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I step forward so she has to step back, her thighs hitting the back of the table so it scrapes back an inch, and she flinches slightly. At the sound, or at my proximity, I couldn’t be sure.
“Tell me, what is it that makes you deny yourself what you really want,rainha? Do I make you nervous? Are you shy? Are you avirgin?” I sneer the word, knowing it can’t be true but wanting to rile her up, wanting her to deny it vehemently and tell me all her sordid secrets.
She surprises me by taking a deep breath, seemingly calming herself and her eyes go cold as they stare into mine. In an instant, she is the epitome of the Ice Queen.
“My father sold me when I was thirteen years old,” she says, as casually as someone telling you where they’re from. I jerk back an inch as that statement slaps me hard. “The guy he sold me to was forty-six.” Her eyes stay focussed on me, burning a dark hole into my retinas. “It was supposed to be a joining of families, but I couldn’t legally marry until I was sixteen, so they had to wait.”
I swallow hard, not understanding how we’d gone from arguing to flirty teasing to this, whatever this is, and I know I’m not going to like where this story ends.
“This man, he didn’t want a timid little virgin and he told my father as much. He said he wanted a wife who knew what shewas doing when he took her to bed. So, every night until I could be married off, my father visited my room forlessons.” She spits the last word, the first crack in her ice-cold exterior showing as her cheek twitches.
I swallow the bile rising up my throat, anger brewing in my stomach like a storm in a teacup. I open my mouth to say something but before I can even think of anything, she continues.
“Once he’d got me to what he considered a suitable level, he brought some of his friends around so they could test me out and give, what I’m sure was, constructive feedback. One of those friends was his buddy in uniform, the policeman he kept on his payroll. Sometimes they took me in turns, sometimes they just liked to watch. They would even bring one of the girls who worked for my dad in and with a gun to her head she’d have to work me until I came. Quite a task when I was usually crying too hard to feel anything.”
I swear I see a well in her eyes, but she blinks it away and flares her nostrils, letting rage over power any other emotions warring in her. Shame clouds my own heart and I want to look away, but I don’t, my eyes stay focussed on hers.
“Now, although he made everyone else use a condom, Dad had already been declared infertile, so he didn’t feel the need to follow suit. The problem with that is he was also fucking anything else that moved so I found myself at fourteen years old having to sneak onto a bus to get myself to the clinic. Turns out I needed a strong course of antibiotics for chlamydia.” She rolls her eyes and laughs like she’s jokingly telling an embarrassing story about herself and not recalling horrific childhood trauma.
“The nurse I spoke to was obviously a little concerned given my age and the bruises she found on her examination. She thought she was doing the right thing when she called the cops after I left and I’m sure she would have been happy to hear thata detective had been asked to look into it. Unfortunately, the detective in question was the one who’d left the bruises in the first place and let’s just say that neither he nor my father were particularly happy that there’d been a report.”
I wince, imagining the punishment she would have endured for something that wasn’t her fault. I wince again remembering me talking about punishment just minutes ago.
“So, you tell me Harvey, am I a virgin? It really depends on your definition of the word. If you’re asking if any man has stuck their tiny little prick in me while I tried desperately to think of anything but what was happening, then I guess I’m not a virgin. If you’re asking if I’ve ever willingly invited someone into my bed after that, no I haven’t and I guess I’m still a virgin. Does that clarify things for you?” she snarls as her body shakes with the simmering anger.
I swallow again, my stomach feeling like a bowling ball inside me. “Annika, I…”
“Oh no, no, no,” she interrupts wagging a finger in front of my face. “Don’t apologise now. You were perfectly happy being an arsehole when you didn’t know the whole story. Ignorance really is bliss, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean…” I stutter but once again, she doesn’t allow me to continue.
“I don’t give a shit what you did or didn’t mean. Now, you might get your kicks playing Daddy-Dom, but this is my kingdom and you are not in control here.” Her anger spits fire from her mouth, her nose scrunched in distain. “You bring up taking those kids to the police again and I will cut your tongue from your mouth. Understand?”
I give a small nod and finally look away from her fire and ice gaze.
“Good. Now, get the fuck out of my house,” she spits.
I don’t argue, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair I’d thrown it on earlier and walk away. A lump of coal sits where my heart had once beat. I’m angry. Angry at myself for not realising this sooner since I’ve dealt with enough survivors to have seen the signs. Angry that I came into this with completely preconceived assumptions without looking at Annika as a human being. And mostly angry at her bastard of a father and anyone else who ever laid hands on her. Annika certainly doesn’t need a man to defend her honour, she’s a fucking warrior. But something is itching at my insides with the incessant need to rip out the hearts of those who’ve hurt her.
26
ANNIKA
Before he started coming to my room at night, my father had never been abusive. Not physically anyway. He was controlling, strict, and kept me away from the outside world. But beyond that, he mostly ignored me. He was a thoroughly average man to look at; average height, average build, not particularly ugly nor was he good looking. He had brown eyes and grey hair that was balding on top. But he had a presence. One of the first impressions I had of him was how everyone noticed when he walked into a room, how he could command an audience and how men twice his size would bend to his will.
He had this smile that he reserved for women. If you didn’t know him, you would consider it kind. Gentle even. Before I employed Guinevere, there was Mrs Crowe. She was a live in housekeeper and nanny, she was cruel and smelt like rose water, which to this day, I cannot stand. When my father spoke to Mrs Crowe with that deceptively warm smile, she melted, turning into a giggling teenager. Even when I was too young to understand what I was seeing, it would make me nauseous.
On the odd occasion he would take me to the club and have me hang around in the dressing room telling the dancers thatthey had to look after me while he worked, he would give them that smile, and they would smile and agree. Once, one of the girls came to him crying because a punter had ripped her bikini top off from her, he patted her shoulder and hugged her to his chest, stroking the back of her head. I remember watching in morbid fascination. He had never hugged me. I didn’t want him to. But he didn’t want to either and I remember trying to break it down in my head, why did he want to console her? Why did she want him to?
Once he started his decimation of my body and mind, he would randomly have moments of sickening tenderness with me during the day. He’d kiss my cheek or bend to tie my shoe when it had come undone. And outside of these miniscule moments he’d be the same cold and distant father he’d always been. Every time he thought to gift me with affection, my skin would crawl right off my body and leave me raw and sick. I understood then that those women who clung to that smile of his did it because they knew the alternative. They knew if they didn’t get his warm smiles, they would get his ice-cold shoulder and that wasn’t a place they wanted to be. I was in the unfortunate position of receiving both.
When Stanley Wolfe finally left this mortal plane and descended into the fiery pit, I knew that I would never be a googly eyed female pining for the approval of a man, nor would I accept being ignored. I’d been weak when strength wasn’t an option, but I would never reduce myself to that state again. It took a lot to become the woman I am today, when I first came forward as my father’s successor, no one was happy. It took blood, sweat, and tears to garner the respect I require; the sweat was mine the blood and tears belonged to those who got in my way. I’ve had total control over every aspect of my life ever since then and no one has ever been given access to get close enough to change that.
I’ve never wanted a relationship. They’re messy and time consuming and require a certain vulnerability that I’m not willing to share. And because I’m not open to showing vulnerability, sex has been permanently removed from the table for me. At least it was until Harvey came along. I’ve never allowed myself to slip before, I’ve never had temptation great enough. It wound me tight when he asked me if I was a virgin. Not only because he was still working with preconceived assumptions about me and having no real understanding about who I am, but because I don’t know how to honestly answer the question. I know technically I’m not a virgin. I know that the first time my father covered my mouth with his hand and told me the more I struggled, the more it would hurt, he stole something that I can never get back. But in my head, I have never had sex. I’ve never had fluttering anticipation in my belly about how an evening might end, tentative kisses in the doorway, or felt fireworks with soft touches. I’ve never given myself to another person. In my head, I’m a virgin. And will gladly take my virginity to my grave. At least I would have been before Javier Campos.
Harvey has been quieter since I spilled my guts three days ago. He has been painfully professional keeping conversation to a minimum, only indulging when necessary. He’s stayed stoically silent by my side when I’ve required his presence and made himself scarce when he’s not been needed. He has been everything I wanted in a bodyguard and yet I find myself feeling fidgety in his company. He also went back to staying at my staff property with Den the bartender. It’s probably because in the heat of the moment, in a rage fuelled attempt to bring him down a peg or four, I divulged my ugly truth. One only two people in the world know about fully. At least itwasonly two people. Now it’s three, I guess. I didn’t mean to tell all. I didn’t want him to know. Although I can’t deny that shouting it out loud feltlike an anvil had been taken off my chest. Now, every time we’re in the same room, I can feel something radiating off him like a vibration in the air around his body and I’m seething at the thought of it being pity. I will not accept pity. Not from him. Not from anybody.
The prickling awkwardness between us is why I have a genuine and broad smile for Stuart when he walks into my office this morning. I think he is taken aback as he seems to hesitate when he sees it, but he recovers quickly and takes a seat opposite me.
