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“I’ve still got that recording. It’s me or Emilie.”
“It wouldn’t be safe.” He’s got a weary look on his face, as he runs his hand back through his hair. “I’ve got a… situation with a distant branch of my family. Those men took you to draw me out. If you’re running around without protection, they’ll take you to get to me. They’ll hurt you.”
“You hurt me,” I spit, but he’s undeterred.
“You’re going to have to stay with me, under my protection.”
“What the hell… I mean… why would you even care?” Then I give him a bitter look. “Oh. Because you want to be the one who kills me.”
He clenches his fists at that, and the muscles of his face tighten. “I can’t,” he says. My eyes widen briefly at his admission. “I can’t kill you. If I could, I’d have done it already. When I thought of those men hurting you…”
My entire body tenses. He what? Cared?
Bullshit.
“You can torture me, humiliate me, ruin all of my relationships, and cost me my job, but you can’t kill me?” Fury works its way through my veins.
He considers that, then nods. “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”
My fists clench and the desire to pummel his beautiful face is so intense I shake with the effort to stay rooted in place.
“And you think I should stay with you? For my own safety? No thanks, I’ll take my chances.”
“If you come and stay with me, I will agree to leave your family and friends alone, forever. And I’ll tell Emilie to do the same.” I start to argue with him, but he cups my chin in his hand and makes me look him in the eye. “I don’t lie to you.”
My heart squeezes, and I start to cry. I cry because I hate myself for wanting him so badly. I cry because he’s swooped into my life and shattered it to pieces, and nothing will ever be the same.
“Do you believe me?” There’s something raw and vulnerable when he asks this. It thaws my heart just enough to allow the love I still have for him to bleed in. I might be a dumb, dumb girl, but I can’t help how I feel.
“Yes,” I choke out the word. “I believe you.”
I’m almost ready to hope again, but then his face hardens and his voice turns ugly. “I won’t kill you because every time I think of you being gone, all I can see is emptiness. But you lied about me, and you abandoned me.” He takes one step closer, only an inch separating us when he looks down at me with those penetrating eyes. “You fucked up my life, so Iwillpunish you, Camille. You’ll stay with me, and I will stay away from your loved ones. But I’m going to be an absolute bastard to you. You’ll hate what I do to you, and you’ll have no choice in the matter. Do you agree to my terms?”
He’ll spare Landon from further torment, and he won’t go after my mother or Pandora. Trading my freedom for theirs seems like a fair trade. I owe Landon and Pandora that much.
And he won’t kill me.
Maybe someday I can figure out a way to outwit him. To gain back my freedom. I shudder at the thought of the torments he’ll visit on me because he knows exactly what hurts and frightens me most, but if there’s a way to ensure my mother, Landon, and Pandora are safe, I have to take it.
I might hate my mother, but she’s still my mother. Some things are just engrained so deep inside us, we can’t shake them. I can’t turn my back on blood and family. No matter how much I should.
“Yes,” I say, “but you have to help out Pandora. She might lose her place in the gallery after what you did.”
He shrugs moodily, looking uninterested. “I’ll use one of my shell companies, have the CEO contact him and buy all of her paintings from the show, and commission half a dozen new ones.”
I inhale sharply at this. It would make all the difference. Mr. Sinclair is a prude, but he’s a prude with a cash register where his heart should be. No matter how vile he finds the artist, he'd never turn away money.
“And Landon. You hurt him very badly because you were jealous of him.”
“Careful,” he snarls at me, and the air seems to grow chilly.
I meet his gaze. “It’s true. And it was unwarranted.” I take a deep breath, deciding to give him the truth. Maybe it could go a long way in keeping him from hurting me too badly. “You know, when I think about it, I was never going to marry him. I was dragging my feet more and more, and I kept picking little fights with him. He was a security blanket.” I hold his stare as I breathe in and out. “I was never in love with him.” As I say it, I realize I’m not just saying that to keep Landon safe from Bastien’s jealous wrath. It’s true. I loved Landon, but I was never in love with him. There’s only ever been room in my heart for one man. And he’s sitting right next to me, savagely handsome and completely insane.
Poor Landon. I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Bastien glares at me, eyes snapping with anger. “Like I care? I should have fucking killed him. He put his hands on you.” His face flushes, and veins I’ve never noticed stand out in his forehead.
“You and I hadn’t seen each other in nine years when I met him. I just saw you getting ready to be serviced by a prostitute,” I practically yell. “So you’re one to talk.” I’m sick of the thought of him being with that woman even though it’s crazy for me to feel that way. I know what he was doing; he was using her to try to get at me. She looked at him with big shining eyes, worshipping him, and he humiliated her by turning her away. But I still hate any woman who ever touched him.
