Chapter 15
Fifteen
Something is wrong.
I stirred restlessly, letting out a rough breath at the low, throbbing ache in my belly. It matched the one in my head. Groaning, I opened my eyes and found myself facing a smooth, oddly cell-like ceiling, the walls unfamiliarly curved. The sheets—not my sheets—slid from my body as I sat up, and a chill coursed over my body. My very naked body.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, my eyes darting around the unfamiliar room. What happened last night?
And then it all returned to me—the fight—the car ride—the wine—the… Xander.
Oh my God. Xander.
“Morning.” At the sound of Xander’s voice, I yanked the sheets to cover my breasts, but not fast enough, judging from the look in his eyes. He was holding a tray and wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sweatpants. I quickly looked away, but not before I noticed the sharp contours of his hip bones and the chiseled grooves of muscle.
Please let last night be a dream.
Seemingly oblivious to my panic, Xander asked casually, “How’re you feeling?”
Like a freight train hit me, and you were that train.
I couldn’t meet his gaze and heard him set the tray down somewhere before sitting at the edge of the bed. My lungs felt compressed. It was hard to breathe.
“I—” My throat tightened. Other parts of me tightened, too. The hazy memories were slow to return in my hungover stupor as my panic crested and surged—the taste of wine in my mouth, gentle hands, and heady kisses. “W-what happened last night?”
His right shoulder lifted nonchalantly as if expecting this very reaction from me. “You know what happened.”
“Oh, God.” I shook my head in denial. “What did you do?”
He swiftly reached the end of his rope, propelled right into anger. “We,” he prefaced. “It wasn’t just me. There were two of us. I fucked you last night, and you fucked me right back.”
Clutching the sheet underneath my armpits, I placed two hands over my ears.
Fuck, whatthefuckdidIdo.
“I would never do that,” was all I could push out through my lips, latent shock and disgust making my words thick and hoarse. “I wouldn’t.” I felt disgusted with myself. My parents raised me better than to sleep with my husband’s young son. They’d be so ashamed if they saw me now, clad in a sheet dress like an aged sorority girl doing her quasi-incestuous walk of shame.
He grabbed my wrists, forcing them away from my ears. I flinched at the impatience flashing in his eyes. “The words I would never have no weight in this conversation because you already did.”
With the acceptance of the truth came the emotional tears. I could sense the seeds of panic taking root, spreading like venomous little flowers. My eyes burned, blurring. It felt like I’d rubbed them with acid.
“No,” I moaned softly, the word squeaking as I ran out of air, my chest constricting.
His face softened. “Hey, breathe. Everything will be okay, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby.” I pronounced the offending word like it was a curse. What was wrong with him? How could he be so callous? The tears were slipping out in earnest now, and I turned my head to the side.
“Jordan,” he said in a patient tone. “Look at me.”
I shook my head. “Please tell me it was all a dream,” I begged.
Gripping my chin, he turned me to face him. “We both know it wasn’t. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be crying.”
I winced.
The light in his eyes dimmed, and he looked so hurt by my reaction that I dropped my hand. Shit. I didn’t even consider how he must be processing this.
Oh God, I was the cougar, taking advantage of a twenty-two-year-old. It wasn’t his fault. I should have known better.
“I should’ve never dragged you into this.,” I whispered in dismay. “I-I was drunk and hurt last night, and you were being so sweet…” Or that was what I assumed. All I could remember was a blur of bodies and the taste of wine. I shook my head as an erotic image—half remembered—surfaced briefly before slipping back into the dark sea of my consciousness. “This should’ve never happened.”
“It was bound to happen,” he countered easily.
“I’m old enough to be—” Don’t finish that sentence.
“But you’re not,” he growled, knowing instinctively where my mind had flown. “Don’t even think like that again. I never saw you in that light, and I never will.”
I swallowed the bile rising at the back of my throat. Neither of us was willing to say the word mother out loud, let alone acknowledge it. “I’m still much older than you,” I said in a small voice.
“Age is inconsequential when it comes to us,” he declared vehemently.
“Not when it’s fifteen years.”
“Fourteen and a half,” he countered. “I’m about to turn twenty-three.”
Oh God. I didn’t know how else to make him see reason and simply announced, “This is wrong.”
“No, Jordan. Nothing about us is wrong.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes, and I closed my eyes against them. “One day, you’ll meet the girl of your dreams, someone appropriate, someone you can start a family with. This will all become a distant memory.”
“Don’t say that.” He spoke gravely, shifting closer.
Placing my hand on his chest, I pushed him back gently. “Xander, I don’t want you to think any of this is your fault. This is on me. I’m older; I should’ve been the one to exercise better judgment?—”
“Enough.” He slashed a hand through the air. “We are both adults, and we made a decision…together.”
“It wasn’t a decision. I-I wasn’t thinking last night.”
“Bullshit. Stop talking like we did something wrong.”
“We did. I’m going to hell for this, but I don’t want to drag you with me. For God’s sake, Xander, I’m your father’s wife?—”
He grabbed my cheeks, cutting me off mid-sentence. Black rage flashed in his blown-out pupils. “Never call yourself that again.”
I didn’t know what to think or what else to say to him. My head throbbed with a migraine, and my body was in no better shape.
Something in his features shifted as he watched me, the green in his eyes darkening to a beautiful moss color. “Fuck, you’re perfect,” he murmured, looking at me in a way that left me feeling hot and cold all at once. I clutched the sheet tighter. “I would walk through fucking fire to be inside that pussy again.”
I blinked away from the image accompanying his words and pushed at his chest. His body was a solid wall, and the crisp dark hair sprinkled over his pectorals felt coarse beneath my fingers.
“Let me go,” I yanked my hand away, breathing harder. “I-I need to leave.”
My thoughts were running wild, driven by anxiety. And then, lancing through all that horror was the golden sword: Henry will kill both of us for this.
Holding the sheets covering my chest with one hand, I groped the floor frantically for my dress. Where is it? For the love of God.
“What are you looking for?”
“My dress.”
“You’re not going to find it down there. I threw it away.”
I gaped at him in shock. “Why would you do that?”
His eyes darkened. “Because he bought it for you.”
“I bought it for me.” I got up from the bed in haste. The floor felt like it was tilting beneath my feet. I stumbled, and he caught me, gripping me by my upper arms. I stared at his expectant eyes and closed mine in turn. “God, I need to leave.”
“Are you planning to walk on water?” he asked, a curl to his mouth. “We left the mainland hours ago.”
“W-what?” My horror sharpened. “Why would you have the boat set sail?”
His grip tightened. “Because he would’ve come for you if we had stayed in New York.”
I couldn’t refute the claim, but one nagging thought wouldn’t leave my mind. What would people say if they found out that we skipped town together? The circles Henry and I ran were salacious gossips who slavered at the first hint of scandal. So many of them would be quick to assume the worst.
I shook my head wildly. “Please, you have to turn this boat around. We have to go back,” I insisted.
He ran a hand down my back, and I locked my shoulders against the touch, even as my nipples puckered beneath the sheet. He leaned in, mouth brushing my ear. “Surely, you understand by now that Henry won’t hesitate to kill you if he sees you in this condition.” His gaze pointedly loitered on my body that was naked under the thin sheet.
My bruised face gave a warning tingle. The last thing I wanted was to see Henry. By now, the furor of the party would have calmed, and he would have noticed we were missing—both of us were missing. Leaving him standing alone in the wreck of shattered champagne glasses and public humiliation while the society circles he ran in spun petty gossip must be filling him with rage.
I had nowhere to hide. Henry lived to dole out revenge, taking out anyone who wronged him in business. He was even more ruthless with personal matters. I bet he canceled my credit cards and bank accounts the moment he realized I left him.Worse yet, what if he pursued his conservatorship rights? I shuddered at the thought.
The last thing I wanted was to see him again, and I wondered if there was anyone who would be willing to give me refuge for a few days.
The only person I could think of was Piya. However, I was too ashamed to turn up at her doorstep after letting Henry steamroll over our friendship. I had allowed Henry to meddle in our friendship, providing little explanation for my increased absence in her life. There was none that I could offer that didn’t make me sound like a trapped woman in a cage. She had no reason to forgive me, nor did I want to subject her to Henry’s wrath for helping me.
The smirk on Xander’s face widened into a grin once he read my expression. He knew my dilemma because, of course, he had already thought of it.
I had no one.
Suddenly, he let go of me and marched toward the door. “I have to make some calls before we dock, and there is only one landline on this boat. Make sure you eat something,” he told me, nodding at the untouched tray. “I’ll check on you after I’m done.”
Then the door shut—and locked—behind him, the panel shifting from green to red.
I held on to the sheets and tried the door, slamming it with a fist. Apparently, I was to be his prisoner now. Shit.
I thought back to our innocent conversations, the fleeting moments when I thought I might have found a friend in Henry’s son. But Henry had left me with bruises, and his son thought his father’s leftovers were his to keep.
Turning in frustration, I advanced toward the only other door in the room, which led to an en-suite bathroom. It had a marble countertop, fancy gold taps, and a shower that drained right into the floor, separated from the rest of the area with only a tiny lip to contain the excess water.
I gasped when I dropped the sheet and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the ornate mirror. My face was swollen where Henry had hit me, and my stomach and legs were covered in dark bruises. At a closer look, I found remnants of cream smudges on the discolorations. Someone had treated my bruises with ointment. Xander?
Shaking my head, I relieved myself and got into the shower, though I would have killed for a bath. I felt the ache of Henry’s kicks every time the muscles in my body moved.
Closing my eyes, I lathered shampoo into my lank hair and savored the herbal scent of the steam. I didn’t know what seaberry was, but it smelled good, and the sweet luxury of it made my throat ache.
I left the shower, avoiding my reflection in the clouded mirror this time. The bedroom was still empty, and the closet yielded nothing but a few clacking, foam-covered hangers. I picked up the sheet and wrapped it around myself, forming a toga of the sort that I hadn’t worn since my sorority-hazing days.
I hymned a prayer upon noticing a bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand and swallowed down two pills with the accompanying glass of water. Did Xander return to the room to bring these?
My stomach growled, and I looked warily at the food. I bit into a croissant. Fresh-baked, flaky pastry. God. The glistening strawberries were perfectly ripe and still a little cold, but I bit into a grapefruit instead. The sharp, clarifying bitterness of it helped me focus.
Except, all I could think of was the blood and the shocked stares of Henry’s business partners as Xander split open his father’s face. Oh, God—the anger. I should never have gone with him after seeing that look of rage in Xander’s eyes, but in my panicked state, it had been so easy to let him take me by the hand. To somewhere safe, or so I’d thought, but now the ice beneath my feet was cracking open, and one misstep could drag me under.
There was a click as I finished the grapefruit, and the panel on the door went from red to green. I braced myself, but Xander didn’t come in.
Had the door unlocked itself? Or was this a trap?
After making sure that my makeshift sheet dress was firmly tucked in, I tried the handle again. This time, it swung out into a hall. I looked over my shoulder before stepping out into the hall and letting the door close behind me.
The floor was carpeted with a blue-and-gold fleur-de-lis pattern, and the walls were painted eggshell gray. Paintings had been hung at odd intervals, depicting what I imagined were the various Greek gods, posed to display their glory—and their wrath. I looked away from the one of Zeus holding a lightning bolt that looked ready to fly free of its frame and continued farther down the hall. But the images had caused a shivery sensation to trickle down my spine.
Most of the doors were locked, and I couldn’t imagine what they held. Other suites? Utility and storage? I wondered if I ought to scream for help, but—I swallowed hard, remembering the bite of Xander’s fingers in my wrists—what if it brought the wrong person running?
Eventually, my steps took me into what appeared to be a sports bar. There was a cluster of slot machines in the corner, the screens dark, surrounded by the inviting flash of neon lights. The bar itself was retro-looking, chrome and marble, with an impressive display of top-shelf liquor lining the shelves behind it.
There was another door on the left-hand side, and I walked to that—and skidded to a stop when Xander appeared. He was still wearing those sweatpants but now a shirt as well, half-buttoned as if in haste.
“Jordan,” he said, smiling at me pleasantly—as if anything between us could be pleasant after what happened. “How was your breakfast?”
I averted his gaze. “It was good, thank you.”
“You smell good.” He leaned in, nuzzling against my wet hair. “You should have waited for me to shower,” he chided playfully. “I would’ve taken you to the master stateroom for a bath.”
I instinctively jerked away from him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning now.
I stared at him and his unruffled poise after fucking his father’s wife. Why wasn’t he shaken like me? Didn’t he realize how messed up this was?
Xander pulled back, his eyes flicking over my face before his gaze drifted to my mouth. He sighed roughly and pushed away in a smooth, fluid motion before gripping my hand and bringing me with him. To take me back to my prison cell, I thought, except, no—we were heading toward the bar.
“Let me make you a drink,” he said when I was seated uncomfortably on one of the stools.
I let out a rough breath, my eyes flicking around the empty room before returning to Xander. He brought down a bottle of Hendrick’s Flora Adora, pulling out a bottle of champagne from the fridge.
“What are you making?” I asked warily, figuring that if I could keep him talking, it might keep him from taking other regrettable actions.
“French 75.” He stirred in some simple syrup, eyes tracking my face. “I know exactly how you like it.”
Something inside me seized that he remembered my drink. Henry never remembered even after years of marriage. I stared at the fizzing glass with its slight tinge of blush.
“Where is my phone?” I tried to keep my voice calm, though inside, it felt like all my thoughts and feelings were a sharp jumble of broken edges. “I would like my purse and my phone—and some clothes.”
Looking at me thoughtfully, Xander reached into his back pocket and produced my phone. “The reception isn’t strong here,” he said warningly.
Xander propped an elbow on a counter and set the drink in front of me, keeping his eyes on mine. I ignored him, unlocking my cell. I had at least six new messages from Henry.
Henry: Where are you?
Henry: I’m sorry, babe. I made a mistake.
Henry: I’ll never do it again, you just pushed me too far.
Henry: I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Henry: And I’ll get rid of her. She’s nothing to me.
And then, the final one:
Henry: Where is Xander? Is he with you?
I looked at Xander, who had been watching me intently. “Is that him apologizing for hitting you? Let me guess, he somehow made it your fault because you pushed him too far and brought out his anger.” A sound escaped him, not quite a scoff.
I felt numb as I set the phone down. I thought of Xander’s mother, locked away somewhere, and Xander’s sinister warning before my wedding.
Had Henry done this to her as well?
All the tension in my shoulders poured out in a rush, and I sagged against the marble. With trembling fingers, I picked up the French 75 and took the sip I’d been denying myself.
Oh, hell.
He’d made it fucking perfectly.