AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’m taken through to the rear of the building, where several men with ear mics guard a single metal door. One of them opens it for me, and beyond it, I see the large black car waiting sleekly in the night. Though I can’t immediately identify the make or model, it reeks of old world money, a Rolls-Royce perhaps.
The driver, dressed in a formal uniform, is standing near the back. He opens the door as he greets me. “Miss Cameron.”
I peek inside the posh leather interior as I make to enter and swallow hard when my gaze meets Arran’s. Unable to help it, I pause with one leg in the car, one out. As if I have the choice to run.
“Please, come in,” Arran urges, his voice deep and saturated with something dark.
“Mr. Maxton,” I say.
The door shuts after I slide in beside him. I glance out the window while the driver goes around the car and gets into the front seat.
“I hope your night has been good so far,” Arran says in that rich tone.
I give him a side-glance. “It’s been all right.”
“You’re nervous.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this.”
“I know.” He stares ahead then, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Take us home, Frank.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at his house off Delancey Street, near Rittenhouse Square. Though it’s not far from my house in Chestnut Hill, it might as well be a trillion miles away, on another planet, with how distant I feel from my old life.
Arran steps out of the vehicle and comes to my side to let me out. He extends his hand to me. I hesitate, staring at it several moments before taking it, then watch as it engulfs mine, closing around it tightly. More so than is necessary to assist me out of the car.
It’s a show of power, I realize, when I trail my gaze from our hands to his face. He’s still tense, the tic in his jaw pulsing.
He escorts me up a set of five marble steps to the double doors. Before we reach the top, they’re opened by a man dressed in the same attire as the guards I noticed at Asta.
“Good evening, Mr. Maxton.” He inclines his head.
“Charles,” Arran greets.
The man turns to me and I smile nervously. “Hello.”
“This is Imogen,” Arran tells him. “She’ll be staying with me for a while.”
Charles nods. “I will alert the rest of the staff.”
We walk into a small vestibule, where two more men sit at a long desk. At the other end is another set of marble steps and an arched door. When we go through it, I realize thatthisis the actual entrance to Arran’s lavish home.
When he shuts the door behind us, I say, “You have armed guards.”
“My life requires it.”
I take everything in as we move through the formal foyer, with its high coffered ceiling and black-and-white checkered floors. As we pass by the wide openings that lead into the library and living room and other smaller sitting areas, I get the feeling no woman lives here.
Everything is dark, heavy, and masculine. Practically every space boasts bold wood paneling paired with blue or green patterned wallpaper. Tufted leather couches and chairs are sitting on thick muted rugs, and what looks like hand-carved art collected from around the world is sporadically strewn about.
An attempt has been made to break up all the darkness by using tall palms and ferns. But it’s not enough to cut the overbearing feeling of the house.
Just like the man who owns it. The man who owns me too.
He releases my hand when we enter the study at the rear of the house, and as my blood begins to flow into it, causing it to pound, I realize just how tightly he was holding it.
“Sit,” he tells me, indicating a spot on the floor across from the desk.
