by Lannah Smith
After I said that, Christopher’s head snapped up, his expression one of confusion that quickly turned into surprise.
“What do you mean by that, April?”
I shook my head slowly in confusion by the question. Try as I would, I couldn't understand him. My eyes were drooping and I was so sleepy, I could hardly part my lips anymore.
I felt his hand brush against my temple, ever so lightly.
Then I felt no more when I fell asleep.
I stared at the tiny black box at the ceiling aimed at my door. It was so tiny that I never happened to notice it. And as I stared at it, my anger grew. Christopher had not only kidnapped me against my will and had me trapped inside this house, he was also spying on my every movement.
He was playing me, the jerk.
How he must have laughed every time I sneaked around, trying to escape this place.
Dear God, I even crawled on all fours to go down the hall without being detected. The memory made my cheeks flame.
How they all must have laughed at me.
Outraged, all I could think about was putting my hands around Christopher’s neck and strangling him. And I wasn’t going to think it anymore. I was simply going to confront him. Either way, he’d made a fool out of me completely. And I hated being made the fool the most.
Marching down the stairs, I went to the study where I knew he’d be at this time of the day. When I pushed the door open, he was behind his desk, talking to somebody on his cell phone while sipping on a glass. Alec was standing by the window, swinging his gaze from outside the window to me. He was also holding a glass.
"Something's came up," Christopher muttered on the phone, his eyes on me. "I'll call you later."
Then he disconnected and put his cell phone face down on his desk.
"Are you here to get more books?" he asked, tilting his head to the rows of bookshelves in the study. “Or to see me?”
Arrogant jerk.
I opened my mouth to tell him exactly that but then my eyes honed back to the glass in his hand. I inhaled sharply when I realized what he was drinking. A familiar knot started to form inside my stomach.
“What?” Christopher questioned softly. “What is it, April?”
My eyes tore away from the glass and I looked at him. “It’s still early for you to drink, isn’t it?”
He stared at me and my stomach started to ache as though I’d swallowed fire.
Then he said, “We just closed a deal. We were celebrating.”
I didn't realize I’d been holding my breath until he settled the glass on the table. I let out a low sigh.
“Still, it’s too early to drink.”
He nodded and I felt myself relax further.
“So why you’re here, honey?”
I blinked.
“I came here because…” I scowled when I remembered what I came here for, “because I wanted to give you a piece of my mind.” I straightened my shoulders. “Yes. Yes, that’s right. It’s why I’m here.”
I was getting all riled up just thinking about that again. Alec turned my attention then when he moved to pick Christopher’s half-empty glass and put it on a tray with his. I forced my panic aside when I realized that he too had been drinking.
“Should I leave?” he muttered to Christopher.
I shook my head. “No,” I said sharply. “You stay. This concerns you too.”
“What is this about?” Christopher asked, his gaze centered on me.
“You have cameras all around the house. That’s what’s this about.”
He looked unconcerned when he replied, “And?”
“Are you really going to keep violating my privacy like this?” I nearly shrieked.
Christopher stood up from the chair and instinctively, I took a step back, glancing at the glasses. Seeing this, he shook his head and asked Alec to get the file on the next table for him.
“We didn’t install any cameras in your bedroom, April,” he informed me, sitting down.
That information didn’t appease me.
“Take down your cameras and stop keeping tabs on me. I’m not going anywhere. You’ve clearly made it so.”
A slow smile worked its way across his face and into his eyes. “You’ll have to ask Alec about that. He installed the security system.”
I transferred my scowl to Alec. He didn’t even wince.
“It’s for everyone’s protection. To keep intruders out.”
“And to keep me in,” I deadpanned.
“Not everything’s about you, Miss Locke,” he replied in his most obnoxious dry voice.
Before I could come up with a retort, Christopher lifted his head up from file he was reading. “If you’re done harassing my woman, I need you to look at this Alec,” he said.
“I’m going to kill you myself one of these days, I swear,” Alec scowled, snatching the file from his hand before walking to the other desk in the room.
“And who’s your woman?” I raised a brow.
The smile he gave me then was one of the tenderest I had ever seen. “You with your formidable temper, of course.”
Was that supposed to coax a smile from me?
“Look, why don’t we talk outside?” Christopher stood up again. “Alec can cover for me.”
“If you really have to, then come back after 5 minutes,” I heard Alec mumble. “That’s all I can afford to give you.”
My heart raced as trepidation washed over me. The pain in my stomach intensified.
“That’s not necessary,” I blurted out, putting my hands out and shaking them. “I’ve said all I wanted to say. I’ll leave you to your work since you seem busy.”
Having said that, I immediately exited the study and went back up my bedroom.
Closing the door, I leaned against it. I sighed in agitation, wrapping my arms tightly about myself. Despite the warm clothes I was wearing, I was feeling chilled. Then I closed my eyes, rubbing my hands briskly across my arms, trying to calm my racing heart.
I had nothing to fear.
Not from Christopher.
Except for his professed undying love, I had nothing to fear from him.
He knew. Christopher definitely knew.
Last night, I had thought it was odd that he declined the wine and drank soda instead.
My throat tightened. Though I'd come to terms with the most of it, anger and bitterness swirled inside me.
Because how much exactly did Christopher know about my past?
Chapter 37
Christopher watched April leave. The second the door closed behind her, he turned to Alec.
“Did you see that reaction?”
Alec leaned back on his chair with a heavy sigh. “I did. What the hell was that?”
Christopher clenched his jaw.
“That was her father being a fucking son of a bitch.”
It was true then.
fucking hell.
He’d taken one look at April and knew something was terribly wrong. The color had left her face, as though she was in a panic about something. She probably didn’t realize that herself. She was staring at the whiskey glass in his hand.
He remembered how her shoulders visibly slumped with relief as soon as he let go of the glass and it pissed him off. Although Alec didn’t have the faintest idea why, he’d guessed that it was because of the whiskey and moved the glasses away.
Alec still didn’t understand but he had an inkling. Christopher didn’t care to enlighten him.
“God, I wished I’d killed him,” Christopher whispered.
Alec looked like he mirrored his feelings. “That would make our situation worse.”
“It would make me feel better.”
“It won’t.”
Gritting his teeth, Christopher thought of the times he’d seen April in a party back in high school. And that was fucking never. Many people thought that she was a snob who didn’t want to go slumming with immature teenagers. That maybe she was out there, partying with the rich and famou
s.
He did think of that too.
Until one night, while watching her from the shadows in one of the Evanses’ exclusive parties, he saw how she avoided the adults with wine glasses in their hands. He noticed that she never stood near any of their male peers and surrounded herself with their female peers who were all trying to shine under her spotlight. He realized that she’d never snuck a drop herself while the rest of her group tried to.
Confused by this behavior, Christopher had asked around. No one had ever seen April drink alcohol. They all just assumed she did.
Then when she was gone, he learned of the truth.
That her father’s temperament would turn hellish when he imbibed in too much alcohol.
That he’d either scream insults at his daughter or beat the living shit out of her.
That April had to eventually learn to move herself out of striking distance, learn to protect herself and learn to hide herself from him.
And those were just some of the things April had to suffer under her father’s roof.
“You once asked if I blamed myself,” Christopher spoke, looking at Alec.
Alec tipped his head to the side, waiting.
“Now I’m going to ask you,” he went on, leaning forward to form a steeple with his hands on top of his desk, “Do you blame me too?”
The expression on his right-hand’s face turned shuttered, revealing nothing.
“Do you?”
Alec stared impassively back at him. “I don’t.”
Christopher closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “I didn’t take care of her.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I let her get away.”
“I think you might have too much whiskey and too little sleep, sir.”
A bitter laugh spilled from his lips. “You can tell me the truth, Alec. I know you well enough to know that you do. I had the money. I had the resources—.”
Alec didn’t let him finish. “But you didn’t have the power. Not quite yet, anyway. There was nothing you could do.”
“There was something I could do,” Christopher insisted in an angry tone. “Something I should have done.”
Alec’s expression morphed again, this time looking frustrated. “That something might have gotten you killed. Even what you’re doing right now is putting your life at risk. And you know that’s the last thing she would want.”
Christopher stared at him for a beat and then pressed his three middle fingers to the area between his brows, rubbing hard.
Of course. That was the last thing April would have wanted.
All those years, she was trying to protect him while he had thought the worse of her, so hurt and pissed by her rejections. And now, he had the opportunity to get rid of that guilt. He had the opportunity to show her that she was loved, cherished and valued. It was a process that they both had to go through. To let the past stop haunting them. For him to be patient. For her to give herself permission to move on. For him to handle her with care. For her to accept that he’d be there in those time she needed to cope.
One thing Christopher knew, April could cope.
But she just didn’t realize that he would always be there, willing to help her.
Across the room, Alec was already typing on his laptop while he was having these dark thoughts. He let out a dark chuckle and straightened. Because one thing he also knew was that Alec was definitely the moving on type of person.
“If you’re done wallowing, you can get back to work,” Alec muttered without looking up. “Your secretary is waiting for you to call her back.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” he reminded.
“What question?”
“If you blamed me.”
Alec looked at him over the file. Christopher waited patiently for his answer, knowing he rarely gave anything away, anything that was personal.
For a long while, he didn’t say anything.
Then, pulling in a breath, he said, “I did. But now I don’t.”
“We need to talk.”
I didn’t pause on my way to the kitchen or glance at Christopher, who was sitting on the couch. Waylaid the moment I stepped down the floor, I wondered how long he’d been sitting there, waiting for me. He followed me to the kitchen and watched me grab a pitcher of juice from the fridge and pour it in a tall glass on the counter. I still felt his gaze when I put the pitcher back and took a sip, trying not to look as shaken as I felt.
At a glance, he didn’t appear to be drunk. But I couldn’t be certain.
“What do you want this time, Christopher?” I mumbled. I wrapped my fingers around the tall glass to take another sip but my hands shook so much that I had to put it down again.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, he repeated, “We need to talk about what happened to you in the study.”
My stomach coiled and tightened so intensely now that I almost doubled over. The room seemed to be closing in on me.
“About the cameras? You know my anger was perfectly justified—.”
“That’s not what I meant. You looked afraid. Why?"
I shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. "You’re just seeing things again, Christopher."
He stared at me. "You hide too much from me, April."
He started to close the distance between us but I let out another instinctive flinch and he stopped.
"I would never hurt you."
Christopher sounded upset, wounded.
His words pulled at my heart, giving me the urge to reach out to him.
"I would die rather than harm you."
I blinked rapidly, dropping my chin. "You can't know that," I said quietly. Even my father seldom remembered anything he'd said or did to me on the following morning.
"Do you really think I would hurt you?"
I swallowed. "I don't know. Not deliberately maybe."
He shook his head, disappointed that I would even think of him that way. I let go of my death grip around the glass. Curiously, the longer I stared up at him, the more my worry dissipated. The tightness in my stomach eased.
"But how did you know?"
"I had a hunch," he answered. His voice was different now. Cold and hard, matching his expression exactly.
He was getting all worked up on my behalf it almost made me smile.
It didn't make sense to me. I only knew I was suddenly feeling completely free of this worry. Safe, too. The look on Christopher face indicated that he'd go through hell for me. It wasn't as if I didn't already know that because I had always wished he didn't feel that way for me. But right now, it comforted me.
Right now, I felt like having him pull me into his arms to assure me that everything would be alright.
This was nonsense. I was getting soft on him.
“I know you won’t deliberately hurt me,” I admitted. “It’s just… I can’t control it, Christopher.” I looked at him, pleased my voice didn’t tremble. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I didn’t want his pity for having an unfortunate life and a heartless father.
Ever since my father hit me for the first time in the study after announcing my engagement, he’d call me to his study whenever he was in a bad mood and showed me exactly how much he was in a bad mood. Some nights, he would demand that I come to his study and listen to the things that had pissed him off while he was away until he became abusive but other nights, I was able to sneak away and hide before he could call for me.
That happened whenever he was drinking. Soon, that happened even without him drinking.
Christopher’s brows shot together and the way they did made him look frightening. “That’s bullshit. It’s something you need to talk about. You can’t keep on feeling that way forever.”
“It’ll pass.”
“Pass? Your father gave you a fucking trauma. He made it damn near impossible for you to live a normal life.”
I shrugged. “So my father’s a dick. It isn’t like I hadn’t known
that for years.”
“Are you making excuses for him?” he growled.
I lifted a brow. “Why would I? I hate him.”
“I could get rid of him for you.”