He tries to touch my belly now, and I back away, hitting my elbow sharp on the edge of the door. I wince. More tears sting my eyes, but I don’t let them spill. He isn’t here to help me. George Quinn never helps anyone but himself, and I don’t know why I thought he might’ve changed.
“Where am I?” I croak, confirming that he’s the one in control.
“That information is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”
His face is pink and sweaty as though he has been out jogging. His hair is combed back from his forehead, and there’s a faint trace of something sticky clinging to his jawline. He was always obsessed with his looks. He refused to let my mom cut his hair because he didn’t trust her to style it to his specification. And I cling to the small hope that he would be mortified if he could see his reflection in a mirror now.
It gives me the strength to sit up straight and stare him straight in the eye. “What do you want, George?”
His grin makes my stomach churn. “Nothing much. Only a little selfie. Me and you. To send to your boyfriends.”
I shake my head to clear it, but the pounding continues undisturbed. “A selfie?” I must’ve misheard him.
But he pulls his cell from his pocket and unlocks it. “I could give you time to freshen up, but—” he shrugs “—I don’t want to. It won’t make any difference anyway. I have what they want, and they’ll pay me to get it back.”
“They…?”
“Come on, Remy, keep up. Cassius and Bastien Murray. The men you fucked, remember? I should’ve known you were trash when I met you, but you served a purpose through high school. You kept the jocks off my back. Made me look desirable even.”
I literally have no idea what he’s talking about.
“You must’ve figured it out.” He furrows his brow. “I’m asexual. You never were my type, but you were nice to me, so I thought,what the hell. I was still figuring it out myself, and you were the perfect cover. Little people-pleaser Remy Jones.”
“But… You left me for someone else.”
“And your point is?” He smirks, and I wish I had the strength to punch him in the face and walk out of here with my head held high. “It’s a marriage of convenience. We need each other, Isabella and I, so it works for us both.”
“What do you want from them?”
Looking at him makes my flesh crawl, but something is scratching away at the top of my skull, clamoring to be heard. Why does he look different? And what is stuck to his jaw? There’s another glob above his left eyebrow that reminds me of the glue we used in elementary school, the stuff that dried clear, and I would spend hours peeling from my fingers in the playground.
“Isn’t it obvious? No? Money. The Titan, for starters. Why should they get to control the casinos in NYC when my family’s heritage goes back way further than theirs?”
“What heritage?” I never heard about this before. But then again, I never realized that my longest relationship was with a guy who felt zero attraction towards me.
“My family is Irish American. We have connections too, which is why Isabella’s father jumped at the chance of an alliance.”
Maybe I’m hallucinating. This must be a crazy psychedelic dream that I’ll wake up from tomorrow and laugh about when I tell Ariel. Because nothing feels real.
“Okay.” I try to stand up and fall backwards, hitting the back of my head on the door frame. The contact jolts through my body and ramps up the rock anthem a couple of notches.
But before I can tell George that I’m leaving, he grips my arm and drags me towards him, so close, our faces are touching.
I squirm and try to wriggle free, but his grip is like iron. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’re hurting me,” he mimics with added whine for emphasis. “Smile for the camera, and this will all be over.”
He holds his phone at arm’s length with the camera facing us. My blown pupils stare back at me from my pale face. My chin is bloody, but my skin looks gray beside George’s pink cheeks, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He turns towards me, one eye on the camera making sure that we’re both still in the shot and licks my cheek.
Click.
“That should do it.”
He releases me, and I slump on the floor, my chest heaving with the effort of containing my anger. Who does he think he is that he can come along and demand the Murrays hand over the business that they built?
I can’t let him get away with this.
He’s still staring at the image on the screen when I say, “They won’t give you a cent.”
