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No, she mouths back.Can’t. Sorry.

This is the most desperate I’ve ever been. I feel the tears prickling. The quickening of my pulse.Please. Please.

Please, she mouths back, trying to rip herself away from my death grip.Let go. I’m sorry.

“Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia.” I’d recognize Topher’s voice anywhere. For the first couple of months we’d dated, I’d have given everything to hear it. It has bile creeping up my throat now. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Maisie is still my hostage as he approaches. I hope he’s alone. If that’s the case, she and I could gang up on him. I’d kick Poppy in the gut, and Maisie could help. She’d hold her coworker down while I punch Topher.

Maybe I could escape.

Maybe.

“Please, Maisie.” My voice breaks. “Please.”

“Can’t.” Tears well in her eyes right before a man rips her from my hold.

A man in a black tuxedo with a tattooed hand and icy-cold eyes.

“No!” I scream, scrambling out of the bed.

Topher grabs me by the hip and shoulder, slamming me back to where I was. He’s using so much force that all the air whooshes from my lungs. I cough, looking at his blue eyes, as if he’s the most loathsome man to walk the earth.

At least James had the decency to show me an ounce of compassion.

Bam.

His hand cracks across my cheek.

“That’s enough,” his dad thunders.

“Oh, please. It wasn’t that bad.” The fuck it was. This is abuse. When James humiliated me, it was hot. This is pure evil. “Look at her. The skin isn’t even red.”

“We don’t hit them.” James’s command is final. He’s furious. “Back away.”

Topher rolls his eyes.

“Fuck you.” I don’t make the mistake of spitting on him too. I’ll throw up if he licks my saliva.

“I wish.”

“Topher, last warning.”

I almost throw up for real when his leering eyes take in my nakedness. Even though James is there, growling low and feral, I’m not safe. I’ll never be around these people.

Despite the fear, I steel myself. I won’t flinch like I want to. Won’t show them I’m scared.

I will showhimthat I’m pissed off, though. I’ve been waiting for him to look at me like this for six fucking months.

He doesn’t get to do this now. Stare at me as though he wishes he could devour every inch of my body.

Not now when I feel absolutely nothing for him.

My hands clench into fists. My teeth are bare. “Go to hell.”

“You know, Ophelia.” With one last growl from James, Topher releases me. He tugs on the lapels of his black tux that matches his dad’s. “When you told me about all those times you had to fight back when you were in foster care, I never believed you. Thought you were overselling it. Guess you were telling the truth.”

James strides to his side, his gait confident. Nothing in his expression or demeanor suggests that we were intimate in any way last night.