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Jasmine had been only six at the time, but she’d vowed never to let her emotions blind her the way her mother did. In fact she’d killed off all her emotions...until Stephen had forced her to face them. To choose a better life than the one she’d been contemplating at seventeen.
She trailed her fingers over the expertly pruned foliage and imagined herself tending the plants and trees all year round.
Spotting a greenhouse at the end of a row of hedges, Jasmine veered towards it.
Before she could turn the handle, heavy footsteps pounded the ground behind her. In a heartbeat, Armando and two of Reyes’s bodyguards had surrounded her. One bodyguard took her by the arm and marched her towards the villa.
‘What are you doing? Let go of me!’
He didn’t respond. Back indoors, she managed to rip herself from the guard’s grasp as the door to the study flew open.
Jasmine stared at a fuming Reyes, refusing to cower under his oppressive stare.
‘I thought we had an agreement.’ His grey eyes flashed with barely suppressed anger.
She massaged her stinging elbow. ‘The agreement still holds. I haven’t run away, have I?’
‘You left the house without permission.’
‘To go to the garden! I’m going insane cooped up in your gilded prison. How did you know I’d left the house anyway?’
‘Every time a door is opened in the house, an alarm goes off in the security suite. My men alerted me.’ His gaze dropped to where she was nursing her elbow. His face grew darker. ‘Why are you rubbing your elbow? Are you hurt?’
‘Do you care?’
He glared at her for several seconds. Then, turning to his bodyguard, he murmured a few words.
Jasmine’s heart twisted, then thundered in outrage when she saw what was being handed to Reyes.
‘No! If you dare come near me with that thing, I’ll—’
‘You’ll what? Scream? Go ahead. Give it your best shot.’ He stepped closer, the handcuffs gleaming in his hands.
Memories, the worst kind of memories, crowded her mind, pushing fear up through her belly into her chest. Her breath shortened. ‘No, Reyes— No, don’t. Please!’
Hyperventilating, she tried to step back. Her feet wouldn’t move. The blood drained out of her head as she fought to breathe. Her head grew woozy with fog. She started to sway.
‘If you insist on disobeying me, this is your only—Jasmine?’
His voice wove in and out. She blinked, fighting the light-headedness. Damn, either she really was unwell, or she was turning into a pathetic shadow of herself around this man.
Either way, it had to stop!
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘JASMINE!’
Reyes caught her by the arms and watched her pull herself together. She’d gone deathly pale at the sight of the handcuffs and for a moment he’d thought she would pass out.
She continued to stare at the restraints as if they were poisonous serpents ready to strike at her.
She willingly admitted to being a criminal yet the sight of handcuffs terrified her. Surely she was used to them by now?
Puzzled, he slipped the cuffs into his back pocket and dismissed his bodyguard. Her trembling had increased and even though she tried to hide it, he caught the haunted look in her eyes.
Dios, something had happened to her.
‘Jasmine.’
She didn’t move. Didn’t react. It was almost as if she hadn’t heard him. Stepping closer, he gripped her tighter. Felt her tremble. An unwelcome emotion shifted through his chest.
‘You will respond when I address you.’
Her reaction was immediate. She wrenched herself from him, almost violently. Eyes wide, she glared at him, but he was sure her consciousness was elsewhere.
‘No! I won’t let you use those things on me!’
‘It’s fine. It’s okay,’ he murmured, brushing her soft, silky cheek. He realised what he was doing and removed his hand, puzzled and annoyed with himself for offering comfort where he should be doling out punishment.
She stared at the hand suspended between them. Then she searched for the handcuffs before her wide, frightened eyes darted back to his face.
‘Do you want to tell me what just happened?’ he asked.
She sucked in a shaky breath and gathered herself with that strength of will he couldn’t help but admire. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
A cold hand clamped around Reyes’s neck. How many times had he heard his mother utter those same words? When he’d demanded to know what she was doing in the papers being photographed in the arms of a man other than his father...when Reyes had confronted her about the alcohol on her breath or the hazy look in her eyes, she’d always uttered those words.
