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e shook his head. He was convinced she was a liar, but he was only concerned he couldn’t pick the lies. “I was hoping you would be ready to integrate by now. I’m disappointed in you. Tonight, I wanted us to make a commitment. In front of my closest friends I wanted to formalize our intention to bond. I see I was wrong to think you were ready for that honor.”
There was a point in every scam when you had to give to get. Here marks the spot. She lowered her chin, changed the pattern of her breathing and spoke to the grass underfoot. “I don’t know what I have to do to get you to let up on me.”
He lifted her chin with a finger. He’d be seeing watery eyes and wobbly lips. “I’m doing this for your own good.”
“You’re punishing me.” She coughed the word punishing out in two parts. Would he buy it? “I’m so lonely and now that Cadence and Zack are bonded I have no one.”
Orrin’s expression was inscrutable. She read that as not shopping. Calculating he wouldn’t buy tears from her either, she wrenched away. Let’s see how rejecting everything he’d built affected him. “I hate you. I hate this place. I want to leave. I want to go back to my old life.”
He had to give her something for this tantrum to work. For the second time tonight, she needed a man to touch her. This time she’d make herself melt into his arms.
“I don’t think you hate me. I think you’re lost.”
She sagged, letting her knees go soft, her shoulders fall forward. Orrin stepped closer. “I think I’m the only one who can help you, but you have to stop fighting me and let me love you.”
“You love me?” she said, with truly award-winning pathos.
“I love your fire and your passion. You’re a beautiful woman. I will love a new life into you and you won’t be lonely anymore.”
Now that was slick. It was also nauseating. To her own ears her mock gasp sounded like gagging, but Orrin read it as capitulation. He drew her into his body, holding her carefully at first as if she were a skittish child and when she didn’t fight it, he hugged her like a man who was thinking about how quickly he’d have his conquest naked.
She’d had a lot of uncomfortable hugs like this in the service of greater ambitions. They were usually the moment she knew she was going to clean out her conquest’s bank account. With Orrin, the hug was just the beginning of a more tangled dance where she got close enough to him to learn how to bring him down, but not close enough to ever give him what he wanted.
Right now, that meant she stood quietly, revulsion simmering, hand in hand with him while Spencer announced their intention to bond and they signed a special page in the Origin book. Best she could make out from Spencer’s rambling explanation, an intention to bond was meant to be viewed as an engagement and was only used for special circumstances. She got the feeling she was the special circumstance. An intention was designed to last for a month and would be followed by a bond. There was no unless either party asks for a do-over that you might expect if this wasn’t a game of life played to Orrin’s rules.
Orrin gave her the tangled earphones. Strangest engagement present ever.
“You know iPods need to be charged,” she said. You know I’m going to make you pay for all of this.
“Then I know what to give you on the night we bond.”
She laughed. Orrin preened. “You’re so romantic.” He was a true artist of manipulation. The crime was how he turned that skill on others for his own benefit.
“For you, Rosie, I will try my best to be everything you need.”
“Can you stop me worrying? I don’t understand what austerity measures are and what it means that we’re locking down?”
“It means cutting off our remaining contact with the outside world. We won’t be bringing in any more supplies and we won’t be taking in any more free settlers. If you have letters to write to people you think should be saved, let me know and I will look at their applications personally. There is no time to waste.”
She put her teeth to the end of her tongue to stop from asking what the application price for such a one-of-a-kind bargain was. This had to be a fundraising drive, but for what purpose?
He kissed her forehead and she disguised her wince as best she could. “Go, Rosie. You have a new cabinmate to meet and time to ready your heart for the future.”
No second invitation needed.
Chapter Twenty-One
They’d been at the work site for three weeks without a break when Zeke woke in the thick of night with a hand over his mouth and a knee in his gut. His first instinct was to roll, get free of his sleeping bag and ready to defend himself. His second was to learn to sleep without the goddamn bag restricting his movement.
Bonding with Cadence instead of Susan had earned him a shunning on top of his virtual exile. None of the crew had spoken a word to him that wasn’t essential the whole time they’d been on-site and now someone wanted to rough him up again.
“It’s me. Mike. I’m going to take my hand away, but you need to be quiet.”
No, fuck no. He needed a proper wash, clean clothes, all of his fingernails, sugar, so much sugar, and his goddamn Grand Master. Also a phone would be good. And the primary thing he needed was to know Rory was okay. He’d needed emotional distance from her but three weeks out of contact was professionally a problem and personally eating his stomach lining. All that considered, being quiet wasn’t his preferred option.
“Please, Zack.”
It was Mike’s hissed plea and the fact he’d come without backup that made Zeke take a breath before he made a noise when the crew boss took his hand away.
