For a moment, we stay pressed together against the wall, breathing hard and trying to remember how to think. Robin’s fingers are still inside me, and I can feel the rapid beat of her heart against my chest.
She pulls her hand away first. I withdraw my fingers from her slowly, deliberately, bringing them to my lips. Robin watches with narrowed eyes as I taste her, humming with satisfaction at the flavor I’ve been craving ever since she left.
“Yes,” I say with smug satisfaction. “Still delicious.”
Robin glares at me, cheeks flushed, chest heaving, eyes bright with rage. And something else beneath it. I wonder what it is?
My smirk widens again as I smooth my hair back into place, every inch the composed businesswoman despite what just happened between us. “Alright, little bird. You have yourself a deal.”
Because she does. All her little demands, all her attempts to maintain some semblance of control—I’ll give her what she wants. I’ll let her stay until Maisie is stable, let her call her family while she’s away, let her roam my castle like she owns it, even let her go down to the village if she really wants to mire herself in despair. I’ll have her followed and protected, of course.
But I can afford to be generous now that I have what I really want.
“Great,” she says flatly. And then that bright look in her eye crystallizes and I recognize it at last, as sure as looking into a mirror.
It’s cruelty.
“But you should know, Eva, that just because I’m going back with you, it doesn’t mean Ifeelanything for you. I’ll do what you want, but only because I have to. Not because I want to. As long as you understand that, then we have a deal.”
I stand stock-still, staring at her in something that must be shock. Because I’ve never felt this level of surprise. No one has ever dared speak to me like that before.
Anger rises up in me, but I douse it cleanly. She’s trying to claw back an iota of control. That’s all.
So without flinching, without missing a beat, I take a step back and put out my hand, still damp with her own pleasure, and say, “Deal.”
After a moment, she takes my hand, and we shake.
And then Robin shoves past me toward the door, where she fumbles with the lock for a moment before getting it open, and I can see the tremor in her hands that she’s trying so hard to hide.
I watch her storm down the corridor, her spine rigid with wounded pride and lingering desire. The smirk fades from my lips, though, as the familiar satisfaction from winning a battle of wills fails to flood me.
I got what I wanted. I gother.
So why isn’t that enough?
Robin thinks she’s negotiated terms that will protect her, that will give her some measure of control over what happens next. But every demand she made—staying in contact with her family, being able to leave the castle, having a say in when she comes to me—only makes her more appealing. Only makes the game more interesting.
Robin Rivers wants to play by her own rules? Fine. I’ll let her think she’s winning right up until the moment she realizes she’s lost everything.
After all, the most effective prisons are the ones that feel like freedom. By the time I’m finished with Robin Rivers, she’ll beg me to keep her. She’ll choose the cage willingly, grateful for the bars that keep her safe.
And then she’ll never want to leave me.
Chapter 6
Robin
The hospital room feels different now that Maisie is so much better, as if hope itself has taken residence in the sterile white walls.
But I know better than most how cruel hope can be.
Maisie sits up in bed, her blonde hair sticking up in adorable tufts as she giggles at something Adrian says. The sound is untainted by the weeks of pain and fear that came before. Her cheeks have color again, her eyes bright with the kind of mischief that belongs to healthy eleven-year-olds everywhere.
I watch her laugh, and my chest aches with a complex tangle of emotions I can’t begin to untangle. Relief, of course, sweet and heavy as honey, but it’s laced with something bitter and poisonous. This is what Eva Novak’s money can buy—miracles tied up in tangled strings I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to cut.
Part of me regrets telling her so blatantly that she’s a terrible person. She won’t forget that. Will probably punish me for it, once we get back to her—herlair. But I’m also glad I did, glad Ishowed her that while she might occupy my body and even my mind, my heart remains my own.
“Robin, tell Adrian about the nurse with the funny walk,” Maisie demands, shaking me out of my reverie as she bounces slightly in her excitement. The IV was removed from her arm soon after the operation, leaving only a small bandage now as evidence of how close we came to losing her.
