Cal shrugged. “There’s a will. Each generation writes their own codicil, since a will can only dictate a life in being. The parents distribute their wealth to those who ‘uphold the tenets of the past generations.’ There’s an in terrorem clause built in so anyone who contests the will loses their portion of the inheritance.”
“You do it formoney?” Her voice rose shrilly.
“Well,” he said, drawing out the word. “Idon’t.”
It felt like she was trying to breathe through lungs paved with broken glass. She remembered the splicing horror of being trapped beneath him, beingfuckedby him, and finding out that he hadn’t been who she’d thought he was at all.
In her naïve imaginings, he had been like the tortured hero of a gothic romance, possessing a heart filled with dark passions borne from even darker tragedies. His gregarious charm was belied only by the shadows in his eyes, and in their clear amber depths she had thought she had seen a Byronic torment to which she might pose the balm. And she had been right about all of that, save for one crucial thing:
He was not the hero. He was, in fact, the villain.
And he fucked you in more ways than one, didn’t he?
Perhaps his mind had moved in a similar direction because his eyes had dipped below her neck.
“Noelle found out, didn’t she?” she said desperately. “She found the journal.”
“Yes,” he said, shifting his weight. “Ben didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t trust her to make the right choice. But he still wanted her anyway, so he lied to our father and said that she knew, even as he kept her in the dark. But Father found out anyway, when he lost the book—and she found it. Oh, he was furious, my father. He told Ben to make it right.”
“To kill her.”
Cal inclined his head.
“Like a deer.”
“Oh, Nadine.” He ran his hand through his hair and Nadine’s eyes jumped to—and then immediately away from—his abdomen. “What am I going to do with you? You read the whole fucking book, didn’t you? I thought for sure that this—” he tapped the bite “—would make you run.”
“I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t. Selfishly, I hoped you wouldn’t. And you’re here right now because you’re exactly the woman I thought you were: brave, sweet—” his voice dropped “—naïve.”
She tensed, but his goal when he moved was not her but the desk. She watched him gather up some of the papers—Noelle’s notes, the torn pages from the journal—and begin feeding them to the flames.
“No!” She jerked forward, nearly upsetting the chair. “What are you doing? Those are mine! She wrote those tome—”
“I’m doing this for your own good, little sparrow,” he said, when she began to weep. And there was no triumph in his voice, just a matter-of-factness that was almost worse, because it was so much harder to fight against. “I’ve grown rather fond of you, you know. And I know it hurts now—our kind of love always does. But I can still be gentle, even when I’m being cruel.”
She sobbed harder.
“Poor darling.” He sounded almost remorseful. She knew better.
“Fuckyou, Cal,” she cried.
“Yes, and you were very good at it.” He turned, hands loose at his hips; the fires glanced off every dip and rise of his body, throwing every fine line into stark relief. Noticing her eyes, he ran his hand deliberately over his chest. “Aren’t you going to ask what I’m going to do to you now?”
When she didn’t respond, he closed the fire cage and dusted his hands. A whimper rose in her throat when he stood in front of her, looking down at her for a long time. She tried to back up when he knelt in front of her and reached behind her, but all he did was untie her wrists.
She immediately bounced up, but he pushed her back down and kissed her. He kissed her the way he had kissed her last night: forceful and coaxing, all at once, like he thought she might run away. She didn’t move her mouth at all, which was a mistake, because it allowed him to seize control completely, his hand winding in her hair to keep her head tilted at the desired angle.
“Kiss me back,” he whispered harshly.
“Fuck you,” she said again. “You’re going to kill me anyway. Just like Ben killed Noelle.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” he said, the words brushing her lips softly. “I want to keep you. Would you like to be my sparrow, Nadine? All you would have to do is submit to me, fuck me—love me. And in return, I’d take care of you. Forever.”
Her eyes opened a crack. He was blurred by her tears, but his arms were draped loosely around her, crossed at the wrist over the back of her chair. Now that her hands were free, she could have pushed at him, but that would have required touching him and she was reluctant to do that while he was like this, and the scent of the outdoors was still clinging to his bare skin, mingling with fresh sweat and the sharp cedar scent of his soap.
She wasn’t sure what he was asking her for and was afraid that whatever it was would hurt. But she was even more afraid of what would happen if she said no.
