by Lana Sky
After a deliberate second, he lets me go and I bring my hand inches from his face, hating how my fingers shake. With effort, I calm them enough to trace the line of his jaw, shivering at how he clenches it against me. So damn suspicious.
“You think you know me, but I’ve already got you sussed,” I tell him, fighting to keep my voice steady.
Touching him at all was a mistake. His heat isn’t repulsive even in the humid greenhouse. His skin feels as soft as his hands, and the closer my fingers drift toward his mouth, the more I’m reminded of how his lips felt against mine. Swallowing hard, I step back and flatten both of my hands against my hips.
“You think I’m so predictable,” I say, “but you’re worse. You’re infallible. So desperate for control you can’t have one little thing go wrong. Can you?”
Alarm drips down my spine even before I follow through on my foolish impulse. I reach for an orchid and use both hands to snap a bud free. The violent crunch echoes like a gunshot and Damien looks…
Consuming.
He advances on me swiftly, capturing my chin in his grip. His nostrils flare with the aroma of his ruined flower. His shoulder tenses. I know he’ll hit me. I’m ready for it. Maybe I want him to.
Violence would give me a reason to hate him more. Something to counter the image of the man who held me while I broke. The same man shamelessly haunting me, claiming to know me better than I do. I’d take any reason.
All he does is cruelly drag his thumb up to my mouth and apply enough pressure to force my lips apart. He steps in closer at the same time, allowing his breath to fan my throat in a teasing swipe.
Anger has a smell on him too, but I wouldn’t dare attach it to a color. Maybe a phenomenon: lightning. Striking without warning and inflicting untold damage. Breathing is an ordeal. Sweat slicks my skin, affecting his grip. It tightens, tilting my head back farther, in the prime position for his mouth to claim mine if he wanted. Bite. Consume.
Suddenly, he lets me go and I cling to a nearby planter for balance, still holding my severed orchid.
“Put it on the table, por favor,” he snaps to a man who I didn’t even notice has entered the structure.
Wearing a suit and tie, he blends in with the other nameless men who I assumed work for Damien—minus the object he’s carrying. I do a double take and wind up tightening my grip on the planter. The rich smell flooding my nostrils proves that the sight isn’t a figment of my imagination: a large box of pizza fresh from Georgianos.
“Shall we?” Damien inclines his head. “I believe we’ve wasted enough time.”
We have. Back to the task at hand, the only reason why I came here in the first place: for answers.
“Fine.” I follow him down the aisle and into a small section cordoned off from the main greenhouse by a wall of glass.
The man with the pizza sets it onto a small table flanked by two strategically placed chairs.
“Dismissed,” Damien says to him, and the man leaves without a word. Then my host tilts his head toward me. “Sit.”
I eye the table warily. Pizza with a madman. Oddly enough, I’ve had worse dining companions. The governor’s disgusting son who spit food while he ate. The lecherous old senator Daddy tried to woo for support.
Damien Villa isn’t the least appealing, admittedly. So, I take the chair nearest to me while he claims the opposite one. Once seated, he gestures toward the box of pizza.
“As you requested.”
He’s not gloating for once. Something tells me that pizza wouldn’t be on the menu if he had his way. Good. I drag the box toward me and flip the lid open. It smells even better than I remember, cooked exactly to my preference.
“How do I know it’s not poisoned?” If so, it’s too late; my fingers have already staked claim over a slice.
“It isn’t,” he says. “Though I’ll admit that I’ve considered it.”
I wrench my fingers from a strip of crust. “What? Why? Have I bored you to the point of murder?”
“Who said anything about killing you?” The grudging honesty in his tone is enough to help air trickle back into my lungs. For now. “No. I’m nowhere near finished with you yet. So eat.”
“So…” I toy with a different slice. “Was your aim to paralyze me, then?”
His glowering posture makes me aware of how I’m sitting: legs crossed, my free hand knotted in a fist to hide how it trembles.
“That is a matter we will discuss at another time. For now, I’ve humored your requests, so get the remaining one out of the way and ask your questions.” His tone reveals the threat he’s holding back. Then I’ll ask mine.
I find myself eyeing the corners of the room, desperate to stall this moment. There are so many damn things to ask. Looking at him, I settle on the most obvious. “Were you born blind?”
I already suspect the answer before he shakes his head. His drawings are far too detailed. Too raw. He must have some prior knowledge of the human body. Of women, and flowers, and lust-filled glances.
When he doesn’t speak, I’m prepared to accuse him of breaking our agreement. Before my lips can even part, he reaches behind his head. One tug of his fingers and the blindfold falls away.
“I apologize in advance for your appetite.”
Food quickly becomes the last thing on my mind. Faced with all of Damien, I can’t breathe.
I knew he was handsome, even with so much of his face obscured. Taking him in fully, I’m forced to admit that the man is nothing short of beautiful. Strong nose. Elegantly arched eyebrows. Chiseled cheekbones. He’s striking, despite the two vertical scars sealing his eyes shut. They’re silvered. Old. At least one of my theories is thoroughly debunked: He can’t see at all.
Horror robs me of any snarky response. I move my lips several times before I can croak out an actual word. “H-how?”
He bears the scrutiny for a few seconds longer before retying his blindfold with an ease that betrays years of practice. “I’ll spare you the dramatics,” he says simply. “One might say that I blinded myself.”
I’m not sure if I gasp or say something intelligible. Whatever I do makes his jaw clench, and he’s suddenly stone.
“I’ll preemptively answer your next question. Why? I can assure you that you wouldn’t understand the reason.”
He’s lying. No one could inflict wounds like that on their enemies, let alone themselves. I wouldn’t wish that agony on anyone. Even Simon.
“H-how long?”
He frowns as if he’s never stopped to tally up the years before. “Fifteen years,” he says finally. “I… It happened when I was nineteen.”
Which makes him only a few years older than I am. Odd. He seems so much older. A wizened man trapped inside the body of an exotically colored Adonis.
Curiosity keeps me questioning, even as the image of his scars lingers in my mind. “Where are you from?”
“A village in South America,” he says, “in a region you’ve most likely never heard of, with a name you’ll never be able to pronounce.”
Fair enough. “What made you come here?”
“My father was…let’s call him a judge, though not in the general sense. He was never elected, nor appointed to his position. He merely woke up one day and claimed it for himself.”
“Oh?” I’m simultaneously riveted and repulsed by his tone. He doesn’t speak of his father the way I speak of mine—Heyworth Thorne, anyway. There’s no love lost or hostility spared. No hero worship.
“Some might consider my old home less than conventional,” he adds, leaving it at that.
Which is an understatement if whatever he experienced forced him to blind himself at the age of nineteen. I’m tempted to ask, but I can take a hint. He won’t hold back, and what he might say could disturb more than my appetite.
Changing gears, I decide to ask a far more pertinent question. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Now be specific, Ms. Thorne. Do you want to know how long I’ve been aware of your existence or just how lo
ng I’ve taken a personal interest in your welfare?”
I suck in a breath. His tone dipped just one octave above the danger zone. “B-both.”
“A little over four years.”
“After your brother’s first appeal.”
If he’s surprised that I choose to divulge that bit of information now, he doesn’t show it. He’s stone again, completely unreadable. Though not quite…
I close my eyes and brace my palms flat against the table. Strange. He reveals more to me in darkness than I’m comfortable deciphering. Tension resonates from his end. His hand is braced against the wooden surface and vibrates ever so slightly, indiscernible to the naked eye.
“So you remember now,” he says.
“That’s why you hate my father,” I admit, opening my eyes. “Because of Mathias. Isn’t it?”
He inhales deeply as if just hearing the name stings. “A better man than Heyworth Thorne would have handled things differently. With Mathias. And with you.”
But how? I’m not brave enough to ask out loud. Instead, I pose a different question. “What was he like, your brother?”
“Human,” Damien replies. “A particularly decent one, but human nonetheless.”
“And…” I swallow hard to gather up the nerve to broach this topic. “You think he’s innocent?”
“I know he was.” The grit in his tone warns me to back off. Discuss something else.
So I pick the obvious route of questioning. “So how did…do you plan to use me against my father? I’m sure you know all about the press conference tomorrow. I bet you have some brilliant masterplan to derail it.”
I expect dramatics. Laughter. Or for him to throw his head back and announce some villainous plan so evil that I’ll quake in my heels.
“How to use you? I don’t know,” he admits, each word sounding as though he had to rip it from his throat. “Expose you? Corrupt you? Your fate presents an interesting conundrum.”
“How so?”
“Well…” He tilts his head thoughtfully and shrugs. “I can’t decide whether or not your disgrace or your death would matter in the end.”
Honesty. That’s what he promised. I tell myself that as horror descends like a punch to the stomach. He promised me cruel, bone-chilling honesty.
“Y-you’ve thought about killing me?”
“I have once,” he replies, his tone level. “The way I’m sure you’ve fantasized about destroying all of those who have wronged you.”
“Punching, maybe,” I rasp. “Not murder.”
His cold laugh undercuts the intensity in his tone. “You may lie, but we both know the truth.”
“So why haven’t you killed me, then?”
“Therein lies the dilemma, Ms. Thorne.”
Coming from a normal man, those words would be the punchline to a terrible joke. I could choke out a haha, throw my drink in his face, and storm away. I wouldn’t be driven to dissect his answer into a million tiny pieces. One of them being: Did his supposed change of heart come before or after he met me in person?
“This has been very…illuminating, Mr. Villa.” I flex my fingers against the table, though I’m not sure if I intend to stand.
His hand captures mine before I can decide, pinning it flat with the barest amount of pressure. “Sí. I’m glad, Ms. Thorne. Now, I would like you to extend the same favor, por favor.”
The amount of patience he’s shown tonight has me worried. What could he possibly want to know that four years of spying—a timeframe I’ll stress over later—couldn’t garner him? Nothing good.
“Fine. Ask away, Mr. Villa.” I reach for a slice of pizza to disguise how my teeth are chattering with nerves. One impulsive bite later, I remember his murderous intentions. “Wait. You can ask me whatever you want after you prove this pizza isn’t poisoned. Take a bite.”
He doesn’t move. A refusal? Not quite. He reaches into his pocket instead and withdraws a device too small to be a cell phone: his earpiece. “Bring a plate and silverware to my location, gracias,” he snaps into it.
Damn. I’m suddenly aware of the grease on my fingers. What kind of man, no matter how polished, uses protocol for a slice of pizza? Then something clicks. No one even remotely familiar with Georgianos would ever show such disdain for it.
“You don’t like pizza.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps, a rare display of displeasure. “I’ve never tried it.”
I wait for another punchline that never comes. In fact, he looks far too uncomfortable to be lying. He’s tense: a mountain of man perched on a delicate wooden chair.
“Tell your slave to forget the silverware—”
“My men are family, not slaves,” he insists. Quietly. Calmly. Even so, the tone conveys an unmistakable warning to never utter that word again.
“Your man, then. Tell your man to forget the silverware. Then give me your hands.”
Now, it’s his turn to look wary.
“We could sit here all night,” I tell him, “or you can ask your questions before I get tired and go home. Now, I’m starving. Hands.”
He raises the object to his mouth and mutters something in Spanish. Then he stows it and slams his hands onto the table. Pushing the box of pizza aside, I reach for one and bite back a swallow. I’ll never get over how soft he feels. Perhaps our surroundings have something to do with it. His fingers are petal-soft.
With my free hand, I heft a slice of pizza onto his palm. “Now, bring it to your mouth,” I instruct, “and take a bite.”
His lips move, murmuring something I can’t understand. Spanish? One word stands out. Amen. A prayer?
I don’t have the chance to reconcile the pious nature to his criminal one. He grimaces. His fingers flex against the crust as though he’s unused to the texture and slow ooze of melted cheese. Unlike how he handles flowers, or maneuvering, or—admittedly—women’s bodies, I suspect pizza is something he’s never been subjected to before. He’s never seen it.
“It’s shaped like a triangle,” I explain. My fingers curl around his, helping him guide the slice to his mouth.
His brow furrows at the teasing swipe of sauce and dough against his lip.
“Take a bite,” I instruct.
He does, only to promptly set the slice onto the bare table while he chews. I sense that pizza will not be a returning item on the Villa menu. As he swallows, he fishes through his pocket for a handkerchief and dabs at his mouth.
“Heyworth Thorne used to have lunch from an expensive French café hand-delivered to him when he sat on the bench. I assume that this”—he nods toward the barely touched pizza—“was not a regular entree on your dining table growing up.”
I start to correct him only to realize that he’s right in a sense. Daddy had our cooks prepare family-style meals every night and a healthy breakfast in the morning. Pizza or cheap snacks were treats I typically sampled only at school occasions or birthday parties. Before I became a Thorne, however, stale crust eaten out of the box while surrounded by the smell of booze had been a daily occurrence.
“I ate it more often before I was adopted,” I admit.
He nods. “When you were eight.”
If he expects me to react to his knowledge of yet another intimate detail of my life, well… I don’t.
“Ask your questions, Mr. Villa,” I quip. “I’m getting tired.” I yawn loudly for dramatic effect, but he hunches forward, like a wolf readying to go in for the kill.
“Are you a virgin, Ms. Thorne?”
I nearly choke on my next bite and wind up coughing. Calmly, Damien offers me his handkerchief as I sputter, my eyes streaming.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer the question.”
“And if I am?”
A muscle in his jaw twitches, betraying his impatience. “I would prefer a yes or no answer.”
“What made you ask that question anyway?”
His teeth audibly grind together. “You didn’t…feel like other women I
’ve been with. I’d also like to give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you aren’t skilled enough in acting to have put on the performance that you did.”
Performance? I’m not sure just which show he’s referring to. When he drugged me? Or all those nights of taunting him through his bugs?
“Again, what if I am?”
“So that’s a yes, then.” He sits back in his chair and folds his hands before him. If anything, he doesn’t look satisfied with the answer he stole. His chest rises and falls, betraying harsh, slowed breathing. I do believe I may have upset the stone-cold Mr. Villa. I just wish I knew how.
“I’m invoking my rule,” I say, hating how my voice shakes. Damn him for making me feel even a shadow of self-consciousness. “Why the hell does it matter to you?”
He breathes in sharply. Exhales even more harshly. “Because I want to proposition…propose an exchange.”
“An exchange for what?” I ask stupidly.
He frowns, and then it clicks. Oh.
He wants to take my virginity. I let my eyes close again, for longer this time. My head spins. A part of me assumes I misheard him, but no. He throws off anger like heat from a furnace, infuriated. Annoyed. At himself? As strange as it feels to consider, I don’t sense that his rage is directed at me.
No bother, because I feel more than enough fury for both of us.
“So no wonder you ‘apologized.’ Have you decided to replace murder with rape?”
He’s a more equally matched opponent when I can’t see him. I’m forced to feel what my eyes overlook. The tension lacing his posture. The unease emanating from his end. Every forced breath he takes in his desperate quest to maintain control.
“I don’t want to rape you,” he snarls, sounding disgusted by the prospect. I open my eyes and find him scowling. “How should I put it in a way you might understand? I want to fuck you, Juliana. More specifically, I want use of your body, at my discretion.”
He could have said, “I want to shake your hand and be done with it,” and I doubt his inflection would have changed any.
“Let me guess. You want to deflower me in some sick way of getting back at my father?” I push back from the table so violently that his pizza slice falls to the floor. “Have a good fucking night in the literal sense. I’m sure your right hand will make a nice substitute for me—”