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He shrugs. “When we do it, I want you to beg with every cell in your body. Get dressed. Meet me in the kitchen. You need to eat.”
Rage bubbles in my blood and I want to throw things, hearing the satisfying crack and smash of his expensive things since it’s basically all I can do in this gilded tower. I am so conflicted by lust and hatred, and there’s nobody I can even confide in. My life has been swept up into this dark, twisting funnel cloud of secrets, broken promises, and shame, and there’s no end to the storm in sight.
Gritting my teeth, I walk into my closet and pull out a black dress, one of mine that must have got into the mix when he sent people to get my clothes. It’s loose-fitting and mid-calf. Totally boring and unsexy.
Shapeless is an armor.
Glorious scents of tomato and garlic and basil fill the air a few minutes later.
I remember the picture Elise asked for and grab my iPad before heading to the kitchen. On my way out of the bedroom, I notice he left his watch. A Piguet, black, chunky yet sleek, with a black and steel face. It’s absolutely stunning, so I put it on because fuck him.
He’s at the stove in his massive kitchen, located on the second level, cooking like he does this all the time.
Mercer makes my heart miss a number of beats. Dammit.Why?
“Sit.” He doesn’t look at me, and I take a seat at the silvery gray-veined white marble island on one of the stools and watch him work.
There are two glasses of wine. One next to him, the other near where I sit. I curl my fingers around the stem. He’s got a white tea-towel slung over one shoulder as he fills a pot from the pot tap above the burners and places it on the stove to boil.
I take a sip of the wine, then open the drawing app on the iPad and start sketching because I need something to do. “Smells amazing. So you’re a chef, too?”
“Not really. I’m more into the structure of baking.”
I smirk and give my head a shake. “Who are you?”
He laughs and there’s something that twists my heart in that sound. “I like control. So I do most of the things myself.”
“If you try and tell me you also clean this mansion in the sky, I won’t believe you.” I pause. “Sir.”
That earns a sharp glance. “You walk dangerous lines for such a goody-two shoes, Pollyanna. And for your information, I have someone who comes to clean once a week.”
I watch him, as my hand moves over the screen, adjusting the sizes, opacity, and types of tools I’m using.
“Why are you being so nice?” I ask.
He stirs the frying pan, adjusting the heat. “Self-interest.”
“Really?” I narrow my eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”
My chest is tight because I don’t know what he’s going to do. He opens a wooden salt cellar and drops in a small handful of salt into the water, and then picks up the pasta. Little handmade shell things.
The writing’s in Italian and the coated paper bag looks expensive.
“Do what? You’ve blown me in public,let me finger you in public. You’ll do anything I want, so tell me again how you can’t do this.”
“It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is you sending me to prison. If I hadn’t been smart and a survivor, I’d be rotting somewhere on class-A drug charges. Did you ever think about what I gave to Jaxson?”
I frown, looking at him in horror. “What do you mean? I know you sold him drugs.”
“Weed, ’shrooms. And a concoction I came up with that wouldn’t have registered in his blood. That’s it. Small-scale shit. But what you didn’t know was that he also had coke, molly, PCP, and oxy in that drawer. The gummies were molly and some THC. None of that came from me.”
Terror streaks through my system. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, you just pointed a finger. You tried to destroy me, and this is your way out of me destroying you.Ifyou make it out, Ivy. I don’t really care one way or the other.”
The man’s hot and cold. He taunts. “Or maybe you just want to keep me off balance.”
