He kissed the crown of my head. “You are home.”
14
Sebastian
She ate silently as I did my best not to crowd her, though every instinct I had told me to pin her beneath me. Instead of giving in to my darker desires, I sat in a side chair near the window and responded to some Lindstrom Corp. emails on my phone. I watched her from the corner of my eye. She’d dressed in the clothes Timothy had unpacked from her bag and hadn’t touched any of the new things I’d bought for her. Even in jeans and a baggy fleece sweater, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. The ache in my chest started up, reminding me how important it was that I convince her of how right this was.
Picking at her food, she shot me furtive glances every so often. Probably making designs on getting my phone. The odds of her guessing my combination before locking herself out were infinitesimal, and I’d added a second layer of security that had to be entered each time the phone was used. It was a pain in the ass, but necessary for a while.
Though she only ate a few bites, she drank almost all of her coffee.
“Would you like more?” I asked, not looking away from my email to the head of purchasing. I’d dressed casually for the day—jeans and a gray t-shirt. I didn’t expect to go far, and I’d once read that dressing down tended to put others at ease.
“No, thank you.” She cursed under her breath, perhaps angry at being polite to what she saw as her jailor.
“If you’re finished, I’d like to show you around.” I sent the email—an ass-chewing that would ruin the purchasing director’s weekend—and stood.
“Why?” She crossed her arms over her stomach.
“Would you prefer to stay here?” I walked to the door and entered the code, making sure to block her view with my body.
“No.” She stood and took a few tentative steps toward me as I pulled the door inward. I walked out and held the door for her. Peeking back and forth along the upstairs hallway, she stepped out, and I let the door close behind us.
“This door automatically locks as soon as it shuts. Only Timothy and I have the code, and I’ll change it regularly.”
“Thanks for that.” She gritted her teeth and strode past me to look into the bedroom across the hall. “Who sleeps here?”
“No one. We’re the only ones in the house except for Timothy, who you met, and Rita, the cook.” Other than my father, I was the last of the Lindstrom line. He’d turned the house over to me several years earlier as part of a tax shelter plan, and I’d made it my home away from the city.
“Do you always stay out here?” She kept walking, the hypnotic sway of her hips drawing my eye.
“No. I have a penthouse in the city where we’ll stay during the week once you’re ready.”
She spun. “When will I be ready?”
When you accept that you are mine. “I don’t know. That’s up to you.” It seemed like lying was the wisest course at this point. Anything to keep her talking. When she’d almost hyperventilated in her closet, I’d had a moment of doubt. Could I keep her here without breaking her? But then, as I held her in my arms, my doubt faded. The simple contact of her skin on mine told me the truth—unwavering and bright. I needed her. One day soon, she’d realize she needed me, too.
“What, when I bow down to you?” Her bare feet made no sound on the heart pine floor as she peeked into the next bedroom.
“That’s not what I want.”
She spun and put her hands on her hips. “Then what do you want?”
“You.”
Her lips narrowed into a pressed line and her tone came out bitter. “Well, I guess you already got your wish.”
The indigestion was back, but different, as if a small fissure opened in my heart. What was this? “I’d like to show you something.”
“A way out?”
I considered her question for a moment. “Of sorts, yes.”
She shifted from foot to foot, uncertain. “Then show me.”
I motioned for her to walk down the hall toward the stairs. She took a few tentative steps, then hurried past me. Her scent swirled through the air in a vortex of anger and her. The pain in my chest intensified as I watched her storm down the hallway. I followed her.
She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked out the two-story windows that graced the foyer. Through the paned glass, the grounds shone under a warm sun. Despite the cold air, the grass still retained a faint green from the summer months, and the driveway slithered through the lawn like a long black snake.
“This place is huge.” She peered down at the foyer below, the walls lined with priceless art collected by several generations of Lindstroms. The chandelier dangled from the third floor turret overhead, the crystals casting prisms high above us.