by M James
“You’re to resume your diet and exercise as well. We’ll set a date for our wedding soon, and I expect you to be the most beautiful bride in Manhattan. I deserve nothing less.” He smiles coldly at me. “I’ve been indulgent with you in the past, Poppy, and you took advantage of me. But I’ve realized that you need a firm hand, someone to give you rules, a routine, and direction. I’m going to do exactly that. If you obey and be my good girl, then you’ll enjoy the life I plan to give you.” His expression hardens, and my stomach churns. “But if you’re not or cause trouble, you’ll be punished. That’s how it will be from here on out, Poppy. I expect you’ll learn quickly. And if not?” He smiles. “I’ll enjoy teaching you.”
For a minute, I think I actually might be sick. “Vincent, I—”
“Shh.” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing you need to say to me. I want you to think about all of this and what you’ll do when we get back in order to be better, a good wife for me. You’ve been lazy in the past, but we’re going to change all of that. Your diet and fitness routine was the first step, but once we’re all settled in, you’re going to help my mother in any way that she needs. And when you’re not doing that, you’re going to take regular lessons in a foreign language with a tutor. I’d meant for my mother to teach you how to run a household, about dinner parties and entertaining and all of those things a wife is meant to do. With my father sick, someone else will have to do that. There’s an excellent finishing school in Manhattan, where all the wealthiest families send their daughters, and I’ll find someone there to come and give you lessons.”
Vincent pauses then, looking at the stunned expression on my face, and laughs shortly. “What? I thought you wanted to go to school.”
“I wanted to be an author,” I whisper. “I wanted to write novels. Not throw dinner parties.”
Vincent’s mouth twists. “Many of my important clients are from other countries all over the world. If my wife can converse fluently in their native language, it will impress them. And if you ever join me on business trips, I expect you not to embarrass me.”
I don’t know if I want to cry or scream. “I don’t want to go to finishing school,” I hiss, keeping my voice low, too, so no one else can hear us fight. “I don’t want to hang off of your arm and charm your associates. I’m not a child. I’m not a rebellious teenager to keep in line. I’m not my sister.” I’m choking on my anger now, and I know it’s stupid. I can see from the look on his face that I’ve fucked up, that I should know better than to argue, to talk back. I’ll pay for this. I know it. But I can’t stop. It might be my last chance to tell him how I feel, here where he can’t lash out at me with others to see, and I’ll worry about the rest later. I feel like I’m coming out of my skin, my seams ripping open with fear and grief and desperation, and I’m so close to snapping at him like a cornered, wounded animal.
I’m trapped, and I have no way out. And I’m terrified.
“Why don’t you have one of your other flowers do it?” I can see that I’ve gone too far, so I just keep going. “I’m sure any of them would be so grateful for tutors and physical trainers and to be flown all over the world and paraded out like jewelry, just so long as they’re not aware of what kind of strings come along with it!”
The muscles in Vincent’s clenched jaw jerk, and I swallow back my fear.“You’re not acting like my little flower,” Vincent says calmly. “You’re not acting like it at all. I don’t appreciate this, Poppy, this ungratefulness.”
“I don’t want to be your flower,” I whisper. There it is, the truth. “I want to go home.”
“Oh, but Poppy,” he says, that cruel smile on his face again. “You are home.”
Something about that breaks me, the finality of his words. He owns me, and he knows it, and I know it. He has too much over my head now; I owe him too much. I start to cry, not the big gulping sobs he hates so much, but I know the tears streaking down my face are ugly all the same, and Vincent hates when I’m ugly. He hates when I’m anything other than perfect for him.
“Stop whining, Poppy,” he says, even as he reaches out to gently wipe a tear away from my face. I can feel the restraint in his touch, how badly he wants to grab me right now.“Stop crying right this second. I won’t have the others see you like this, you ungrateful little brat.” His voice is low, soothing, at odds with his words. I know what he’s doing—to anyone looking, they’ll just see him calming me down, reassuring me. They won’t know what he’s really saying.
“You’re a spoiled little princess, crying in designer clothes on a private jet, with a garage full of luxury cars waiting back in Manhattan and a penthouse full of everything you could ever want.” He strokes my cheek, his thumb pressing against my cheekbone. “Other girls cry in their shitty little hatchbacks and go home to their lazy husbands after their shift at the grocery store, saving up enough to take an economy flight to Florida for a holiday. Any girl would kill to be where you are right now, Poppy, no matter what it cost them.”
I swallow hard, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes, and wishing more than anything that I could go back to that day we met and never go to that store, never steal, find some other way to pay the rent. My whole life spiraled out of control that day. And now I can’t even be sure that I’m right. Maybe he is. Perhaps any of his other flowers would take my spot in a hot second, even if they knew how cruel he could be, what he does to his girls when they step out of line. Would they think I’m selfish and ungrateful for not wanting to let go of my dreams, to not want to be Vincent’s toy, his trophy to parade around and give orders to and fuck when he pleases or cheat on when he doesn’t?
I don’t know anymore. I don’t understand the world I live in.
Vincent sees the confusion on my face, and he reaches for me then, pulling me into his arms as he smooths my hair back, leaning down to kiss me gently. I freeze, my stomach churning as his firm lips press against mine, and I want to burst into tears all over again. I don’t want to kiss him, I don’t want Zach to see me kissing him, I don’t want any of this. But Vincent’s hand is on the back of my head, his lips warm against mine, the salt of my tears gathering between them, and I feel so sad and confused and utterly broken.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, looking down at me and cupping my face in his hands. In the space of a second, everything about him has shifted, warm and caring now where before he was angry and cruel. “Everything will work out for the best, my love, my flower. We’ll be home soon, and everything will go back to normal. You’ll be my Poppy, my beautiful queen of the garden, and everything will be just like it’s meant to. You’ll see.”
I nod because what the hell else am I supposed to do? Across from me, Erin is bobbing her head up and down to some song while she scrolls through her phone, oblivious to everything that is happening across from her. I have to worry about her safety, too, about Vincent using her against me. On the other side, Zach hasn’t noticed anything either, or he’s very carefully pretending not to. I have to worry about him and whether or not Erin will spill what she knows, or if I’ll look at him the wrong way or let on somehow by accident that we know each other. Every step I take has to be so careful, especially once we’re back home—or rather, in New York. It’ll never be my home.
I’ve lost everything, and now I have to decide what to do. Do I embrace my place as Vincent’s wife, obey him, learn how to behave correctly, and submit myself to a life of misery in exchange for safety and stability and my family being taken care of, as I’d planned?
Or do I try to fight him and put myself, and Erin, and them in danger? I’m starting to believe that I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how violent and dangerous Vincent can be. I’m terrified to push that boundary, to find out how much worse it could get.
But anything else feels like dying. I’m twenty-one years old. I sit back after Vincent releases me and goes back to his emails, shivering despite how tightly my cardigan is wrapped around me, and think about how many
years I could have ahead of me. Fifty, sixty, seventy, or more even. As Vincent’s wife, I’ll be a wealthy woman with the best doctors and medical care I could ask for. I could live a long life. That should be encouraging, but instead, the thought makes me feel worse.
Decades living like this, as Vincent’s wife, in this world, feels like a prison sentence. Like I’d rather die.
But it’s not just me. And that’s what I keep circling back to.
I steal a glance over at Zach, and I let myself imagine, for just a second, a world where he never left me. Or a world where I followed him because I was strong enough to not allow him to let me go, to leave me. Where I proved to him how much I loved him, how strong I could be.
That world is full of yellowing linoleum floors, old cabinets and creaking beds, cheap housing somewhere in Indiana, me working at a restaurant or in some retail store. Coming home to Zach late at night, tired and worn out—but now I know that even though he was trying to save me from that life, from more poverty and the endless cycle of thankless work for very little money, that would be better. I would have been happy. I know I would have been. Because we would have had each other.
The grass is always greener, the small voice in my head whispers. But I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that’s why I still love Zach, why my body drifted towards his like a magnet in the garden, why his lips on mine felt like the one thing in the whole damn universe that was right.
It’s because now I know better. I know how wrong my dreams of escape were. I know the ugly side of it, and I wish more than anything that I could go back.
But wishing doesn’t do any good.
5
Zach
The flight back to New York is hell.
I know that sounds dramatic since it was on a private jet, with top-shelf whiskey to drink and Sonya leaning against me, her soft floral perfume filling the air. After all, what guy doesn’t want to sip Johnny Walker Blue while one of the most gorgeous women in the world touches his arm, whispering to him while he sits on the finest leather money can buy?
Well…me. At least, when it means that I have to watch the only girl I ever loved being bullied by her jackass fiancé.
Vincent does a good job of hiding it. To most people, the conversation he was having with Rain would have looked like nothing, or at the very least, maybe a mild argument between lovers. But one of the things they teach us at the agency, right off the bat, is how to read people. And I can see in Vincent’s body language how angry he is.
Even if I wasn’t trained, I don’t need anyone to have taught me anything to figure out how Rain is feeling. No one knows her like I do—or did—and even if she’s not the same girl she once was, her body language is the same. I can tell that she’s upset, frightened, cornered. I don’t know what he’s doing or saying to make her feel like that. Yet, I can feel every muscle winding tight in my body as I watch them out of the corner of my eye, and I feel anger like I haven’t felt in some time, starting to heat my blood.
Keeping a cool head is essential for this job. I know that as well as anyone. But Vincent making Rain cower is enough to make me lose that cool.
“What’s wrong?” Sonya asks softly, touching my arm. “You seem tense.”
“I just don’t like flying,” I say offhandedly. It’s a good enough excuse. Plenty of people are scared to fly. But Sonya is sharper than that, and she doesn’t just let it go.
“You seemed fine on the trip over to Italy.” She narrows her eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Chase.”
I glance over at her, giving her a tense smile. “I didn’t want to spoil our upcoming vacation with my nerves. But we’re not exactly headed to a vacation now, are we?”
“No, we’re definitely not.” Sonya purses her lips. “I hate it as much as you do. I want to go back to my home, take a good long shower—” she winks at me, a seductive smile curling her bare lips. Despite myself, I feel a twinge of arousal. She notices the beginnings of my hard-on and snakes her hand over my thigh. Sonya is an expert at body language, even if it is self-taught, and I have to remember that. “Or we could join the mile-high club,” she says suggestively, running the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip.
“Maybe some other time,” I say with a laugh. “I think I might puke if I move around too much on this plane.”
Sonya pouts. “I don’t know how you ever flew commercial if a private jet makes you feel airsick.”
“I tried to avoid it.” That’s true enough, with the exception of the few times I’d had to fly for agency cases, I’d mostly stayed off of planes. I’m not as scared of them as I’m pretending to be, but I’m not a huge fan either. Humans weren’t really meant to fly.
“Rain looks like she’s annoying the shit out of Vincent,” Sonya says, glancing over at them. “God, when will men learn that young pussy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
“When the world comes to an end,” I quip, following her glance. It’s hard not to defend Rain, but I manage to keep my head about that, at least. “Although I like them more experienced,” I added, patting her thigh. “Give me a woman who knows what to do.”
“You’re a rare find,” Sonya says, leaning back, seemingly mollified by my answer. “I might just have to keep you around.”
“Really?” I do my best to sound playful, but all of the alarms in my head go off at once at that. It’s easy enough to do this job while pretending to be Sonya’s boy toy—all I have to do is fuck a gorgeous woman that I don’t love while plotting to fuck her over. Men do it all the time. But if she’s starting to fall for me, that’s another thing altogether. I could fake desire if I had to, though, in Sonya’s case, I don’t. But I can’t fake love. That’s never been something I’ve been good at. I’m better at having no emotions at all than false ones.
“You could be good for me.” Sonya smiles, her hand still caressing my leg. “You’re handsome, brave, smart. You could do more than just bartending or bodyguarding. There’s a whole world out there, Chase, and with me at your side, you could do great things.”
“Like what?” I cast a sideways glance at her. “Wait in bed naked for you to come home?”
“I wouldn’t complain about that.” Her hand creeps up a little higher. “But I was thinking in terms of business. If I took over instead of Vincent, there could be a place for you at the table. A place that could make you very wealthy, and the two of us very powerful.”
It makes me wonder, for the first time, how ambitious Sonya really is. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wants more than just Ezio’s position. I can see her reaching higher than that, and I have to admire her for it, even as I know that it will eventually trip her up and land her in jail.
And if I do my job right, I’ll be the one who puts her there.
“The only place I care about is with you,” I say softly, although the words stick in my throat. “I’m happy with what we have, Sonya. I don’t need more.”
“So you aren’t interested in commitment.” She almost hisses. “I should have known. Men always want it to be casual. I can’t believe I thought you might be different.”
“I am.” I backpedal quickly, trying to figure out where she’s going with this, what she wants. It doesn’t matter how you really feel, I remind myself. It doesn’t matter that you wouldn’t get serious with her even if you weren’t an FBI agent and you weren’t in love with someone else. You just have to figure out what she wants to hear and tell her that. Easy, right? Except I’ve never been the manipulative type.
“I’m just saying that I don’t care about money,” I tell her, reaching for her hand. It’s far away from my dick now. “A place at the table doesn’t interest me, Sonya, just what we have together. Whatever that is.”
“And if I said I wanted to make it serious?”
“Like what? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Aren’t we a little old for playground titles?” I tease her gently, pushing my luck, I know, but the last thing I want is to call Sonya my girlfriend. I haven’t had a girlfriend in—we
ll, since Rain was almost that for me. Since I left her behind. I haven’t felt like calling another woman that since. It’s always felt like it belonged to Rain.
It still does, even though I don’t know if that Rain exists anymore. She’s Poppy now, as much as I hate it.
“Exclusive,” she says evenly. “Committed.”
“Sonya, I haven’t been fucking anyone else since the day I did you on that desk, and that’s the truth.” That, at least, is honest. “I mean, you’ve kept me so drained there’s not a chance I’d have a boner left for any other girl if I wanted one. And I don’t,” I add quickly. “Not at all. But I don’t know about you.”
“And what if I said I’d been fucking other guys?” Sonya asks evenly, a glint in her dark eyes. “How would that make you feel?”
I know what she wants to hear. In all truth, I don’t give a shit, so long as she’s been using a condom. But I know that’s not the right answer.
So instead, I lean forward, tipping her chin up with my finger as I look deeply into her eyes. With all the possessive, primal emotion I can muster, I growl out the words that I know will make her wet.
“I’d fucking kill them.”
Sonya grins up at me.
I manage to catch a glimpse of Rain and Vincent again in the midst of the banter, and my blood boils when I see him kissing her. Just the thought of his lips on her, or anything else, makes me want to grab him by the front of his too-expensive shirt and punch the shit out of him. But I know that I can’t. Doesn’t stop me from having the urge, though. I think it would feel almost as good as sex just to punch that smug, rich asshole expression off of his face.
The rest of the flight is uneventful. Vincent seems to be ignoring Rain, whose eyes are glued on an iPad, probably lost in a book, and Erin’s glued to her phone, Sonya takes a nap, and that gives me a little time to sit in silence with my second glass of whiskey, thinking about the days ahead.
I’ll be well-positioned to keep an eye on things and listen for information. Still, it’ll also be difficult to slip out and make it to meetings with my handler. I’ll have to find a way to let them know that I might not be able to meet up for a while. We’ve all been there—better sometimes to go dark for a bit instead of risking the whole operation.