by Anna Antonia
“You had me investigated? Why would you do that?”
Damian tutted. “Because I wanted to. You’re an open book to me, Risa, and now you want to close it. It’s a shame. You’re my favorite story.”
My rigid body twisted against Damian. He tightened his arms until the breath squeaked out of me. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. That’s not why I broke the window.”
“Then what were you doing? Can you tell me the truth or will you spin a lie?” His interrogating growl made my legs weak. I would’ve appreciated the tone if only the situation weren’t so dire.
“I needed a change of scenery?” Predictably, my joke went over like a lead balloon.
“Lie then. Look, Risa.”
Damian walked us even closer to the window. His shoes broke and ground the glass deeper into the hardwood floors. Dimly, I wondered how deep the gouges were bound to be. Damian’s large hand cupped the back of my head. He pushed until my face was just on this side of the ragged glass hole.
“Do you see?”
Licking my dry lips, I rasped, “See what?”
“You wanted a view. Tell me what you see.”
I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat. “I don’t see anything.”
“Are you sure?”
Damian’s mouth was so close to my ear. I shivered as my senses heightened with each pass of warm air. “I’m sure.”
“That’s right. There’s nothing out there. Nothing at all. But in here, Risa, here is everything you could ever need. And I’m trying to give it to you. You’re just too damned blind to see it. Like always.”
“Like always. What do you mean?” I couldn’t control the indignant edge even though I’d gotten what I wanted. Damian had freed me. He was finally talking to me. This was my chance to reset the last day and instead I was fighting with him.
But as with my attraction to him, I just couldn’t help myself.
“It all goes back to the beginning, Risa. The night you saw Gretchen changed the trajectory of us. You didn’t trust me enough to believe that I wanted you.”
“I’m not that shallow.”
“Maybe not. Maybe yes.”
“There is no maybe. I know you wanted my body even though you couldn’t stand the person attached to it most of the time.” Hurt warbled through my voice. “Oh, and let me point out that you’re no prize yourself. You’re so emotionally closed off that even God himself would have a hard time getting a bead on you.”
Although it was snippy, I still felt better for saying it.
“Maybe so but I liked you enough to stay with you, to bring you here.”
“I should be flattered then? Sorry, Damian, but I don’t care for this kind of bondage.”
He exhaled long and slow. “You hate the chain, do you? You think I’m treating you like a slave? Well, let me tell you something about the world out there, Risa. A slave wouldn’t have me cooking for her, serving her meals on the finest china, and she wouldn’t be staying in a beautiful room fit for the wife of a very wealthy man.”
“Stop.” I tried to look at him, but he refused to let me. His poison-true words continued to seep deeper, diminishing my indignation.
“A slave wouldn’t have me laying out clothes for her twice a day and she wouldn’t be sleeping on sheets of the highest thread count.”
“It’s not the same—”
Damian cut through my weak protests easily. “Exactly. You are not a slave, Risa. If you want to really know what it’s like to be a slave then I’ll throw you in the basement. Should we go now?”
I flinched. “No.”
“Are you sure?” Damian strode over to the door and set me down. Standing there in the open doorway with my head craned back, I suffered the immense difference in our sizes immediately.
“You know I don’t want that.” My fingers twisted over themselves.
He looked me over once. “I actually think you would like that.”
“You’re saying that to scare me,” I braved to say.
“Does it?”
“You know it does.”
“You know what I think? I think you want to be a victim in this so that way you can justify running away from me, from your feelings.”
His declaration hit way too close to home. “And what about your feelings, Damian. You say that you love me—”
“I do.”
“But why did you wait until yesterday to tell me? You had all these weeks and not once did you say ‘I love you, Risa.’ You wait until I try to break up with you to tell me that. If you had just once told me you loved me then none of this would’ve happened!”
He clenched his jaw. Something akin to remorse flickered in his gaze. “I can’t just say those words, Risa. They’re just words. Anyone can say them.”
Something shifted inside of me. I felt as if I’d just gotten a peek inside of Damian, inside a room I didn’t know existed. I needed to tread carefully if I still wanted to keep my view.
I dared to touch him. “But they’re words I needed to hear. I never knew what you were really feeling unless we were fucking. That’s the only time I felt that I saw the real you.”
He closed his eyes. “There’s more to me than what I can say, Risa. I…” He swallowed hard, frowning as if he didn’t want to share anything further. “You’re an Account Executive. You more than anybody should know how often people say things they don’t mean to get what they want.”
“But not you.”
“No, not me. Not with you.”
36
I licked my lips, heart hammering in my chest. “Do you really love me, Damian?”
“Yes. But the words aren’t enough.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Because of this?” Damian whirled me around so that we both faced the discarded chain. It lay there on the floor, winking in the faded light like a weapon. “This means nothing, Risa. You would’ve worn that for me anytime I wished it.”
My gaze flicked away. Desire twisted through me. “That may be true but you didn’t ask me. You forced it on me, Damian, and that was wrong!”
His fine lip curled in contempt. “If I say you’re right will that make this better?”
I didn’t just need to hear the words. I needed to know he believed them. “Do you think you’re wrong?”
Damian lifted me up effortlessly until we were eye to eye. My legs dangled in the air. “What I think doesn’t matter to you at all, Risa. Answer the question.”
Being this close to him, seeing every fleck in his silver and amber eyes, scenting the cologne he always wore, it all summoned a different reaction than I should’ve been feeling. The fear I’d felt when he first came in morphed into something else.
Something dark and exciting.
My heartbeat raced like a rabbit. My nipples tightened with painful desire. I wanted to kiss Damian, to have him slam me against the wall while he pounded me until I screamed his name.
His eyes narrowed. Lust hardened the lines of his expression. I let out a strangled gasp. I knew that look. I’d come for that look countless times. Suddenly, I needed to taste him so very badly.
“You want me now, Risa?”
I licked my lips but I couldn’t answer him.
Damian’s mouth tightened. “Last chance.”
I didn’t want to be at odds with him anymore. Now that the physical weight of my captivity had lightened, I realized that it didn’t matter. My love for Damian would ensure it would continue to say inside me.
“What do you want me to say? You know the truth!”
I just wanted us to go to bed, to find our happiness through passion and the slickly spoken words of lust.
“How could I know that?” he asked softly.
“Because I’ve shown you that I’ve wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you!”
“But you haven’t said it.”
“I’ve shown you.”
“As have I.” Damian’s tone roughened with emotion. “I haven’t even looked
at another woman, Risa, since I’ve been with you. I spend all my free time with you. I make love to you every chance I get. You see the side of me no one else does. This is my love for you, Risa. Yes, even bringing you here and keeping you. I don’t think it’s wrong. Not if it makes you admit what I already know is true.”
I was moved by his words against my will. My world view shifted, making room for what Damian was telling me.
He’s telling me the truth. I know he is.
It may have been raw and not the stuff of sweet romances, but it was real.
My silence must’ve dragged on too long because Damian set me down. Taking a large step back, he asked in a voice as cold as the wind blowing through the broken window, “Is your damned pride worth losing me? Losing us?”
His question twisted like a dagger in my heart.
37
DAMIAN
Risa gasped. Her face paled, robbing me of her rosy cheeks. A terrible fear blanketed her gaze. In all this time, ever since I’d brought Risa here by force, she’d yet to show this level of fear. Even when I was cold and ruthless in my recent methods, Risa still had the tenacity to push back.
Now all I had was a silent facsimile of my precious little girl.
“What will it be?” I pressed harder.
“You can’t call all the shots.”
Her voice quivered like that of a bird starting flight. I could not let Risa fly from me. Not now. Not ever. I hardened my heart. “But I can and I will.”
“It’s not right!”
“It’s what you like, Risa. Don’t deny it. I know the kind of woman you’ve been. I saw it the first time I met you. You were used to pulling the strings. It bored you. But you can’t pull my strings the same way and you love it.”
Her eyes looked overly large in her small face. “I don’t love not knowing where I stand in your life.”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Now.”
Curses slipped past my control. “You’re the most hardheaded woman I’ve ever come across. Now or then what difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference because…” Risa’s mouth snapped shut before opening again. Color painted her delicately. When tears brightened her gaze I steeled myself against her pain or the inevitable feelings that tried to arise. Besides, she didn’t want comforting from me. She wanted a piece of my hide.
“Because of what?”
“Do you have any idea how many nights I spent afraid that you would turn on me and decide you were done? That you’d find someone else to replace me because you’d gotten tired of our affair?”
“It wasn’t an affair.”
“But it felt that way, don’t you see?”
Her question was a kick to my pride. I’d had affairs before. What I’d had with Risa wasn’t anything close. I was completely devoted to her, never once considering moving on to someone else. Someone more malleable.
Everything I’d ever taken from Risa, I’d given back in spades. Before her, I’d buy my way into a woman’s bed, gifting her with a thousand different costly trinkets to smooth my passage. Dinner had never been made by my own hand. I never ran a bath for someone other than myself. I’d never taken care of anyone, including Gretchen, the way I’d taken care of Risa.
How could she not understand this?
Risa doesn’t know who you really are.
Briefly I considered laying my cards on the table—or at least those that I could. Was I making things that much harder for myself by not telling Risa that I was personally worth more than a billion dollars? Would Risa’s reasonable anger towards me turn sweet once she realized I could and would buy her anything her heart desired?
The idea of being able to buy Risa off like that left me cold. Whereas who I was had always been either a barrier or an enticement to the fairer sex, but with Risa I knew she loved me for me. Not the charming bastard I played all-too-often, but the taciturn man who’d somehow, someway found the girl of his dreams hiding in plain sight.
And yet, Risa doubted me.
Anger, and something too uncomfortably close to pain, licked my voice. “If being with me was so bad, then why did you stay for so long? I didn’t act any different now than the beginning. No. I act better now.”
“You know why I stayed,” she accused softly. “Why are you trying to make me say it again?”
Because it will never be enough. I’ll always want to hear the words, Risa, because I know they’re real.
“Tell me.”
Her shoulders sagged with defeat. “I love you, Damian. I tried to keep my heart but I couldn’t. Not against you.”
They were the most beautiful words I’d ever heard. Far more beautiful than her grudging confession of love. And just barely more beautiful than the sweet whisper of her coming all around me…
Because of me.
Risa’s tears spilled. They cascaded down her smooth cheeks. The urge to trace them with my finger beckoned. Darkness stirred inside my soul. I should’ve been upset to see the silvery trails. I should’ve asked for her forgiveness.
I wouldn’t.
Risa’s tears were proof of her devotion to me. Much like the cut on her leg had been a sacrifice to me, I could not deny the power of her tears over me. Not for the first time, I questioned my love for Risa Kelly.
What have you done to me, little girl? How have you possessed me like this?
My gaze strayed to the chain lying on the floor, coiled like a serpent ready to strike. I had to be mad. If I were in full control of my facilities, I would’ve never gone this far.
If I had the ability to regain them, I would’ve immediately phoned my lawyer and had him broker a deal with Risa to keep me out of prison. Failing the lure of money, I would’ve pressed upon her affection for me until she caved.
I would then leave the scene of my greatest failing and traveled to my private island in the Maldives accompanied by a beautiful Ukrainian model or two. There I’d forget the day I’d seen Risa lean against the wall and slip off her shoe.
But I knew I wouldn’t do any of those things. I would see this through to the end. The madness was upon me and it was one month too late to change course.
I refocused on Risa. “You love me, yes?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you still want to leave me?”
She sighed. “It’s complicated—”
My hand slashed the air. “Stop.” She obeyed me for a change. “It doesn’t have to be complicated, Risa. Not if you don’t make it that way.” Calling on my recently nonexistent methods of coercion, I looked back at the fetter and made a decision.
All Risa needed was a choice.
I looked at her and smiled. “Do you want to be with me?”
The answer, when it came, could be nothing other than “Yes.”
Whatever happened next was surely a fate between us that could not be broken. Risa wouldn’t disappoint me because she loved me.
I don’t regret anything. I’d do it all over again.
And that was my greatest truth. I’d be anything—monster, master, and jailor—as long as in the end Risa loved me.
Nothing else mattered.
38
RISA
Heart hammering in my chest, I didn’t dare look over my shoulder. I pumped my legs and arms as I headed straight for the woods off in the distance. My breath came harder and harder with each running step.
I thought I’d heard Damian yell my name but I wasn’t sure. It could’ve been him. It could’ve been the wind.
Either way I needed to go faster because thirty minutes ago he’d given me a choice.
* * *
“Do you want to be with me?” Damian had asked gently in that deliciously silken voice I loved so much.
I could’ve gone back to cover the same damaged ground. I could’ve told him that he’d had no right to ask that of me considering our current circumstances. Instead, I answered him honestly.
“I do. More than anything.”
“Do you trust me?”
I sidestepped his question. “I want us to be able to make this work.”
Disappointment flickered but Damian’s voice remained gentle as always. “Good.”
He’d then picked me up and carried me to his room. Once there Damian set me down on an ottoman in front of the fireplace, he said, “Stay here.”
I watched as he’d left the room and gone back into mine. What was he doing? Was he bringing back the chain? Had I only changed geography but was left in the same circumstances?
Damian returned quickly. In his arms was a small bundle of clothes. I recognized them as mine. He delivered them to me.
Looking down at the neatly folded pile in my lap, I asked, “What are these?”
His mouth lifted in a gorgeous half-smirk. “I would’ve thought it was rather obvious, Risa.”
My smile reappeared. “I know. I mean, why are they here?”
“I packed them just in case.” He shrugged expansively. “My just in case moment apparently has arrived.”
Waiting for further explanation, I checked out the pile. T-shirt, thick sweater, underwear, jeans, socks, and boots. My smile faded. These clothes were designed for outside.
Was Damian letting me go?
I should’ve felt ecstatic by the idea. We could go back to my apartment, settle our differences responsibly like civilized adults. Maybe after several rounds of vigorous lovemaking, we could then discuss our future and Damian could swear that he’d never, ever resort to such criminal means again.
It was all quite logical and expected even if it was far-fetched and apologetic in its method to sweep all of this unpleasantness under the rug.
But I didn’t want that anymore.
Somewhere between our bath and the broken window, I’d changed. I couldn’t understand what drove Damian before, but I knew now that in his unorthodox, borderline-obsessive way he loved me. Just as I had loved him enough to try to be what I thought he wanted, to be the girl he could look at and say “You’re perfect for me, Risa.”