Chapter 30
Thirty
As we laythere in the aftermath, I stared at the ceiling. The weight of my confession dragged me to the center of the earth. It should’ve felt more wrong saying those things, especially since Xander still refused to tell me that he wouldn’t pursue legal rights over me.
When I tried to move away, Xander stopped me by circling his hand around my waist. He turned my face toward him, but the brewing resentment made it difficult to look at him. “Look at me,” he said.
I complied stoically but couldn’t hold his gaze. “When you leave for the airport, can you please have the security team take me to a café?” I asked, not wanting to stay cooped up alone in this house. Working for a few hours should take my mind off things.
I felt Xander tense against me.
“Jordan,” he started slowly before his next words cut me open like shards of glass, “You can’t leave.”
I pushed him aside and sat upright, positive that I’d heard him wrong. “What do you mean I can’t leave?”
He turned his head and coughed. “It’s not safe to be out and about while Henry is trying to provoke us.”
I frowned. “But the security guards would be with me.”
He disentangled from the sheets and picked up his boxers off the floor. The duffel bag I had helped him pack earlier was already by the bedroom door. He slowly dressed, with his eyes on me.
“Until we sort out this mess, you know as well as I do that Henry is unpredictable. It’s best if you stay inside this room.”
“What?” My eyes went wide in shock.
Oh God, he was going to lock me up in this room like an animal.
“How could you?” I screamed before I could think better of it. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I refused to let them fall and give him the satisfaction. “This is just what he used to do to me.”
I couldn’t be locked up in a cage again like when I was with Henry.
No. Not again.
“I admit, the optics aren’t great,” he confessed, never taking his eyes off of mine. “But this is for your good, to keep you safe.” He nodded at the walk-in closet. “I had a small safe room brought in and installed while we were gone. I’ll have the security guards email you the instructions. But this is the only room I feel comfortable with you being in while I’m out of town.”
My mind reeled with disbelief. This man who claimed to love me had betrayed my trust in the worst possible way.
A memory of Henry’s similar antics made my body convulse in revulsion. He was a master manipulator, always concocting endless excuses to keep me trapped within the walls of our house. Each one more insidious than the last, slowly suffocating any spark of independence within me.
Xander was doing the same.
“Jordan—”
“Don’t you have a flight to catch?” I asked in a monotone. The tears that had been threatening to spill finally escaped.
He sighed as if I were acting like a petulant child. “This is temporary. Less than twenty-four hours.”
I scoffed.
How many times had Henry said something similar?
“This is temporary. As soon as this renovation is done, you’ll be a free agent to go wherever you want at a moment’s notice.”
But one renovation would always turn into three more.
“I really need you to stick around the premises and oversee this last project. You can manage that much, can’t you, darling?”
But the moment never came when I became a free agent. There was always something else to oversee.
Xander reached for me, but I slapped away his hand.
“Get. Out. And leave me to my prison. I don’t want to see you.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “I know you hate me right now,” he said, his voice thick. “But I swear, Jordan. I’ll make it up to you.”
My heart ached at his words, and I looked away from him.
“Jordan,” he paused before saying, “I love you.”
I wanted to cover my ears and sing at the top of my lungs to drown him out. “Don’t ever talk to me about love again,” I spat out.
His face fell, resembling a wounded animal. He acted as if he had no idea why I would react this way to my solitary confinement.
“Look, baby.” He appeared to use extreme control to be patient. “This isn’t about locking you up. It’s about Henry?—”
Nausea swirled in my stomach as I turned away from him. “Don’t bring him into this because you”re worse than him,” I spat. “Despite all of his flaws, Henry never locked me in the bedroom like a caged animal and then left town.”
Despite my determination not to let him see my tears, I threw my head on the pillow and openly sobbed against it. Xander had broken my heart in the cruelest way possible.
“I’m nothing like him, Jordan,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I love you. More than anything in this world. This room is safe. It has security cameras so I can keep an eye on you. If I let you out of this room while I’m not here, I don’t know what you might do?—”
“I don’t need to be monitored.” My heart pounded with desperation and panic. “How could you suggest that?”
“Jordan, you’ve hurt yourself before.”
“I’m not crazy,” I screamed before grabbing the lamp by the nightstand and chucking it at him, which probably disproved my point.
Xander dodged the attack by ducking, and the lamp crashed against the wall behind him. Frustration flared in his eyes, and he was on top of me on the bed. I held up two hands to shield my face from him, thinking he was going to hurt me, except he coddled me, patting my hair to calm me down.
For some wild reason, I let him do it. I was so shocked by the gentle touch, when I had expected anything but, I didn’t have it in me to bat away his hand. No one had lovingly petted my hair in years. The loneliness in me unwillingly leaned into the touch.
It was so twisted.
I was letting my predator comfort me.
He let me sob against him, eventually leaving me to clean up the broken lamp. After he was done, I felt him watching me for several moments.
Xander finally broke the tense silence. I thought he’d say something comforting, but he floored me by saying, “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, baby. I’m letting you keep your phone to show you that I trust you. But if you do something stupid like calling the police, that privilege will be taken away. Everyone on my payroll has been made aware of your history, and if the police came here, they’d been instructed to hand over those documents. The police will then personally drop you off at an institution or request I get a nurse to keep you sedated.”
I stared at him like I had no idea who he was anymore, feeling utterly broken and betrayed. This was the same threat Henry had used to keep me on a tight leash for years. Of all people, Xander knew of the psychological damage his father could inflict upon a person.
I never thought he’d use the same leverage against me, and with that, he had completely shattered my heart.
“One day, you’ll see that everything I’m doing is for us,” he told me.
This time, I had no more tears left to spare, staring numbly at the man before me. Gone was the gentle soul I had seen glimpses of in the last few days, and back was the monster I didn’t understand.
Xander pressed a soft kiss to my trembling lips with some faux concerns for my health.
Before he left, he locked the balcony door and closed the blinds—perhaps he thought I wanted to sleep—and in doing so, he cast me into the darkest corners of the world, where once again, the sun could no longer reach me.
Xander
There had been a change in Jordan over the last few days. I had sensed a gradual softening toward me on Jordan’s part, and she was finally demonstrating her true emotions. I should give her grace and accept her feelings as the gift it was. I should trust her, but I couldn’t force myself to take the risk. The last thing I had wanted to do was rock that fragile boat, but if there was even the smallest chance that she’d run, I couldn’t take it.
There were still too many threats outside of this house, outside this bedroom, even. Men. They were always taunting me, always looking at her, always salivating after her. I let go of all my male employees, not caring if they brought a lawsuit against me. If I wasn’t around, I couldn’t risk her meeting another man and possibly entertaining a different choice. Hell, I never wanted her to be presented with another option other than me.
While I knew Jordan wouldn’t call the authorities—she’d rather be locked in a room than return to an institution—I wouldn’t put it past her to steal a knife and threaten one of the housekeepers into letting her out. I didn’t know every crevice of this place. Letting her out of the bedroom while I wasn’t here was simply too big of a risk at this point.
I’d set up a camera inside our bedroom so I could monitor her from my phone until the moment I was back. And then I’d let her out of the house.
She’d understand, right? This was temporary—I was nothing like Henry. Even if I could understand his desire to keep her away from other men, she was too good for him. Her radiating face proved how much she had changed after only a few days with me because she belonged with me.
I was only locking her away out of necessity while I took measures to ensure our life together. She may be angry now, but it would pass once she saw the bigger picture.
We’ll have an entire lifetime to fix this, I thought grimly. After we’re free of Henry, we’ll rebuild trust and whatever else she wants.
I walked over to her and cupped her cheek, lifting her face so it was tilted upward toward mine.
And then I kissed her again, fisting my hand in her silky hair.
“Get some rest.” I pulled back just enough to look into her defeated eyes. “I’ll let the staff know that they’re to make you whatever you want when you get hungry. I can tell you’re running on empty.”
I slid my hand out of her hair reluctantly, stepping back as I watched her recline onto the bed that I wanted to join her in. I wanted to comfort her badly, but I had people to see—and a plane to catch.