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“It’s you. The girl from the cellar,” I muttered, lowering my gun. I thought furiously over the problem of how my incompetent uncle had managed to miss one whole person. The ship had left now. She couldn’t return to where she’d come from today, and not for a while until Seo Jun returned. “Did he miss you? Did he make you stay?” I demanded, suddenly fearing the worse of my soulless uncle.
She shook her head. Her eyes latched to mine, and her gaze was difficult to break.
“Then how did you come to be here?”
“Please, I don’t want to go.”
Her voice was soft. I wouldn't have heard if I’d breathed too loud when she spoke. I found myself crouching down.“What?” I couldn’t be sure what she’d said.
“Don’t send me back. I beg you. Please. I’ll do anything,” she said softly like an angel’s whisper. She had a very slight accent, making her hard to place. Her fingers were trembling, but her gaze was steady.
I didn’t know what to say. How could she stay? She clearly had no money or way to take care of herself. Fucking Seo Jun and his idiot plans. I went to stand and stiffened with surprise when she reached out and gripped my hand.
Nobody touched me, not even my mother. I didn’t like unsolicited touch. I loathed it. It was a preference that was only growing worse with age. In meetings, I could bow, as was my family’s cultural tradition. In hookups, I preferred to fuck my chosen woman from behind. They never touched me. I never let them.
The woman’s hand was shaky, but her grip was strong. She was close now, close enough that I could smell the cellar room on her. This was dangerous and fucked up, but I didn’t push her hand away; I didn’t know why. It didn’t bother me for some reason.
“Please don’t make me go back. He’ll kill me if I go back,” she said quietly.
Her voice was hushed, and I suddenly realized she might be thirsty. She sounded parched. But this was wrong. I wasn’t someone who could save anyone. I wasn’t that man.
“I’m no one’s savior, I’m afraid,” I said, removing her hand from mine and letting it fall. “I’m the villain in your story, not the hero.”
I made to stand and stopped again as she suddenly scuttled forward and clutched my legs.“Please, don’t send me away. I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”
Her pale eyes seemed to swallow up her face, and I couldn’t look away from the desperation in her eyes.I didn’t like to hurt women, and for some reason, the thought of walking away from this one, or leaving her to my uncle, felt like hurting her.
“Stop. I don’t like to be touched,” I told her briskly. She frowned but pulled back. “Stand up.”
My instruction came out too strictly. She scrambled to her feet. She wasn’t that petite now she was standing. Her body fit nicely with mine, something I shouldn’t have registered while she swayed on her feet as if she could faint at any moment.
“I can’t take care of you, and you wouldn’t want to be left to my men. I’m afraid you have to go back,” I said firmly. Even as I spoke, I was uncertain I was making the right decision. There was something compelling about this woman, but it had been so long since I’d listened to my gut that letting it decide for me felt unnatural.
But she made it for me as a tear squeezed from her shadowed eye, the pale orbs rolled back, and she fell into my arms.
Fainting dead away.
Fuck.Just like that, her fate was decided. I couldn’t leave her here to be discovered by my men, wandering in and out of the warehouse, and Seo Jun wasn’t back for a week. I recalled the ferocity of her gaze and how she’d swayed toward me, her body fitting perfectly against mine.
“Please, don’t send me away. I’ll do anything. Anything at all.”
I hauled her into my arms and carried her down to my car. She needed feeding and cleaning up. Then we’d see what we were working with.
I had tried to warn her… I’m the villain, not the hero of her story.
Too bad she hadn’t believed me.
CHAPTER2
Kat
Iwoke up in a strange place. That wasn’t new for me, but it wasn't cold for the first time in months.
Of course, I was used to the cold. I preferred it over other forms of discomfort. Still, it was nice to be warm once in a while. A treat. My hunger-dazed mind flipped through the events that had led up to me waking up warm.
The man. Thepakhan. The one with the power staring down at me as I clutched at him. He hadn’t seemed disgusted by my filthy state and obvious desperation, but he hadn’t looked at me with pity. His face had been a black mask of humorless caution. A blank, handsome mask. Only when I’d touched his hand had a spark of life entered his dark eyes.
I don’t like to be touched.
