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“Let me just say, you’re about the creepiest little fucker I’ve ever met.”
“Big fucker,” he said around a mouthful of burger.
“What?”
“I’m the creepiestbigfucker you’ve ever met. I’m six and a half feet tall. No one uses the wordlittlewhen describing me. Eat.”
She sat for another minute trying to determine if he meant the threat. The look in his eyes said he did. Was refusing to eat when she was hungry really worth dying over? Veronica took a bite. It was the best burger she’d ever eaten, and not just because she’d been eating cheap food for a week and had only had chips and a coke for the last ten hours.
“Now, you will call meSir.”
“Excuse me?”
He sighed. “Ronnie, you’re making me tired. I’ve had a long day. If you interrupt me every time I speak, we’ll be up until the roosters start. And they’ll be starting in about two hours.”
“That’s before dawn.”
“Welcome to the ranch.”
She went back to her burger, trying to ignore the company and the fact that the way he was treating her, though offensive, was having a fucked-up effect. She was sure if—no when—he hurt her, it would snap her back to reality, but for now, his low voice, good looks, and semi-barbaric ways were sending her spiraling back into fantasy world.
“You’ll have chores here. You’ll also be cooking for me and the guys. You’ll keep the house tidy, and you’ll tend to the garden in the backyard. We don’t sell the produce; it’s just for us. We don’t eat a lot from the grocery store, some snack foods here and there and soft drinks. Most of our meat, eggs, and dairy comes from here or our neighbors and our produce comes from the garden. The growing season is short so we also have a pretty big greenhouse. Any questions?”
“I’m not going to be your happy domestic slave. I don’t live to serve men.” In real life she had barely been able to stand Joe as her boss at the ad agency. And she’d never called Joesir. Her first two years at the agency it had been a woman, but then she’d run off to Australia with her boyfriend. The fact that Veronica would be the only woman here, waiting on them all hand and foot, caused an indignant rebellion to rise up in her. She didn’t know how long she could play nice with this psycho.
“All right, get in the truck. I’ll take you back to the city and you can die in a ditch or turn to prostitution and drugs to dull the horror of it all.”
Would he really take her back to the city? If he meant it, she wanted to take the offer and get away, but his forecast of prostitution and drugs felt too true and close to the mark to take the bait. It might not be any better out there.
“Don’tyouintend to use me like that?”
“When the time is right, and I feel you’re ready to be a good slut, absolutely.”
She cringed at the way he spoke to her, rough and calloused like his hands. “What you’ve done and what you obviously plan to do is wrong.”
“It’s wrong to feed you and give you shelter and productive work?”
“That’s not what you’re doing.”
“Isn’t it?” He took his plate to the sink. “See you in the morning, princess.”
Veronica was left alone in the kitchen with only the grandfather clock in the other room for company. She couldn’t believe he’d left her unattended. Of course she wasn’t going to run away without her shoes, but there had to be shoes somewhere in this house. Or a phone.
She scanned the kitchen, but all she found was a place where a phone used to hang on the wall. Searching the lower level didn’t produce a phone either. She winced every time she stepped on the wrong wooden board, causing a loud creak to sound throughout the house. Luke leaned over the upstairs railing.
“If you’re looking for a phone, I only have a cell, and it’s locked in my safe in the bedroom.”
So much for that, but she still had the other plan. She’d have to wait until he fell asleep. Even as she thought it, the prospect of actually making it back to New York sounded awful. So far he hadn’t harmed her. What would be her fate in the city with such limited resources? Though by this point she could stand the humiliation of going back to Joe and begging for her job back, if the job still existed. She could see a credit counselor and get her life back on track.
If the slow downward spiral from her penthouse to the apartment with the ugly brick view hadn’t changed her thinking, the past week of genuine fear for her ability to survive much longer the way she was going had. Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and all the other frivolity seemed like just that.
She turned the knob of the door for the bedroom he’d assigned her. She was still confused that he hadn’t thrown her down and raped her.
A silver, antique full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. The wallpaper was a light blue-and-white stripe. The furniture was painted white: a chest of drawers, a vanity, a night stand, and a full-sized bed. The carpet was light blue to match the wallpaper.
Veronica guessed there was hardwood underneath. For a crazy second she wondered if the carpet covered evidence of something gruesome. The closet, also white, was filled with sundresses for the summer, both long and short, as well as jeans and sweaters for the winter. But no shoes. Not a single pair of shoes was in the closet or under the bed. A chill went down her spine. If she’d had any doubts before, now she knew—Trish had been a prisoner as well.
THREE
