Page 25 of His to Possess

I don’t respond. I just want to go to my room and try to figure out what comes next.

I expect him to keep up a continuous stream of questions during the ride up to the penthouse so I’m surprised—and more than a little relieved—when he buries his face in his phone, instead.

That relief is short lived. “Remind me the name of the bar you’re working at?” he asks absently, still tapping away at his phone.

“Joey’s. Why?”

“I’m sending my associate over to check it out.”

“Wait—what?”

“Since you refuse to tell me what is going on in your life, I’ll resort to alternative measures.”

He’s very lucky the elevator door opens just then—I’m pretty sure I would have slapped him given a few more seconds of confinement. He opens the door to the penthouse, not a care in the world, and strides straight in toward the kitchen. “I’m feeling peckish,” he calls over his shoulder. “Shall I ask Mrs. Higgins to prepare tea?”

“I’m not drinking fucking tea with you,” I snap, hurrying to catch up to his much longer legs.

“I meant tea in the sense of a light meal,” he says. “But we could have wine with our snack instead, if you’d rather.”

“I don’t give a shit about snacks! You think you can just inform me that you’re invading my privacy and then go along your merry way?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say about it,” he says drily. “I merely wish to have some sustenance in me when you start yelling.”

“Philip!”

He sighs, rubbing his ear again. “Too late.”

I finally catch up to him in the kitchen, forcing myself around him so I can get up in his face. I’m so angry right now my hands are actually shaking.

“You have no right to do this.”

“I beg to differ, love.” He takes a step closer and it’s only my surging anger that keeps me from cowering back when he towers over me. “You’re my responsibility—”

“I am not!”

He doesn’t even acknowledge my interruption. “You became my responsibility the moment I took you off that stage at Club Rendezvous.”

“Your only responsibility when you took me off that stage was to fuck me,” I snap. “A task at which you failed spectacularly.”

Before I even realize what’s happening, Philip has me pinned against the wall, his hands gripping my upper arms, his face inches from mine. “Do not push me, Lilah. You don’t want to see what happens.”

But that’s the problem—Idowant to see it. There’s a part of me that very much wants to see what Philip Matthews will do when pushed.

His flashing eyes search my face. “Do you have any idea how worried I am about you?” he asks, voice rough. “I see you standing up on that stage, prepared to give yourself to the highest bidder. Helpless prey in a room full of dangerous predators. You have no idea what those men are like, Lilah. No idea what could have happened to you.”

“Philip—”

“So, yes. I’m going to spend some time wondering what in the hell could have happened to a girl like you to make you feel like that was necessary. And then I find out that you dropped out of school. That you’re working in some seedy bar and sleeping on a damn couch in a shithole of an apartment.” He gives me a little shake. “Why on Earth would you think that was your only option?”

When I don’t answer, he curses loudly, dropping my arms. “Fine. You don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. Like I said, I have other ways of finding out information.”

My anger flares again, but it’s weaker now. There’s too much sadness mixing with the emotion in my chest. Sadness and fear and exhaustion. God, I’m so tired. “There’s nothing else to find out,” I tell him, the lump in my throat so thick it hurts to speak. “This is my reality right now.” I hold out my arms. “It doesn’t matter how I got here or why.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.”

“You should just let me leave,” I say softly, even as the words send a jolt of pain through me. “Let me re-enter the auction and—”

“Fuck that,” he growls. “You’re not selling your virginity to a stranger. I won’t allow it.”