Page 88 of His Forced Bride

"I know you do."

"Then let me."

"No."

His single word is like a prison sentence.

I feel something crack inside my chest—a deeper hurt that catches me off guard.

For a moment tonight, during our civil conversation, I'd begun to forget the true nature of our relationship.

I'd started to imagine this could become something other than captivity.

But I was wrong.

"I'm going to bed," I say, and he doesn't try to stop me as I walk away, but I feel his eyes tracking my movement until I disappear into the hallway.

Upstairs, I lock the door and lean against it, and my heart pounds with a mixture of rage and disappointment.

My hands tremble as I stare at them blankly, still covered in paint from the wonderful gift he offered me.

How can the same person who notices what I need before I ask for it be the one who holds me here against my will?

How can someone who protects my employees and ensures my businesses survive also be someone who treats me as a possession to be managed?

I slide down the door until I'm sitting on the wooden floor, knees drawn to my chest.

The contradiction threatens to tear me apart from the inside.

I'm falling in love with this sick bastard who I want to hate, and I can't make myself hate him.

I'm not supposed to love him.

I want to not love him with everything in me, because I don't like the decisions he makes for me.

Because prisoners don't choose their captors, no matter how comfortable the cage becomes.

At least, they shouldn't…

And I am, for all intents and purposes, still his prisoner.

16

YURI

Oleg appears in my office doorway without knocking, and I've seen that grim expression on his face before, on days when he had to provide bad news for me.

He never enters without permission unless the news won't wait, so whatever this is, it must not be good at all.

I pause working to look up at him, and he strides right to my desk and stops.

"Inessa's Primorsky showroom," he says.

"It's gone."

His hands clasp together in front of his waist, and I feel my temper rising immediately.

I set down my pen and meet his eyes.