“Then I guess you shouldn’t have left me there.”
The mask falls back over his face and his eyes are blank when they meet mine again. “The boys and I agreed, for our own protection, that you needed to be buried. But you weren’t there.”
I grind my toes into the carpet to calm my nerves. If they knew I was alive, then there’s a good chance they’ve been preparing for my return.
“I couldn’t tell them,” Alexander answers my unspoken thought. “I wanted to keep it to myself. Just the idea that you were out there somewhere… I liked that. So, I told them that I buried you. And nobody would ever find you again.”
“Except for you,” I whisper.
“Except for me,” he agrees.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Despite what I said earlier, I do want you to come out of hiding. To reveal to the world that Tenly Albright is not dead, but alive and well. And you will do it on my arm. As my fiancé. We’ll hire a publicist to spin the story. We will make all of this go away.”
He makes a gesture with his arm as if to encompass the entire city of Boston. And it all makes sense now. His insane request. This pathetic attempt at a reunion. His stalking me and his blackmail and the dying ember of hope in his eyes.
He isn’t here to redeem himself.
He thinksIam his redemption.
“You want back in,” I murmur.
And then I laugh. I laugh too hard because it’s so fucking pathetic, and I can’t help myself and he’s angry and I really need to stop… but what the actual fuck?
“You think this will win them back over,” I say. “Because of what your father did. You are an outcast. You’ve been an outcast for all these years and you are still trying to worm your way back in?”
“Fuck you,” he spits. “You have no idea what happened because you couldn’t hack that world. You ran off and fucked me up in the head and abandoned everyone who ever cared about you.”
“And now you want to ride my coattails on the way back in. Using the Albright name and the publicity to polish your shiny new reputation.”
He lunges at me again, and it’s not pretty, his rage. He yanks my hair and shoves my head back and squeezes my face in his hand. And I can see it now. That he would crush me if he could. If he wasn’t planning to use my name as his way back in, he would do it right this time.
I would stay dead.
“I will tell you how it’s going to be, you little bitch. You’re going to earn this small mercy from me, and you’re going to do it on your hands and knees. You will be my wife, or you will die. Those are your only options.”
He waits for me to respond. Expecting me to argue, probably. When I don’t say anything, he shakes me.
“Do you fucking understand me?”
“I understand you just fine,” I snap at him.
He closes his eyes and rubs his nose in my hair, inhaling me. My stomach roils because he’s hard and his trousers are right there, and I know he has no intention of leaving here unsatisfied. This is a man who gets off on violence. A man in a position of power. A dangerous combination.
“Just between you and me, Ten,” he lowers his voice. “You altered me in a way I can’t ever get back. Ever since that night, it’s all I can think about. Your face in the dirt, the sounds of all those cocks inside of you. I get off on fucking dirty, filthy whores. And it’s always your face I see when I defile them.”
“Fuck off.”
I spit in his face, and he smashes his palm into the bridge of my nose. The pain is instant, and the blood is a fountain down my face and over my lips.
My body is still sluggish, flopping around like a limp doll when he lifts me up by the hair and slams me into the wall. His hands move over my dress, raising it up over my hips and grinding himself against me while he squeezes the flesh of my ass in his hand.
“You stupid fucking cunt,” he growls. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Do you honestly think anyone would ever believe a word you have to say against me? You, the worthless street whore, and me… the upstanding agent. I could fuck you bloody and they wouldn’t even blink twice at your sob story. So, it would do you well to remember that from this point forward. When I say jump, you ask how high. When I tell you to get on your knees and suck my cock, you’ll give me the best fucking blowjob I’ve ever had in my life.”
He grips my hair at the nape of my neck and claws his fingers down my throat.
“Are we understood?”
