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Trembling words finally find their way to my tongue. “Your… wife?”
“Yes. My wife.” A long look from those glass-green eyes burns right through me.
He closes the door; the sound triggers me into my thoughts. The memory of his words echoing through the room.
My wife.
My hands are shaking, my mind numb.
The man has punished me. Imprisoned me. Tortured me with his controlling orgasms.
Demanded I become his fake fiancée.
He never… ever… said anything about…
Marrying me.
september 22nd
Eight months prior to Lindy’s imprisonment…
three
Lindy
As per usual, our boss is taking twice as long as needed to go over the monthly meeting info. He’s reviewing the stories we’ve covered for the month. The highs, the lows, and our boss’s favorite topic, the grammatical errors.
None of which were mine.
Ava, Claire, and I, the best speller of the three—the celebrity news coverage team responsible for Dirty Dish, our celeb gossip column—are all just waiting for him to tell us about the upcoming story. He’s been teasing a “huge, salacious” idea for weeks now.
Please tell me Mike has something real up his sleeve.
I hope it’s nothing like the current story I’m covering: underage popstar Prince C gets drunk and sets fire to his producer-father’s yacht. Producer-father being the person who funded his son’s carefully curated record album, thus making a kid who can barely hold a note an overnight celebrity.
Finally, Mike takes a big breath, running a hand over his protruding belly.
His thick Irish accent—the thing that keeps us partial to him despite his quirks—is in full force as he gives his big announcement. “And folks, that brings us to the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The website’s next big Dirty Dish will be focused on a mysterious group of New York City’s elite… drumroll, please.”
Ava placates him with a tapping of her pen on the desktop. The rest of us just stare. Someone behind me shouts, “Come on, Mike, spill it!”
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, takes a big breath, and finally puts forth the information we’ve been dying to hear. “The Bachman family will be our next target.”
Claire, the curvy redhead sitting beside me lets out an, “Oh my God!”
“Holy cow,” I whisper to Claire and Ava. Chills run up my arms and over the back of my neck. “We’ve never gone after anyone or anything so big. The mafia? I mean, I’ve heard whispers he wanted to go there, but…”
Ava, the bravest and most outgoing of us three shoots her hand up in the air. “When do we start?”
“It takes time,” Mike says. “They’re a dangerous family and they won’t take lightly to our poking and prodding. It’s going to take a lot of discretion and weeks of prep time to pull this off. The senior team and I will take the next few months to research and pull a plan together. Then, we’ll be choosing one journalist to go undercover and investigate one aspect of their lives… which I will reveal to, you know.” He waggles his thick brows to build suspense. “I guess I should skip the drumroll request?”
The same voice from the back shouts out, “Yes! Just tell us, Mike.”
“We’re going to attempt to infiltrate…” He pats his hands on the conference table in front of him in his own attempt at a drumroll. “Their bedrooms. We want to get to the bottom of all these secrets we’ve heard whispered around town about these kinky lads.”
“Yessss!” Ava’s hot-pink fingernails dig into my skin, her long dark hair brushing my forearm as she leans closer. She bounces up and down in her seat. “Oh my God, I hope I get it. I have to get it! I’ve been dying to date one of those muscly men for ages.”
My heart sinks.
