secured, it's awkward.
I swallow hard, forcing myself not to drag my gaze down the length of her perfect fucking curves I've fucking dreamed about.
“I want to know how long I'll be here.”
“As long as it takes.”
“For what?” she says. This is a side of Bianca I haven't seen before, but I'm not surprised. Didn't expect her to go along with everything I said.
She'll be here as long as it takes. Until I can kill Crowning without bringing down hell on my family. Until she stops looking at me like I'm the devil and realizes I'm the only thing standing between her and the grave he was digging .
Until she understands I'm not the monster in this story… I'm just the bastard who couldn't stay away.
“You can't keep me here,” she says, her voice wobbling.
“I will if I have to, and for now, I do.”
“I'll escape,” she says, her jaw jutting out as she glares at me.
“Mmm.” My lips are pressed together. She won't.
“I want to go home,” she whispers, and I hate seeing her like this, but I have to stay the course.
So I cross my arms over my chest and watch as her gaze isn't quite as caged as mine. Her eyes flicker to my arms, then widen slightly before she swallows and looks back up at me.
“You weren't about to go home anyway, were you?” The memory of how close she was to devastation makes my voice sound like a growl. “You were about to make your home with Crowning.”
Her eyes search mine as if she’s looking for something. Truth, maybe. Some sign that the monster she thinks I am has a shred of humanity left.
She turns her face away. “Right.” She sniffs, wiping at her eyes before turning to me. “If I’m hungry, what are you going to feed me? Something laced with drugs?” she mutters.
I laugh and groan. “No, lass.” I move toward her slowly.
“I've got your penne arrabbiata keeping warm.
Fresh burrata. That bread from D'Agostino's, the loaf with the hard crust you like to tear apart with your hands.” I stop close enough that she has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes.
“Every Saturday morning. Nine fifteen. You buy two loaves—one for you, one for Mrs. Chen next door. Or used to, anyway, before that arsehole shamed you.”
Her eyes widen as she takes this in.
Too much?
I reach out and grip her chin gently but firmly. Her skin is impossibly soft under my rough fingers. Warm. Real. I've imagined this touch a thousand times—alone in the dark, in the ring between rounds, watching her through windows. But nothing prepared me for the actual feel of her.
Fuck.
“I'll take the restraints off if you behave yourself.” My thumb brushes her jaw as I hold her gaze.
My voice lowers. She has to heed my warning, for her own damn good.
“But you listen to me, and you listen good—you try anything at all, and those wrists are getting bound again.
Only this time, I'll make damn sure you can't slip them.”
She nods and doesn't speak. She turns her face away, and I have to force myself to release her chin. To step back. To give her the illusion of space, even though we both know there's nowhere in this cabin she can go that I won't follow .
“Am I—can I—” She blows out a breath. “Can I go outside?”
“No.”
She frowns. “Can I call my mother?”
“No.”
“Can I—” Her voice breaks. “Can I do anything?”
I sigh and nod. “Of course. You can sleep. You can eat. You can read. I got you some books.” Her eyes widen.
“You can watch your shows. I'll get you whatever you want to keep yourself busy for now, and I will let you outside, but you'll have to be with me. I'll buy groceries if you want to cook. I got a few things at the bookstore, and I’ll get you anything you want to occupy yourself.”
Damn near agonized over what to buy her. She loves to color and doodle in her free time, though she hasn't lately with finals and Crowning demanding her time. “You can do whatever you want, really, you just can't leave. Understand?”
She's quiet for a long moment. “Fine. I won't fight you for now because I'm starving,” she says petulantly. “And it's fucked up how much you know about me.” She sighs. “Did you say you have… bread and pasta?”
That's my girl. I stifle a smile because I really don't want to scare her.
“Aye.”
Then, softer, almost pleading, “Please, can I have your first name?”
I swallow hard. Will she recognize anything at all? If she hears the word McCarthy , I might lose every possible thread of credibility I have with her. Who knows what her mother’s told her about her father and our family?
I swallow hard. “You can call me Ashland.”
“Ashland,” she says in that absolutely perfect, beautiful voice. My heart aches. It's like hearing a note that only an angel can sing.
“Ashland.” I swallow hard, repeating my own damn name for reasons I don't understand. “Aye, lass.”
“Please, Ashland,” she whispers. “Take off the restraints.”
I want to give her everything she's ever fucking wanted on a goddamn platter.
“If I take them off, will you do what I say, like a good girl?”
She holds my gaze for a beat and swallows hard, then says the one thing that might make me lose the last shred of self-control I have.
“Yes, sir.”