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7
She sleepsfor an entire night and day. Like she’s been running on near-empty for years, and the last drop of fuel has just been sputtered out. I check on her regularly, to see if she needs foot or water. But she’s justout.
Obviously, she’s hit a breaking point. The accusations about Cassandra, the fact that her personal life has been plastered and fetishized across the news for a week. And yet, the exact circumstances of how she managed to be found in a ball of sick and tears in a dark fucking alley aren’t known.
Which pisses me the fuck off.
There’s a security camera at the back door to the bar. But Harriet choked and sobbed, telling me how it’s been broken for a few months, and seems to be out of her budget to fix.
There’s no fucking chance I’m letting Ella go back to that place, ever. Or anywhere in that seedy little neighborhood at all. But just the same, one of my people is already over there, fixing the entire security system.
My mind went to some dark places when Harriet first called me, crying her eyes out about Ella being found how she was. Luckily, though, she appears physically unhurt, aside from some scrapes from falling to the ground.
But something happened. Something pushed her past her breaking point—past her ability to maintain control, as she’s been doing for so long.
And I need to find out what that something—orsomeone—is.
It’s eight at night, the night after the incident at The Slipper, and I’m sitting in the chair across the room from her bed. I’m glancing over a mergers contract I’ve been working on when she suddenly stirs. I look up from my phone as she rolls over under the covers and slowly sits up, rubbing her eyes.
Her gaze lands on me as sleep falls away. She gaps quietly.
“You scared me.”
“How do you feel?”
I frown as I slip the phone into my pocket, rising to cross the room to her. Ella stiffens as I approach, pulling the blankets up to her chin and turning a dark shade of red.
“Why am I naked?”
My brow furrows. Interesting. I was curious if she’d remember the events following getting here to my home, given her near catatonic state.
“Because I removed your clothes. They had puke and God knows whatever else was on the ground behind that bar on them.”
She swallows, eyes narrowed at me. She reaches up gingerly, pulling at a lock of her hair and tugging it into view. She frowns.
“Did you…”
“Bathe you? Yes. Refer back to the issue with the clothes.”
She simmers, swallowing thickly.
“So you stripped and touched me without my consent.”
My lips curl slightly in the corner at the perpetual fire and vinegar in her.
“I took your mumbled ‘uh-huh’ and nod of the head for ‘consent,’” I sigh. “I took soiled clothes off of you and washed vomit from your hair, Ella. I didn’tfuck you.”
Her face darkens to magenta as her gaze drops to her hands.
“Thank you,” she mumbles quietly. “For… you know.”
I nod silently.
“Tell me what happened.”
Her eyes dart to mine. For one brief second, I see the spark of fear—the surging dread as the pressures of her life suddenly roar back to the foreground.
“You are safe here,” I growl thickly.
