“I was going to offer my help, but it looks like you’ve got it covered.”
The jerk I felt was involuntary. My skeleton ripped through my flesh because my body was so startled. I turned around to face him, seeing him sitting in one of the armchairs by the window. So preoccupied with blocking the door, I hadn’t even noticed him there.
Fuck.
My eyes shifted to my nightstand where I kept my knife hidden.
“Got the knife in the drawer. Amateur hiding place.”
I headed to the closet.
“Got that one too. Kitchen staff has been having a hard time after losing all their knives.”
I turned back around, totally defenseless against this behemoth of a man.
Now I missed Cauldron in a whole new way. He was the only man who could save me from this, but he wasn’t there.
Grave left the armchair and strolled toward me, his hands entering the pockets of his jeans as he approached me. Playfulness was in his eyes, enjoying every second of my discomfort. He’d outsmarted me, and he relished it. “Drop the robe.” Now his voice changed, deepening in authority. He cut through the bullshit and got straight to the point. “Get on the bed—”
“No.” The words left my mouth with the speed of a bullet.
His stare hardened.
“This is the kind of man you are? That’s low—even for you.”
He stepped toward me.
I stepped back.
“Our arrangement never concluded, so you’re mine.”
“Bitch, I’m not a contract or a physical object. I’m a woman who didn’t want to marry you. Get over it.”
He tilted his head just slightly. “You became a physical object once you accepted payment. You became a contract where the terms can change. If you wanted to be respected as a woman, then you shouldn’t have been a whore.”
Fuck, that cut deep.
“You know I own companies as well as people. It’s your fault you accepted me as a client. It’s your fault that you stayed as long as you did. Then you did the worst thing you could possibly do and ran off to my brother, only making me want you more. There is no escape from this, darling.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He stepped closer to me.
I moved back, knowing the end was near.
His hand flew out and grabbed me by the hair. “I call you whatever the fuck I want.” He threw me at the bed. “Now, take off your robe.”
I landed on top of the mattress, my robe coming undone in the process. I quickly cinched it closed before I crawled to the other side.
Now he was on me, grabbing me by both wrists before he threw me down again. “You mean nothing to him.” He gripped my wrists above my head as he held me down, his mountain of a body keeping me pinned in place. “You think he’s as loyal to you as you are to him? I’m sure there’s already someone new as we speak.”
I tried to kick him. Tried to knee him. Tried to do anything to get this fucking ox off me. “Let me go!”
He untied my robe and spread it apart.
My naked body was on display, my bikini left to dry by the pool.
He looked down at me the way he had all those times before. “Beautiful.”
“Fuck you.” I used all my strength to push my hands up, but I barely moved an inch before his weight pushed me back down. Then I saw the flash of silver and felt the cold bite of metal.
The cuffs were placed over my wrists.
“You fucking psychopath.”
Then he had a rope, a rope that secured me to one of the bedposts.
This was it. There was nowhere to go. It didn’t matter that I’d bedded him before, that I’d even enjoyed it at times. This was totally different.
He got off me and got undressed.
That was when I tried to get the rope free, to slip it up over the bedpost or undo the knot. But it was as secured as a metal lock, and there was no moving it. He grabbed me and forced me down again.
Now I cried, cried because there was nothing I could do except accept the defeat. “Don’t do this.”
“It won’t always be this way,” he said calmly. “Once you remember—”
“Think about what you’re doing. Really think about it.” Tears streaked down my cheeks. “This isn’t paying a whore for sex. This is rape.”
He stilled, but his eyes remained cold.
“It won’t be like it was, not when you’re forcing me.”
He processed those words but seemed to reject them because he forced my legs apart.
I kicked him. “You won’t hurt your brother. He won’t hurt you. That means there’s a chance you could reconcile. Someday. Somehow.”
He stilled and looked at me again.
“I promise you, there will be no reconciliation if you do this. When Cauldron knows what you’ve done, he’ll kill you. You won’t even see it coming. It’ll be a bullet to the back of the head because you’ll officially mean nothing to him.”