I can practically see Cillian growling at the phone.
“I’m glad you trust me, Kian,” Saoirse says. “Which means you can also be honest with me about Renata. You have feelings for her, don’t you?”
I groan.
“Wait… do you?” Cillian asks. “I knew you were attracted to her. But… feelings?”
“I don’t have—”
“Oh, fuck,” Cillian interrupts. “Shit! How did I not see this?”
“Because you can be extremely obtuse sometimes,” Saoirse tells her husband. “You do, don’t you, Kian?”
“How I feel about her is… confusing,” I allow myself to say.
“Is that Kian-speak for yes?” Saoirse asks impatiently.
I have to smile at that one. She seems to understand. She always has. “If you do care for her, Kian, then locking her up is not the way to win her over,” Saoirse tells me.
“Who says I’m trying to win her over?”
“Cut the crap,” Saoirse says bluntly. “And just be straight with me.”
I sigh deeply. “Fine. Go on.”
“If you want her to trust you, then you need to trust her, too,” Saoirse says. “Especially given your… history.”
My jaw clenches. Everything Saoirse’s saying feels right, but it’s the execution I’m having trouble with. When I say I have experience with women, I’m talking about sexual experience. When it comes to the other shit—emotions, conversation, compromise, mutual trust and respect—that part is a black box.
“It’s good advice,” Cillian says, throwing out his two cents. “I’d take it.”
“And what if that fails, huh? What if that goes the same way things went with Annabelle?”
Neither of them have an answer to that.
* * *
After I hang up, I head back to the black door. When I get down to the room, my eyes go straight to the bondage chair…
Which is empty.
The leather straps hang uselessly on the floor. “Fuck,” I growl.
Leaving the door open looks like a glaringly stupid mistake now. She must have already slipped out of here.
I’ve got men at every entrance, though. And if she’d tried to breach one of the gates, they’d have notified me. So she’s still in the house.
I turn back towards the stairs. That’s when I notice a shadow in my peripheral vision.
Before I can even process what’s happening, something hard smashes into the back of my head. Pain erupts through my body like wildfire. I stumble forward and my vision blurs.
For a second, all I can see are stars.
Then even that disappears, and all that’s left is darkness.