AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Oh, you’re up."
I jumped, spinning around when I heard a voice behind me. My cheeks flushed when I saw who it was. Alex. Alex, fresh out of the shower, it looked like, stripped to the waist in a pair of black sweatpants, his hair a little damp and messy as it curled around his ears.
"Oh, I …," I blurted out. I didn’t know what I was trying to say. I felt as though I had been caught in the act, caught doing something I shouldn’t have even been thinking about.
And, oh God, being in front of him when he was wearing so little, it was … throwing me off. A dark smattering of hair covered his strong, toned chest, and his shoulders had broadened out from the teenage boy I’d known all those years ago. I could see stubble on his chin, a few creases around his eyes, and it made my heart skip several beats inside my chest. I’d had such a huge crush on him when I had been growing up, and it felt like there were still a few remnants of that left over right now.
"You okay?" he asked, eyeing me as he went to make himself a coffee. I nodded.
"I was just hungry, sorry," I apologized at once. He frowned at me.
"Why are you apologizing?" he asked, sounding confused.
"I should have asked you before I—"
"You can have whatever you want," he replied, lifting the cup to his lips, not taking his eyes off me for a moment. God, he was so hot, even still. Maybe even more so than he had been when he was a teenager. He just seemed so sure of himself now, so certain about the way he handled himself, and I had to admit, I really liked it.
And what I really wanted right now, if I was being honest, was him.
"Okay," I muttered, and I grabbed what remained of the banana and scuttled back off towards my room before he could see the dark stain to my cheeks. Did he have any idea of the crush I’d had on him when I was younger? Could he tell that it was still pretty damn present now? I didn’t know.
But what I did know was that acting on it in any capacity would have been a huge, huge mistake. I was a virgin, and I knew Gregor was expecting to take my virginity—if I gave it to someone else, this would be even more of a disaster than it already was.
Besides, I was sure Alex had been with plenty of women in his time. He would expect someone who actually knew what they were doing, when I had no idea what I even wanted when it came to sex. I would look like a total idiot, and that was the last thing I needed. To have my ego bruised by a one-time crush, just because I couldn’t control myself.
I arrived back at the bedroom that had been made up for me and leaned against the door to catch my breath. God, all of this was such a mess, I didn’t know how I was going to be able to sort through it. I felt as though I was losing my mind already, and I had only been here for a night.
Gregor would find me soon enough, and I had no idea how he was going to react when he did. Would he think that all of this had been my idea? Maybe. It wouldn’t have surprised me. I was meant to belong to him, after all—meant to be his, through and through. I got the feeling he would find some way to blame me for this, even though I had never planned it.
But I was here now, and safe, and I needed to try and make the most of that for as long as I could. It wouldn’t be long till I was back in the clutches of my evil husband again.
And, this time, I knew he wouldn’t let me escape so easily.
Chapter Eight – Alex
I leaned in the doorway to the living room, watching her as she sat in front of the fire. There was a drink clutched in one hand, a book in the other, though she wasn’t paying any attention to it.
I thought about calling her name, but I was sure it would have just scared her. It had been nearly three days since she had arrived here, and she was just as much on edge as she had been when she had gotten here. Every noise, every movement, had her jumping out of her skin, and she seemed to be doing her best to avoid me, even as I tried to take care of her.
I’d had the cook bring her meals every day, and she had been eating, at least. She looked so thin when she arrived, it was obvious she’d been starving herself from the sheer stress of being tied to that man. I wanted to talk to her about it, but I didn’t know what it was going to take for her to come to me with anything worthwhile.
The more I knew about Gregor and what he was doing to her, the easier it would be to deflect him when he came looking for her. I was going to need to be ready to play with whatever he threw at me, and the more information she could give me, the better. But she had been hiding out in her room or the library almost all the time she’d been in the Caroni mansion, and I knew we were running short on time for her to come to me with anything useful.
I’d already heard through the grapevine that Gregor had his men fanned out across the city, searching for her; they hadn’t been able to get much in the way of information about who had taken her so far, my contacts locked down, but it was only a matter of time before someone broke—before someone gave them a reason to break.
Paulo had rescinded himself from all of this, making it clear how stupid he thought this situation was, how dangerous it was for me to get involved in all of this, but there was no way he was going to stop me. I knew he just wanted what was best for me, but sometimes, you had to do what was right, even if it might not have been in your best interests. And getting her out of that mess was the only thing that made sense to me.
I shifted my weight slightly, and the floor creaked below me. Her head snapped around, still hyper-sensitive to every noise around her. She stared up at me for a moment, closing the book and laying it on her lap.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Checking on you," I replied.
"I’m fine," she told me quickly, and I let out a sigh. Her eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" she asked. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing," I replied, and she shook her head, not taking her gaze from mine.
