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I have her, now I just need to let him know it.
The next morning,my first stop is the security office. Having Rhiannon in this house is stifling. Like a goddamn elephant sitting on me. I feel her presence bearing down on what’s left of my conscience everywhere.
It gives me a headache—she gives me a headache.
I jam my thumbs into my temples, trying to drive her condemning brown eyes out of my head. Fuck. She's still there.
“Mr. Stone,” Zeke, sitting behind a panel of flat screen monitors, calls out as I enter the room converted into a mini-surveillance center.
“How’s our little prisoner?”
“Trying to escape.” He chuckles as I glance at the screen where Rhiannon works her fingers around the window in her room. “She’s pretty,” he says. But, corrects his word choice when he sees me lift a brow. “Pretty determined,” he says with a cough.
“Yeah, a lot of good it’ll do her.” This house was designed by the top security expert in the world—me. Metallic glass windows. State of the art security system. She's not getting out.
When I reach Rhiannon’s room and step inside, she’s given up her attempt at escaping to sit in the fawn-colored armchair, staring out the window at the wild bramble thicket with its dark blackberries and prickly thorns.
“There’s no way out.”
“There’s always a way,” she says, not breaking her gaze from the view outside.
“Ah, hopeful Rhiannon. Trust me, there's no way.”
She moves to the bed, crossing her arms, finally meeting my gaze. Her brown eyes shoot daggers at me. “Trust you?”
She makes a sarcastic sound which I choose to ignore. What I can't ignore are the way the baby blue sleep shorts and tank I purchased for her hug all the right places.
“Get dressed. You’ll be having breakfast with me every morning.”
She stands. “And then what?”
On autopilot, I move closer. Her body is still as inviting as ever. The curves have matured more, and she’s grown into her plump breasts. I rake my teeth along my lower lip. “Whatever I decide.”
“And if I say no?” she huffs.
Getting extremely too close, so close I can smell the mint on her breath, I zero in on her. “You don't want to find out.”
Chapter 12
Rhiannon
When I woke this morning, in a strange bed, in a strange house—inXavier’shouse—I tried to pretend I was in a bad dream. You know, one of those dreams that seem real but isn't. A nightmare that would end as soon as I stretched the sleep from my limbs. Didn't happen. What did happen was a serious pity party as I laid in bed staring at the wall. Is this really my life? One man after another, bossing me around, parading me around like brainless arm candy,kidnappingme. Seriously, when I get away from here, I don't even want to look at another man. Especially Xavier.
I realize now, a little too late, I had romanticized him over the years. Made him into this untouchable hero who could never do anything bad.
Today, after I dined with him for breakfast, where he refused to answer any of my questions, he returned me to this room and locked the door. I don't know how I'm going to get out of here, an escape will be next to impossible, but I won't give up.
Not like I did with my father. Living the life of a zombie, fulfilling every wish my father had with little resistance. When Ian told a reporter we would be starting a family soon after the marriage, it was at that moment my eyes opened. Wide open. Like a dam lifted and all my stupidity came pouring out.
I never questioned anything before, when I should have been questioning everything. Obviously, as I reached my twenties, my father couldn't keep me under lock and key anymore, that would look too weird. A man trying to fly under the radar—trying to look legitimate—doesn’t want that kind of spotlight. So, with the help of Delilah, who has some very shady connections of her own, I devised the plan to get as far away from my father as I could.
I never expected to land in the arms of Xavier.
A knock sounds on the door and the knob turns ever so slowly. A smiling sandy-haired woman, wearing a black skirt and white dress shirt, enters with a small bag in her hands.
“I’m Krista,” she announces as if it's perfectly normal I'm locked in a room.
Briefly, I contemplate racing past her, but she quickly closes the door, and it locks from the outside as soon as it shuts.
