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I slap myself across the cheek and then dry my face with the fluffy towel beside the sink.
I cross back to her room, knocking on the door. “You dressed?”
“I’m dressed.”
I push the door open. She’s sitting in the armchair by the fire, holding her hands out toward it. She’s not wearing what I chose for her.
Instead, she’s picked a close-fitting dress in soft black cotton. It skims her body, the hemline cutting off at mid-calf. On her feet, she wears flat lace-up boots of the kind she’d probably wear every day on a dig.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Like you’re about to go to an Addams Family funeral.”
“Held on a Wednesday or burying a Wednesday?”
“Very good. You look better than you did. Got a lot more color to your cheeks. How do you feel?”
“Like it never happened.”
“You must not break the rules again, Anna.”
“What rules?”
“My rules. They exist for a purpose.”
“Listen, you brought me here, against my will, I might add. I’m within my rights to try to leave.”
“You are not leaving. We are getting married. I will not let your father get my estate.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with this. Take it up with him, or with your lawyer, whoever you want. Just leave me out of it. Let me go, please.”
The word does something I don’t expect. It pierces somewhere inside me, pricks a bubble that bursts and lets out a seeping sensation of guilt, same as when I was in the boat heading her way.
I ignore the feeling. I have no reason to feel guilty. I am getting justice. I am getting what I deserve. So is she. She’s a Caruso. She doesn’t deserve freedom. She deserves punishment.
I walk over to her, taking the chair opposite her, leaning forward to capture her in my gaze, making sure I’ve got her full attention. “You are getting married to me. It is happening. Get used to the idea. I can make your life hell if you mess me around.”
“So that’s how you’re going to do this, is it? Threaten me with violence?”
“I’m not threatening you. I’m stating the facts. We are getting married. You are going to be punished for trying to escape. That is a fact.”
“This isn’t a prison, Leo. You’re not the fucking warden of me.”
I reach out and grab her before she knows what’s happening. With a twist of my arms, I get her over my lap, yanking her dress up to her waist. “What are you doing?” she asks, trying to push the dress back down. “Get off me.”
“Listen to me,” I say, pressing a hand into the small of her back, holding her in place as she squirms. “I warned you not to curse. I told you that I’d use the crop next time you did it. Now, since you’ve just had a traumatic experience, I’ll show some mercy and just use my hand.”
“Get off me!”
“You will learn to behave, Anna. You will learn to obey me. And by God, if you don’t stop fighting this, I will do it so hard you won’t be able to sit down for the rest of the day.”
Something about the tone of my voice gets through to her. She slows her movements, coming to a stop and going limp in place, her legs dangling down, her feet touching the floor.
I look at her panties. They’re thin enough for me to make out her ass through them. The sight gets me instantly hard. Can she tell? Is my cock digging into her stomach?
This isn’t about sex, I tell myself. It’s about making her see who’s boss.
For a moment I regret telling her I wasn’t going to fuck her. I want that more than anything. I want to pull down those panties and shove my fingers into her, bring her to a screaming moaning orgasm like she’s never had in her life.
