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She steps toward me, her forehead furrowed with worry. “I know you hate me. I understand. Well, I don’t, but she’s been hurt enough.”
“Haven’t we all?” I rub my jaw, feeling the dip in my skin where the scar that slashes my face is. Where they sliced me open. Marked me. It’s not my own scar I think about whenever I touch or see it, though. It’s how they did so much worse to my sister. My father. My mother. Would they have left after dropping that money on the floor if I'd kept my mouth shut? At least left us whole physically?
“Bastian…” she starts, but I’ve had enough. Going to her, I take her by the arms and turn her. I untie the dress and tug it off her completely this time.
“You need to learn to listen, Dandelion.”
“What are you doing?”
The fabric rips as I strip it off her. Moments later, she backs to the far corner of the room, standing before me in just the heels, the small triangle of the panties, and all those fucking diamonds. She covers her breasts with her arm and sets a hand over her crotch.
I stalk toward her, and whatever she sees on my face has her wrapping her hands around the base of the desk lamp. I’m pretty sure she won’t be able to lift it since it’s solid heavy brass.
“Stay away from me!”
“Then do as you’re fucking told.” I take another step, and she screams, so I stop. “Go wash your face. Get ready for bed. Don’t make me make you.” She eyes the bathroom door and the space between us. I move back and gesture to the bathroom. A moment later, she hurries to it, half running, and closes and locks the door. The shower switches on.
I drop down into the armchair and rub my jaw. I need to be careful. Something about her has me feeling everything to the extreme. The hate. The want. Has me remembering everything about that day. I’m even having fucking nightmares again.
She’s fucking with us, and I can’t do a damn thing about it because we need her. I know that. I don’t know why Amadeo is bringing another one here, though. A five-year-old at that. But my brother has a more tender heart than I do.
Twenty minutes pass before she emerges from the bathroom, steam bellowing behind her. From the look on her face, she expected me to be gone. She’s wrapped in a towel, her hair in two long braids on either side of her face, which is free of makeup. She looks younger like this. Innocent.
I stand. Remind myself she isn’t that.
She watches me wordlessly as I cross the room to the bed and draw the sheets back. I make a sweeping gesture for her to get in.
“I need my night—”
“Get in.”
She grits her jaw and sighs deeply but pads over. She knows I’m not leaving until this is done.
“You want me naked? Haven’t you humiliated me enough for one night?”
“If humiliation is your kink, I can give it to you in spades.”
“It’s not—”
“You came. That’s the bottom line.”
“I didn’t want to!”
I snort. “Right. Take it off.”
She strips off the towel, drops it, and stands naked, shoulders back, face set in stone in a show of defiance.
I step toward her and let my gaze drop to her mouth. “That’s better. I owe you for earlier, don’t I?”
“What do you mean?”
I hold up my middle finger to remind her and back her toward the wall. Her breath comes in gasps.
“Turn around, Dandelion. Face the wall.”
She glances at the door, then back up at me.
“Do it.”
