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I really am tired, and by the time he returns my eyes are drawing close.
He sits down next to me with a chuckle. “My little hellcat is exhausted.”
I don’t say anything. I’m not sure how I feel about what I did, about hitting him then kissing him like an animal and fucking as if we were having make-up sex. I don’t want to turn into my father, my mother either.
He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Except that I almost apologized to my kidnapper for slapping him. Am I losing my mind?
“Fran made magret de canard.” He forks a bite-sized piece of meat and holds it to my lips.
I stiffen a little at the mention of his lover, or ex-lover as he’s claimed, but I open my lips. I’m too hungry to refuse, hungrier than I’ve ever been. I’m surprised that I have an appetite at all. Maybe it’s the sea air, or the colder winter, or the sex.
The duck is delicious. He alternates the meat with grilled potatoes, feeding me until the plate is empty.
“What about you?” I ask when he hands me a glass of red wine.
“I still have work to do. I’ll eat later.”
“Oh.” I take a sip of wine, contemplating the man who fed me, taking care of my needs before his. Does he have a split personality? How can he be so caring in one moment and cruel in the next? Because he doesn’t harbor feelings for me. I’m an object, his hostage.
He gathers the tray and stands. “It’ll do you good to have an early night.”
As if that will make everything all right.
“Goodnight, Zoe.”
With that, he walks from the room. I stare at the closed door. I’m unsettled. Uncertain. It’s only my first day in his house. How will I get through four years? I take another sip of the wine. It’s good, rounded and smoky. It makes me feel warm and relaxed. What I need is some fresh air to clear my head. I need to decide how to handle this. I can’t do this see-saw thing with Maxime. It’s too exhausting. I’m either consenting to my fate or defying him to the point of my soul’s destruction. What I can’t do is become a person I hate. We’d vowed this to each other, Damian and I, that we’d never repeat our parents’ mistakes.
I pull on a pair of socks and Maxime’s thick robe that hangs behind the bathroom door. Taking my wine, I open the balcony doors and step outside. It’s freezing. The wind nips at my skin, making me shiver. It’s dark over the ocean save for the wedge of moonlight that illuminates the cove. A half-moon of sand shines in the light. There’s a small beach at the bottom of the cliffs.
A movement on the boulder catches my eye. Someone is walking along the edge of the cliff. It’s impossible not to recognize Maxime’s powerful frame and purposeful stride. He’s dressed in the same clothes from earlier, no coat. I suck in a breath. He’ll catch his death out there.
I rest my arms on the rail, leaning over farther for a better view. He stretches his arms over his head. What the hell is he doing? He’s taking off his T-shirt. Stunned, I watch as he strips naked. I’m caught so much off guard, I don’t come to my senses until he steps right up to the edge and jumps.
Chapter 16
Maxime
The water is like icicles driving into my skin. The shock is thermal. It makes me feel alive. I go down deep, a place I’ve gone many times before, and not just literally. I don’t swim. I don’t fight. I let the cobalt hole swallow me, and I count. When I get to sixty, I start to kick. Another sixty, and I break the surface. Four times as much as I made Zoe take. If she suffered, I have to suffer, too.
Gasping for air, I fight the cramps that set in due to the cold. My lungs burn. The punishment blazes through my chest like a fire while the cold encases my skin. I embrace it. Fuck, it feels great. Power surges through me. Strength bursts in my veins. I turn away from the shore and swim deeper into the ocean with strong breaststrokes. The cold vanishes until only the invincible sensation remains. In the stretch of moonlight that falls over the water, I float on my back to look at the stars. The sky is clear. It’s a cold kind of clear, that dry, iciness that settles over the night and frosts the landscape like icing sugar sifted over a cake.
This is part of what I love so much about this place—the silence. I drift about aimlessly, enjoying the quiet and weightlessness for as long as I can. Chaos awaits on the shore. With a life like mine, there’s always chaos. I should turn back soon. I may not feel the pain, but hypothermia will set in after a few more minutes. I drag my fingers over the scar tissue on my chest. The skin is dead. There’s no feeling. There hasn’t been since the multiple skin grafts.
