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I started leading her toward the stairs.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I’m putting you to bed.”
“What?” she spluttered. “You can’t do that. I’m not a child.”
“You clearly can’t behave like a rational adult. If you act like a brat, you get treated like a brat.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Stop acting like that.”
Her teeth closed with an audible snap, and she glowered at me in sullen silence. She also stopped trying to get away from me. She wasn’t exactly meek, but she’d definitely gotten the message.
Good. Between her hysterics and Joseph’s melodrama, I was ready for this day to be over.
When we got to my room, I finally released her, but I kept her fixed in my stern stare.
I gestured at my overturned bedroom. “I expect this mess to be cleaned up by this time tomorrow,” I informed her.
Her jaw dropped, as though she couldn’t believe the way I was treating her.
And maybe she couldn’t. I was sure she’d been coddled and given everything she’d ever asked for in life. If any girl had ever needed structure and discipline, it was Ashlyn.
She belongs to Joseph, I reminded myself before I got any more ideas about disciplining her.
I closed the door, hiding her from my view. I needed to put distance between us, or I might do something I’d regret. I made sure to lock her in before I went back to my media room. I didn’t want my little captive to try to escape when I wasn’t watching her.
Chapter Seven
Joseph
“Do you know what your friend did to me?” Ashlyn fumed as soon as I opened the bedroom door. She sat on the bed, her arms crossed. She didn’t appear to have been engaging in any activity other than stewing over whatever was making her angry.
Marco had told me he locked her in the room over an hour ago. So, she’d had a lot of time to get worked up.
“He said you were angry after dinner, so he brought you back up here.”
She slapped her hand down on the mattress beside her. “He didn’t bring me back up here. He put me to bed. Like I’m some sort of naughty child. He keeps calling me a brat. He’s a misogynistic prick.”
“He’s not,” I corrected her, maybe a touch more sharply than I should have. Marco loved women. In his own way.
She glowered at me. I didn’t like when she looked at me like that; like I’d betrayed her. Like she hated me.
I lifted the shopping bags I held in a gesture of contrition. “I got some clothes for you in the city.”
Her frown eased, her eyes sparking with interest. She wanted the new clothes. I wasn’t sure if she simply liked new, pretty things, or if she was desperate to change. She’d been wearing the same clothes since Marco had abducted her last night. That had been over twenty-four hours ago.
I decided I didn’t care what the source of her interest was. If she was excited for me to buy her new things, I was happy to give her anything she wanted.
She pointed at the foot of the bed. “You can leave them there,” she said in an imperious tone I didn’t care for. “I’m going to take a shower.”
I didn’t move to comply. Her suddenly haughty attitude didn’t suit her softer nature. And it certainly didn’t suit me. I’d give her anything she asked for, but if she thought I’d obey her commands, she was sorely mistaken. I might worship her, but that didn’t mean I was her slave.
“What?” she asked when I didn’t do as she demanded. She was getting annoyed. “Do I need Marco’s permission to take a shower or something?”
Something dark stirred in my chest. Because I knew exactly how Marco would feel about her waiting for his permission to do anything. Hell, he’d probably deny he
