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If he ever bothers to show up.
* * *
I’m flippingthrough a book I found in the library when my door opens. I don’t look up, thinking it’s one of the maids wanting to clean. They never talk to me or acknowledge me and I’ve resolved to do the same to them.
“My only love sprung from my only hate,” a deep voice recites. “I didn’t think you’d be a fan of Shakespeare.”
My heart hitches, stopping my breath. I don’t look up at him yet. I continue to flip through the copy ofRomeo and Juliet, reading the words but not taking them in, not with his presence in front of me. He fills the room, dominating it. His presence is like a vise against my anger, choking it, transforming it until it’s such a visceral thing, it’s all I can feel.
He sighs softly. “Daniella…”
“Two weeks, twenty-six hours and five minutes,” I say under my breath.
“What?”
I finally look up at him. A part of me had been hoping he would be less painful to look at, but he’s not. Hard edges and sharp beauty. Standing before me right now, he barely even looks real. But he does look a little tired. There’s some stubble on his chin and his hair is slightly overgrown. He’s like a painting that looks wrong and yet so very right.
Slamming my book onto the table, I get to my feet, offering him my full attention.
“That’s how long you’ve been gone. Two weeks, twenty-six hours, and five minutes.”
He watches me through narrowed eyes. “I didn’t realize you missed me.”
And that’s when I erupt.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” I yell. “You left me here in this goddamn house for weeks, no calls, no texts, nothing. You wouldn’t let me receive any guests and you wouldn’t let me leave. You made me a fucking prisoner!"
He cocks his head to the side. “Prisoners aren’t treated like queens and don’t get waited on hand and foot.”
Before I can blink, my hand is on his chest. I shove him backward but he barely moves an inch.
“Daniella…” His voice is a warning, a threat, low and dangerous.
A smarter woman would have heeded it.
“You can’t treat people like this! You can’t lock me up like this!” My anger is a raw, visceral thing. Christian doesn’t even flinch at the sight of it.
He slips his hands into the pockets of his pants, his stare boring into my face. He looks calm, unbothered, and that only serves to infuriate me all the more. I try to quell the growing rage inside me.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” I demand.
“I asked Topher to keep you company,” he says after several breaths of silence.
A wry chuckle escapes me. “We both know your brother is as unreliable as an ashtray on a fucking motorcycle.”
Topher ditched me after the third day. According to him, he had an important social call to make, and he promised to be back later that day. I haven’t seen him since.
If I didn’t know any better, I would say Christian is amused. In this moment, when I’m about to lose my shit. I open my mouth to say something scathing but he shuts me up with his next words.
“Do you want to go home or not?”
My mouth clamps shut. He raises an eyebrow, letting me know he needs a verbal reply to his question. So I force myself to say the words.
“Yes, I want to go home.”
“Alright, good. A driver will arrive to take you to your home in exactly one hour. You’ll collect all the necessities your parents seem to think are important to you and then you’ll return here.”
My mouth falls open. I can’t help it, surprise is a constant state of being whenever this man is around.
