He offered the same mercy to my mother.
She didn’t conform.
I can only hope Megan doesn’t follow her footsteps.
nineteen
MEGAN
“No! Not a dress. Wear pants. Thick pants.”
Dexter snatches the dress out of my hand before moving to a closet in the far corner of the room. It is stocked with an assortment of women’s clothing. His father must have bought out an entire boutique as these outfits are for all shapes and sizes.
After handing me riding pants, a long-sleeve shirt, panties, and a blazer, Dexter heads for the bathroom I just exited. My body is well-pampered, but the soothing oils Charles placed in the water did nothing to ease the knot in my stomach.
Dexter’s dad is a handsome man, but something about him is off. His greeting... let me just say, I’ve never been greeted like that, not even after spending five years in a mental asylum for the criminally insane.
“Where are the panties you wore today?” Dexter asks after a quick search of the bathroom floor fails to locate them.
I shrug, unsure. They were there five minutes ago.
“Are they in your dress?” The urgency in his tone shocks me. He’s acting as if my underwear is a priceless treasure. “Then check!” he shouts when I once again shrug.
I jump to his command. My wish to please him so dire, my towel falls from my body.
Air hisses through Dexter’s teeth when I spin around to face him a few minutes later. It isn’t my nudity sparking his response. It is showing him my empty hands. “He’s so sure he is going to win he’s already claiming trophies.”
His words aren’t for me, so I don’t reply, but when a deep scowl mars his handsome face, I move toward him, wanting to ease his pain as I have several times the past twenty-four hours.
“Don’t,” he warns, stopping my steps midstride. “Get dressed.Please.”
His unusual plea floods me with worry, but it doesn’t stop me from following his command.
Once I am dressed, Dexter guides me out of the room. His family estate is beautiful. The hallway is lined with paintings. They’re artistic pieces that need more than a quick glance to adequately appraise them. I think they’re nudes, but the women’s bodies are contorted in odd angles.
“Did you drink the bottle of water I sent to your room?” Dexter asks when we are halfway down the hall, drawing my eyes from a painting of a woman without a head.
I nod.
“And the pills? Did you take them?”
This nod is harder to deliver than my first one. I hate lying. I took two of the four tablets Charles offered me. The other two are stashed under the pillow in my room.
My eyes shoot to Dexter when he guides me outside. When he said we were going to play a game, I figured it would be held in the den I walked by earlier.
“We play outside. Zip up your coat.” He tugs up the zipper before I get the chance.
I jump out of my skin when his father arrives at our side two seconds later. His steps were so agile, I didn’t hear them. He smiles as if pleased by my skittish response.
Dexter’s father is attractive with platinum blond hair and dark, dangerous eyes. He is fit for a man of his age, which I guess would be early sixties. Unlike the buttoned-up shirt and black trousers he was wearing earlier, he has on a plaid shirt, dirty jeans, and boots covered with vibrant splotches of blood.
I stop trying to decipher if the blood is human or animal when I’m overcome with a bout of dizziness. I clutch my temples, circling the throb there. It doesn’t begin to stop me from swaying. If anything, it makes it worse. I feel like I am moments away from collapse.
Sensing my unspoken worry, Dexter scoops me into his arms. I only know it is him because of his virile, manly scent. The wooziness inflicting my head is so blistering it has blurred my vision beyond recognition.
“Where is Charles taking her?” Dexter asks, his words shake by his gallop down a set of stairs. His hurried movements double the throb in my skull and force my eyes to taper closed.
“That is not how this game works, son. Locating the target is half the fun.”
