Page 64

I t feels like the city has finally moved on from gossiping about me.

I guess I should be grateful. Not every front page is dedicated to the revelations I made, not every headline is screaming out in scandal about my marriage and what was really going on behind closed doors.

No, now the focus is on Roman. On his great return.

My stomach turns and I scowl at the thought, at the way he’s being treated like a goddamn hero.

Already women at the clubhouse are talking about how they want to date him, or get their daughter’s to date him.

Apparently, the fact he’s a murderer doesn’t make him any less appealing when the Montague fortune could be up for grabs.

I stay inside. Hiding mostly from the sympathetic looks I’m still getting but in reality, I need to plan, I need to strategize. If I’m really going to make a break for it, I need to be prepared. I need to have everything ready so the minute the money hits my account, I can cut and run.

I won’t be outsmarted this time.

I refuse to let my father win. To let any of them win.

The only issue I have is that I have no one to help me. I don’t trust anyone. Not even Mae, despite the care she takes of Bella. Any one of the people around me could be on my father’s payroll, and they probably are in some capacity or another.

So I spend my time researching, scheming.

I have the route planned out, memorised.

I have the tickets bought and stashed away where I know no one will find them.

I rent a container, cash only of course.

It’s on the outskirts of town, the complete opposite side from where my father’s empire is by the docks and inside, I begin to store everything I would need.

I buy some high cash items; diamonds, necklaces, generic things that could easily be pawned should I need it. I sell Paris’s jewels too. Every single awful one. It was him trapping me in this city in the first place, and now it is his death that’s setting me free.

If that’s not poetic justice, I don’t know what is.

I stash clothes. Nothing fancy. Nothing noticeable. Just normal, regular clothes, regular items for someone who wants to blend in. Who doesn’t want to be noticed.

And I get a gun too, paying a small fortune for it. It’s nothing fancy, a pistol barely bigger than my hand but just having it, just knowing that it’s there, helps alleviate some of the tension in my head.

And every time I go to the container, I’m careful, so very careful. I check I’m not followed. I double back on myself so many times it’s impossible for someone not to give themselves away. I won’t make the same mistakes as last time. I won’t give myself away.

I sink into my bed every night, knowing that as each one passes, I get a tiny bit closer to my goal. One tiny step closer to my freedom. Except my brain seems fixated on that long after my body is ready for sleep, my mind won’t switch off and I lay here, exhausted and yet wide awake.

And tonight is apparently going the same way. I’m here, with the air con humming away and my own thoughts whirling in my head.

For a second, I glance around half convinced someone is here, lurking in the shadows, watching me. But I can see nothing.

I shake my head, letting the vivid hyper-exhaustion take over again. No one is here. It’s just me, me and my crazy headspace.

I sink back into the sheets. Perhaps I should leave, should make some excuse to escape to the Hamptons after all, but that thought is pointless because I’d never be able to.

My father would use everything he has to keep me here, under his control, and as always, I would be obedient. His perfect fucking puppet.

Besides, if I do leave then it will only make my plans to disappear even harder to enact.

I scowl, shutting my eyes, willing my head to just shut the fuck up. I want to sleep. I need to sleep. And yet I know when I do, my dreams will be plagued by the same images that torment my waking hours.

A movement of light makes me jolt. My adrenaline jumps and I look around again. Am I imagining this? Is someone here or have I really lost my mind? All I can hear is my breathing, all I can feel is my heart hammering in my chest.

I put my hand out, reaching to the bedside table to grab my phone, only it’s not there.

The side is bare. I wince through the darkness, my mind too muddled by my lack of sleep to really register what’s actually going on.

Something wraps around my wrist. It’s quick.

Suddenly I’m clawing, snarling, trying to get free as I realise, I’m now tied to the bed frame.

Someone is here.

My other hand is yanked back, more forcefully than the first. I can make out the person over me now. Their body is framed by the dark but if anything, they’re all the more horrifying for it.

I scream, hoping my security will hear, hoping it might scare this person away but all they do is tut, as if my fear is an inconvenience to them.

When both my wrists are tied, I start kicking out, using my legs as a last defence. I can feel their weight on the bed, I can feel them moving closer and closer to me. My panic is all consuming as I fight so hard to get free.

“Stop.”

The words chill me. The sound of that voice. His voice.

“Roman.” I gasp his name, and he tilts his head as if he’s amused. “Let me go.”

“Where would the fun be in that?” He murmurs.

“Let me go, you bastard!” I scream.

He shakes his head, letting out a laugh as his hands run down my sides. He loops his fingers around my thong, teasing it down as I thrash more and more violently in my attempt to stop him.

Only it does no good. He half rips it off, curling them in his hand and leaning back over my face.

“Remember this?” He says, and then rams the lace into my mouth.

I growl under the fabric but all he does is brush the hair from out my eyes as if this is some sort of seduction, some weird sex game we’re playing and not a thing of force.

He takes in a deep breath, running his nose against my skin, and I can feel the way his stubble pricks against my skin. “I missed you, Rose.” He says quietly, as if he has a right.

I snarl, screaming out that I didn’t miss him. That I hate him. That I wish he was dead. Only none of my words make any sense with this damn fabric in my mouth.

I can smell him now. That delicious, deadly scent that is like a poison to me, that beguiles me into thinking he’s something of safety. Someone to want. Someone I can trust.

He yanks on the straps of my night dress, and we both hear the rip as the flimsy fabric gives way.

Then he slides it down off my shoulders.

Slowly. His eyes fixed on my body more than my face.

Perhaps he doesn’t want to see the anger, perhaps he doesn’t want to see the fear too.

Is he trying to pretend that I want this, that I’m as up for this moment as he is?

“Let me go.” I articulate each word as loudly as I can.

He looks up at me grinning. Yeah, he understood well enough didn’t he? The prick.

“That’s not how this works.” He says. “I let you go when I’m finished, remember?”

I shake my head. “Not anymore.”

He ignores me, yanking the silk so that my breasts are exposed. My nipples harden almost instantly and though I will die on the hill that it’s simply from exposure to the air, I can’t deny the flash of arousal that permeates through to my core.

Even my stupid body is betraying me now.

He lowers his mouth, peppering each nipple with soft kisses. I can feel his saliva wet against me, I can feel the way his lips caress me long after he removes them.

I shut my eyes, turning my head away. There’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped. Caught in his game until he’s done and while he no doubt is enjoying this new form of torture, I refuse to show that I am. On any level.

He runs his fingers down, removing more of the silk nightgown and revealing more and more of me as he goes. I jerk. I kick out, landing a perfectly aimed strike to his face, but still it does nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even feel it.

He grabs my thighs, forcing them apart as I try to lock them.

“No.” I say as loud as I can. Where the fuck are my security? How have they not heard any of this? How the hell have they not intervened?

He lowers his face and I can feel it, his hot breath hitting my core. I freeze, caught between the undeniable want for him to continue and the bitter hatred festering inside me at that realisation.

He takes in a deep breath groaning. “Your pussy always smells so good.” He mutters.

I pull my hips back into the mattress, the only movement I can make now, trying to gain whatever few inches I can between him and me.

He sweeps his tongue up in one long, languid lick that sends shockwaves through me and I grit my teeth painfully hard to force down my moan of both shock and pleasure.

He smirks as if he knows and then he turns his head, biting my inner thigh as I shriek. Only he doesn’t let up. He just releases his grip and takes another bite, tearing into the soft flesh enough that I know he’s made me bleed.

My tears stream then. My body shakes.

The old Roman never hurt me. Not once. Even when we did play pretend, he never crossed that line. No, the pain he gave me was so much worse. So much more devastating. I pull my leg free enough to aim another kick and he snarls, narrowly avoiding it before biting me again even harder.

I thrash more, trying to throw him off and he grabs my legs, tying each one so that the last of my defence is gone.

I’m spread eagled now, like an all you can eat buffet for him. I whimper as I realise it, too ashamed now to do anything as he maims more of my flesh.

His fingers grab at me, spreading my labia apart and baring me wide open for him and then he pauses, fixing me with a look.

“Pretend you don’t want this, Rose. Pretend you’re not as eager for me to be in your cunt as I am.”

I shake my head, screaming that I don’t.

He laughs, running one finger right up to my clit, which throbs hard in response. The needy, traitorous bitch.

“Why are you wet then? Huh?” He mutters. “You’re dripping for me.”

I shake my head again. Refusing to give in. Refusing to give him any satisfaction.

“You’re going to come, Rose. You’re going to fall apart right here for me to enjoy.” And then he lowers his mouth, his tongue devouring me like a lost lover finally returning home.

I try not to react. I try so hard. I scream in my head over and over that I don’t want this.

That I don’t want him. That he’s forcing this on me.

Raping me in some sense. But my body doesn’t get the message.

My body responds exactly as he wants, and I can feel my core coiling tighter and tighter as I fight each breath, fight each gasp, fight every second of pleasure.

He slides a finger inside me, curling right where he knows he’ll hit that sweet spot and I arch my back in spite of myself, my hips bucking against his mouth as the pleasure swells.

“That’s better.” He murmurs. “Seems like you can be a good girl after all.”

I glare at him, hating the mockery of his words and yet loving how good his touch is.

My pleasure feels like it’s peaking too much now for me to do anything to stop it but I refuse to give in. I refuse to not fight this right to the end.

Clearly, he sees my resolve and as he curls his fingers more and more inside me, he clamps down on my thigh, biting once more into my flesh. I scream. The mixture of pleasure and pain is too much to ignore. Too much to fight.

It feels like something inside me breaks, like everything I stand for, everything I am, collapses under the ministrations of this man’s fingers alone.

I let out a moan so loud I doubt my panties ever stood a chance of muffling it.

He plunges another finger inside just as I fall over the edge and the ecstasy that is cataclysmic.

I thrash, I scream, I forget even my own name as I come so hard for a man that I hate, I man that has all but forced himself on me right now.

But I don’t care. In this moment it’s like nothing exists beyond my own pleasure. Nothing exists beyond the feel of him fucking me so deliciously with his fingers. He crawls up my body, lays beside me, watching my face as if I were the one consuming him and not the other way around.

“I love the way you come.” He groans. “I love the look on your face. Nothing in the world is more beautiful than your face is in this moment.”

I keep my eyes shut. The comedown is all the more shameful for how much I truly enjoyed the ride. My body is shuddering, jerking as if every cell is shot with electricity.

Silence hangs between us.

He doesn’t move. He just lays there, watching me as I pant.

And then mercifully he unties me. My hands drop the minute the rope frees them but I’m too exhausted, too ashamed, to do anything but just lie here.

He gets up, creeping back into the shadows like the demon he really is.

“Remember this, Rose.” He says. “Remember who owns you. Who has always owned you.”

I gulp, forcing myself to sit up. To hurl back an insult. To say anything but he’s already gone. Slithered back into the darkness like the arsehole that he is.

I spring out of the bed, grabbing a robe to cover myself and run through the house, determined to gut him if I can.

Downstairs, the back door clicks shut, giving me a hint of where he is.

I grab a knife from the side table in the hallway, but a weird chewing distracts me.

I frown, trying to place it and then suddenly I do.

Bella is sitting, gnawing on something. I gasp, snatching it from her.

He bribed her with a treat? The bastard.

I scoop her up, hugging her more for my own comfort that hers because she’s already grumbling at me like I’m the arsehole in all this.

On the table I spot the only too familiar outline of another rose and I scowl, staring out, seeing his outline disappear into the treeline.

He isn’t even trying to hide.

He clearly doesn’t care if my security see him.

And as always he’s left me behind without a moment’s thought. Left me to deal with the consequences.