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She breathes hard for several seconds, those big, golden eyes running laps around my face. “No,” she whispers.
That single word is like having a dagger driven into my chest.
I’ve just torn down my walls for her, left myself vulnerable to the elements. I’m completely stripped clean and she still rejects me? She might as well light me on fire. Which is why I can do nothing but sit there, stunned and reeling, when she lurches off the couch, fixes her clothing hastily and runs out the door without a backward glance.
Denial and rage spear up inside of me like twin swords, puncturing everything in their path. I want to throttle her in that moment as much as I want to chase her down and…hold her. Rock her. Tell her she’s mine and beautiful and safe. What is happening to me?
I stand up and stumble to my desk, snatching up the picture in the far corner. I force myself to look at it. My father, sitting in the visitor’s area of the prison on my eleventh birthday, a sad piece of cake uneaten on the beat-up metal table, my head bowed forward. His broken expression. The shame in his hunched posture.
That shame he and my mother felt is what caused them to push me away.
Reject me. Act like I barely existed.
I keep this picture on my desk as motivation to crush my enemies at all costs. To win, no matter what. How easily I forgot in the last hour that Kaylee’s father is responsible for the rupturing of my family. And she has the nerve to push me away when I’ve never been more defenseless in front of another human being in my entire damn life?
No. No, she’s not getting away with that.
And she’s sure as hell not getting away from me.
Chapter 4
Kaylee
I’m walking home from the art supply store in the rain. At first, my hood is up to guard me against the elements, but I change my mind halfway home and pull it back, allowing the condensation to soak my hair, my clothes. The cold droplets running down my face help cool the sting of embarrassment left over from my “job interview” yesterday.
Somewhere uptown, a billionaire is laughing at me.
I’m a girl in a long line of girls who have probably laid down on that couch and fallen prey to the most glorious face and physique on the planet. I never expected myself to be so easily seduced and gullible. He really made me believe there was a…connection between us. Something tangible. Now that I have some distance, I know I must have imagined it. Even though I can still feel the press of his hands on my thighs, his breath on my belly.
His ravenous mouth between my legs.
That’s the part I keep getting stuck on.
Why was he so single-minded about giving me pleasure? I can still remember how he looked while providing it. Eyebrows drawn so tight, color high on his cheekbones. A man possessed. If I’d forgiven him for proposing that I become his office play toy, would he be kissing me right now? Would we be horizontal on that couch, his big body moving over mine?
Inside mine?
I couldn’t do it. As much as I wanted to say yes, yes I forgive you, if I’d done so, he probably would have given me the job. A legitimate one. But we would have ended up back on that couch, regardless. I know it in my bones. If that happened, I wouldn’t have merely been spying for my father. I would have been using my body in order to do it—and I draw the line there. I can’t trade my body for secrets.
Can I?
I don’t know. I don’t…think so.
For certain, a day later, I can’t seem to blink without seeing Matthew.
My chest swells up now like a sponge dropped into bathwater, growing heavy and difficult to carry down the rain-slicked sidewalk. Did I imagine the power between us? Last night, it was impossible to sleep, because his voice played in my head. I smelled him on my skin no matter how much soap I used in the shower. It’s almost like he stamped an invisible brand on me and I’m the only one who knows it’s there. No one else can see the mark he left.
The crosswalk light changes and I move across the street, holding my purchases close. I’m working on my latest dollhouse today, to be sold via my online shop. I’m going to shut everything else out. I sent my father an email telling him the interview with Borden had gone very well and I would hear back by the end of the week. Just to buy myself some time before the hatchet falls and he gives me that disappointed sigh that suggests I’m not what he deserves. That I’m not worth all of the hours he has worked to provide for his family. I’ve heard that sigh thousands of times. Millions.
