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I knew what happened to children at risk. I knew it intimately.
My anger pulsed like a giant heartbeat, and even though I tried to keep it contained I couldn’t as I stormed down the corridor after her.
She reached her bedroom and disappeared into it, slamming the door behind her.
I stopped outside it, fighting to regain my control. ‘Open the door. Open it now, Jenny.’
I did not like closed doors. Not at all.
‘No!’ she shouted from the other side. ‘I’m not saying another word. I’m not marrying you, Con, and you can’t make me.’
No? That was unacceptable.
She had to see reason. Shehadto.
I put my hand on the door handle and turned it.
Only to find that she’d locked the door.
A low growl formed in my throat and something dark exploded in my head.
A memory. Me, sitting outside Valentin’s locked door, hearing nothing but silence from the room inside. Knowing how much he hated being confined. Knowing deep down that the reason he’d been locked in his room was because of me.
Locked doors. Ihatedlocked doors.
My fury burst from the cage I’d kept it in, dark and unstoppable, propelled by the fear I could never escape.
‘Get away from the door,’ I ordered, my voice so low and guttural it didn’t even sound like mine. And in the gap beneath the bottom of the door and the floor, I could see the shadow of her feet disappear as she did what I’d said.
Then I kicked it in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jenny
CON’SVOICEWASbarely recognisable, yet animal instinct had me stumbling back from the door before I could even think. Then it suddenly burst open, bouncing on its hinges and slamming into the wall with a crash, making me gasp aloud in fright.
He stood in the doorway, breathing fast and hard, and oddly, considering he’d kicked down my door, all my brief fear abruptly drained away.
There was nothing of the cold, detached man who had sat across from me downstairs, insisting that I marry him. Offering me all sorts of things except the one thing I wanted. The most important thing of all: love.
It had twisted my heart in my chest to realise that he didn’t seem to understand why I’d want it. That he thought money and travel, him protecting me, would be enough. Then all that stuff about me falling in love with someone else...
As if I ever would.
As if he wasn’t the only man for me and would always be.
He hadn’t been listening, though, and that hurt too. Because he’d always listened. Now it was as if I was talking in a language he didn’t speak and didn’t want to understand.
I hadn’t been able to bear it. So I’d got up and walked away.
Some part of me had been thrilled to hear him growling at me to stop, to sit down, that he hadn’t finished speaking. Thrilled to hear his voice change, to hear all the ice melting and threads of anger lace through its darkness. I’d never liked confrontation, but there was something exciting about confronting him and making him mad. It meant that he cared about the things I said, even if the only hurt was to his pride.
Right now, though, it was clear from the expression on his face that this was about more than hurt pride.
His perfect features were hard with fury, his strong jaw set, black eyes full of flames. It was a glimpse of the burning, raging furnace of emotion that lay in the deepest part of him.
I’d seen that furnace only once before: in the garden that night.
