“There is a reason I don’t pick women like you, virgins with no idea how to tell apart lust with love. We had sex. Lots of sex. It was great sex, I won’t lie. But a real woman knows the difference, knows not to confuse the two. I apologize if you thought I would ever love you, but it’s not something I am capable of.”
So curt. So professional. It rang of just how delusional she’d been. It really had only been a business venture for him. Now that business was over and she was no longer needed. He was done with her.
White hot agony tore into her. It sank razor blades talons deep into her chest and ripped out her heart. She half expected it to be on the floor alongside the torn pieces of her dignity. Yet the saddest part wasn’t that she couldn’t seem to be able to feel her legs in order to move. It was the fact that she still loved him. That she would probably always love him even after this. She had foolishly given herself, all of herself, to a man who only saw her as a scratch to be itched. How could none of what they’d shared mean nothing to him? How had he not felt it?
Carefully, with fingers she could barely feel, she undid the chain from around her neck. The pendent slid free of her coat and swung once, catching in the light before she gathered it gently in her palm. She stared at the tiny girl with her gem face and felt her insides crack open. A tear exploded across the pendant’s surface. Juliette wiped it away before setting the necklace on his desk.
“I don’t want it back.”
Maybe it was her imagination—the one that had betrayed and lied to her so far—but she could have sworn it was anguish she heard in his quiet murmur. She would have believed it if he hadn’t just finished telling her she’d meant nothing to him.
She stepped away from the desk, away from the lamplight and into the darkness with him. It blanketed her, hiding her tears and the breath she seemed unable to catch. Barbwires had wound themselves around her chest, tearing into flesh and suffocating her oxygen. A hand flattened against her stomach. The other went to her mouth in some pitiful attempt to stifle the sob ledged in her throat.
“Don’t … Juliette…”
She was already running to the door, her ears ringing too loudly for her to be sure whether or not he’d actually spoken. But if he had, he didn’t stop her. He didn’t come after her, not even when she hit the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t coming, she realized with a fresh surge of pain. He was letting her go.
The sad, pathetic part of her actually waited, hoping that at any moment, he would appear, that he would charge down, scoop her up into his arms, and beg her not to go.
He didn’t.
Devastated, Juliette reached into her pocket and removed the phone and car keys. She was about to set them on the console table tucked against the corner of the foyer when movement out of the corner of her eye. Her head jerked up and her heart plummeted. Frank eyed her, silent and watchful. She wondered if maybe he’d expected Killian to reject her. Maybe he’d hoped that by doing so, she wouldn’t bother showing up at the manor anymore. Or maybe he had honestly hoped she would talk sense into Killian, which she hadn’t. She hadn’t even come close. But what did it matter? He hadn’t wanted her so why would he give up his need for retribution for her?
Humiliated and shattered, Juliette went to him. She put the items into his massive palm without looking into those unfathomable eyes.
“Please take care of him, Frank,” she whispered. “Don’t let anything happen to him, okay?”
Not waiting for a response, she turned and hurried to the door.
“Miss Romero, please allow me to get a car to drive you—”
She shook her head. “You’ve already done so much. Thank you for everything.”
Without a backwards glance, she threw open the door and threw herself into the night. The soft swirl of snow had turned into an almost blizzard. The wind howled and lashed against her with gleeful hatred. It ripped at her wet cheeks, turning her tears into shards of ice. Her lashes immediately hardened into spiky crystals. She ducked her head, but the frigid fingers swooped beneath her hem and raked at every inch of bare skin it could find. Little demons gnawed on the ends of her ears, making them burn. She tried to cover them with her hands, only to have her fingers instantly go numb. Forgoing that idea, she stuffed her balled fists into her pockets and ran.
There was a convenience store at the bottom of the hill. If she could get there, she’d call a cab, she told herself. If she didn’t fall off the edge of the cliff first or get run over or die of hypothermia or exposure. Her cheerful thoughts kept her company all the way to the bottom. Every so often, she kept glancing back, hoping to see Killian’s car hurrying after her as he had the first night. It didn’t and that only further twisted the knife in her chest. By the time she hit the winding streets leading through the upper class suburban neighborhood, she had finally accepted that Killian wasn’t coming for her. That he really had let her go. That it was over. In no way did her acknowledgement dull the pain, but it gave her new focus—to wait until she got home before crying.
Ahead, through the lashing swirl of snow, the lights of the 7-11 blinked and flickered. Just the sight of it nearly had her whimpering. She began to sprint, ignoring the numbness in her thighs where the cold had seeped through her jeans. Behind her, the roar of engine filled the otherwise slumbering night. She knew it was stupid, but she still stopped and glanced back.
The black SUV broke through the storm with the ease of a great shark. Lamplight sparked off the steel grill and glinted across the hood. Juliette’s heart picked up immediately in a premature dance of joy; for all she knew, Frank had sent someone to take her home out of pity.
But the vehicle rolled to a stop and a familiar face hopped out of the driver’s side. Head bent, he jogged around to join her on the curb.
“Mr. McClary has asked me to bring you back, miss,” he said, practically shouting to be heard.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Please.”
It dawned on her to say no. To tell Mr. McClary to go take a flying leap off a high cliff. But that didn’t happen. She let herself get propelled to the back door. It was yanked open and she started to climb inside when a hand shot out in front of her and closed over her mouth. Her muffled scream was swallowed with the wind as her head was forced back against his shoulder. Something sharp pierced the side of her neck and darkness jumped up to swallow her.
The resounding bong resonated through the shallow waters of sleep. The unwelcome intrusion vibrated along her body, making her acutely aware of every ache and pain. She was also aware of the paste in her mouth and the foul stench of urine, sweat, fish and bleach making her gag reflexes go haywire. Her cheekbone throbbed as she shifted against her uncomfortable position.
“Juliette?” the low hiss seemed as distant and unfamiliar as the persistent echo of metal vibrations under water. “Juliette, are you awake?”
Woozy and harboring the mother of all headaches, Juliette pried open one eye. She blinked at the white film blurring the odd shapes stretching out before her. Beneath her palm, the floor radiated with its own arctic coldness. The crippling chill worked through all the places she lay in contact. One arm’s length away from her face, vertical bars of iron shot up to the ceiling. On the other side, a dark figure kept shifting.
“Killian?”
“Get up!” the voice hissed, still barely above a whisper, but it was the necessity in the command that urged Juliette to pull herself together.
Gradually, inch by horrifying inch, the room swayed into view and it was a room she had never seen before. The entire structure was sheets of steel bolted together and stamped into concrete. Against one wall were three cages separated by thick bars and big enough to fit a fully grown gorilla. On the other side of the room was a series of wooden stairs that led up to nothing, but a wall. There was nothing else. No beds, not even a blanket. But there was a bucket in one corner of her cage.