Page 116 of Handsome Devil

Rolling my shoulders back, I knocked on the door, but only after I saw he’d finished solving his equation. He looked up, eyes glittering predatorily, like a beast in the darkened woods.

His jaw locked.

I wasn’t supposed to come here.

“This place is off-limits,” he snarled.

“You have OCD,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Beautifulandperceptive.” He chuckled somberly. “Your perfection truly knows no bounds.”

“But there’s something else too.” I ignored his sarcasm, stepping deeper into the room, into the lion’s den. “You need to get properly medicated. You need therapy. You need—”

“I need to be left the fuckalone.”

His roar rattled my bones, and I inhaled, my instincts screaming at me to step back but my pride and stubbornness making me step forward and tilt my chin up.

“No,” I said. “Not until I help you.”

He tipped his head back and laughed. “I’ve subjugated the world and brought billionaires and governments to their knees. Send someone else an invitation to your pity party.”

“You think I feel sorry for you?” I narrowed my eyes. “You have the world at your feet. You’re handsome, filthy rich, and a literal genius. But those things don’t produce happiness. Merely more stress and expectations. I want you to behappy. You can have everything and still get relief from your condition.”

“My OCD gives me an edge.” He walked over to a bar cart and poured himself a drink. “Equations clear my mind. My rituals are my time to form new strategies.”

“You can function without self-destructing,” I said quietly. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“If I didn’t have my hard-earned power, gained through years of self-inflicted pain, I wouldn’t know the sweet taste of that gorgeous cunt of yours, Apricity.” He rolled his tongue over his teeth before knocking his drink back. I flinched at his crass words. “You wouldn’t be wearing my ring, moaning my name, buying a fucking private plane after a lovers’ quarrel.”

“But if you try to trea—”

“It’ll get me nowhere,” he interjected. “My OCD is the least of my issues. I have a cocktail of disorders that’d make Jeffrey Dahmer get FOMO. This is the first and last time we discuss this subject, Gia. I don’t want you to tell anyone else about it.”

He thought I was going to go around tattling about his mental health struggles? Did he not know me at all?

Dejection choked me like poison. For every step forward we took, Tate was adamant to take three steps back. This was yet another reminder I was just another conquest. An unattainable prize he now managed to get his capable hands on.

“Don’t worry, Tate.” My tone turned icy, and just like that, I morphed into PA Gia. Professional. Stoic. On guard. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“At last, she behaves like a wife.” He strode over to his desk, holding his second drink and picking up his Sharpie. He tucked it behind his ear, flipping through a textbook. “Now, unless you want to fuck again, I’m partial to spending the rest of the night separately.” His words left welts of heat on my cheeks, his eyes never wavering from his textbook. “After all, you were the one who insisted on keeping this marriage strictly a formal arrangement.”

Shaking my head, I turned around and walked away.

Age twelve

No one knew about Apollo. I made sure of it.

I learned from my past mistakes. The woods weren’t far enough. If I wanted a companion, I needed to ensure it was away from school. Away from Andrin.

Which was how I started volunteering at a shelter.

I spent every Wednesday and Friday afternoon with dogs and cats and rabbits. I preferred them to humans. They were kind and grateful. Never judgmental. And considerably better conversationalists.

It all started with the new superintendent, Mrs. Dagmar. She arrived during summer break, quickly understood that I was one of the only students living on the grounds, and decided to give me tasks to keep me busy. She started bringing her puppy,Frankie, to work and asked that I take him on walks and keep him entertained. I played fetch and cuddled with him for hours, secure in the knowledge Andrin wasn’t so deranged as to kill his superior’s pet.

Mrs. Dagmar brought me books to read. Fun books, not the stuff I could find in the school library. When she found out how good I was with numbers, she put me in charge of doing all her bookkeeping for the school and, in return, gave me small presents. Treats. Her son’s old Legos to build. Once, she brought a photographer to take pictures of me to put on an adoption site. I laughed when the old woman insisted I wear a crisp white shirt and knee-high socks.

“No one’s coming for me,” I parroted Andrin’s words. “I’m damaged goods. Too old, too twisted.”