Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
I could barely feel the vibration of the music below. “It’s so quiet in here.”
“The walls are soundproof so the noise doesn’t disrupt me while I’m working. As are the walls upstairs.” He grinned. “So you and I don’t bother the patrons.”
Another attempt at humor. But also, perhaps, a threat. Maybe outside the Badlands, there were no rules. Maybe willingness was more subjective here, in a dark club, where he’d tried to get me up to his office before. Could everything he’d told me tonight be canceled out by the fact that I was the exception?
Could I appreciate that he was a savior worthy of praise and loyalty, but also hate him for making me his only victim?
I had to keep my eyes and ears open. I admired the things he did, but to me, he was still the same man he’d been before the past couple hours. I couldn’t take the chance that if I gave in and saw him as something other than the devil, I might stop fighting for my freedom.
I stared at him, utterly perplexed at the puzzle before me. This was exactly what I’d feared. Not knowing whether to hate him or to feel something else entirely.
“I need to change my tampon,” I said.
He blinked at me, opening and closing his mouth. “I—I can send one of my employees out for some. Did Jaz not, uh, pack some for you?”
An ember of delight sparked in me as he stammered. Even the most composed man in the world could be derailed by menstruation. “I have some,” I said. “I just meant I need to use the bathroom.”
“Ah.” He nodded at a closed door to his left. “Through there.”
I hesitated. “Are there cameras in there? I don’t want an audience.”
“For God’s sake, Natalia. No. I don’t surveil toilets.”
My pleasure grew at the offense he took. It wouldn’t hurt to remind him that while he called me his wife, I was still his prisoner, and that even when he treated me well, he was only the hero in his own story—not mine.
I picked up my bag and started across the room.
“Leave that,” he said.
I paused. “What?”
“The bag,” he said evenly, and with no room for argument. “Put it on my desk.”
My heart thumped once. I looked back at him. All teasing had left his face, and his dark demeanor had resurfaced. What did he want with the bag? I feared the answer was obvious. “I need it,” I said.
“No, you don’t.” He nodded in front of him. “There.”
Inhaling through my nose, I carried it to his desk, setting the bag down slowly. I wanted to protest more, but that would raise a red flag.
I took a tampon from the inside pocket and glanced up, trying to gauge his shift in mood. There was an indisputable hardness in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Could he possibly know about the phone? And how?
Leaving the bag felt more like surrendering it, but I had no choice. If he knew enough to search the bag, then he knew what he was looking for.
My gut smarted as I made my way to the bathroom.
I had the distinct feeling that the hero had left the building.
16
Natalia
Compared to the nightclub below, the marble full bathroom off Cristiano’s office was eerily quiet. I stood at the door, steeling myself to face the possibility that Cristiano had found the phone Diego had given me. I’d uncovered things about Cristiano tonight I never could’ve imagined. Good things. But I didn’t have him pegged in the least. He could still flip on a dime.
I exited the bathroom and found him towering over his desk—and the contents of my overnight bag.
“Coca Light, warm.” He nodded to his bar cart, which held a glass of soda that must’ve been delivered while I was in the bathroom.
I took a sip hoping the carbonation would soothe my stomach—uneasy from both my earlier nausea and my current nerves—but otherwise kept my eyes on him.
“You know,” he said, his eyes shadowed by heavy brows, “Diego was standing right about where you are now when he figured out the truth.”
My fingers tingled with alarm. “What truth?”
“I cannot be bought off or dissuaded from getting what I want. Whatever I desire, I find a way to take it.” He opened the top drawer to his desk. “But my brother proved me wrong.”
I spun the giant rock on my finger and moved closer to the door. “How?”
“He gave me you. And in exchange, I let go of something I’d wanted for a long time. But I don’t have you, Natalia. Not yet. Not the way he did.”
When he glanced down into the drawer, I quickly scanned the items on his desk for the phone, but it wasn’t there. “I could’ve told you that before I walked down the aisle,” I said. “I could’ve saved you the trouble.”