Page 148 of Only for Him

37

GISELLE

I know,from the turns he’s taking, that Roman’s not taking me back to the mansion. No music, no talk. It’s a lot like the drive to the auction, but so much worse. Back then, I didn’t know where we were going or what he wanted from me.

Now, I know exactly where he’s taking me, and that I’m not the woman he needed me to be.

Every stoplight washes his face in primary colors, making him look mythic. An angry god, much too far gone for appeasement. I sit with my hands balled in my lap and knees tight together. I want to break the window just to hear something shatter.

He doesn’t look at me once.

For a man who treats bodies like loose change, I feel oddly confident that he will not murder me no matter how much I’ve fucked up.

Maybe because he knows that leaving me alive, and alone, would be worse.

Jesus, Giselle. That’s a whole new level of pathetic. Please try and get a grip one of these days.

I try to count my heartbeats, but the rhythm is shot. I can’t feel anything except the sweat trickling down my spine, a cruel reminder of the way his fingers would move down that same line, the briefest contact enough to light me up.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

Hearing his voice is a kind of mercy, like knowing whenyour execution is scheduled rather than waiting around for it to happen.

“About what?” Some crazed part of me is still hoping he’s thinking of something else. Some other, smaller betrayal. Something so small I didn’t even notice I did it.

“Don’t insult me.” His voice is sandpaper.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“I don’t know what you mean,” I whisper, still stalling. Maybe I can pretend like I don’t even know why it would have upset him?

No, no, I wasn’t betraying you. It was an accident, I just scraped your semen into evidence by mistake. My bad.

He slams the brakes at the next stop, hard enough to jolt me forward. He turns, blue eyes surgically severing my soul from my body.

“You put my DNA in the police database.” The words smolder in the air, thick and poisonous. Roman waits, giving me all the rope I need to hang myself.

I try to think of a lie. Any lie. But my brain is empty, blank as one of his crime scenes. All ruin, no evidence. Nothing at all to cling to.

“I didn’t think you were a coward,” he says. “But I guess I was wrong about you in more ways than one.”

He hits the gas, peels out so fast the tires squeal.

I open my mouth, close it. It’s not supposed to be like this.

“I’m sorry,” I whimper. Because I am. I really, really fucking am. Sorrier than I’ve been since Serena.

How long did I think I’d last before fucking up again? Maybe I should consider all these years in between as undeserved grace. This pain has been waiting for me all this time. It was patient enough to let me get a good taste of a life where I didn’t see misery coming around every corner.

Maybe you should ask him to stop and pick up a sheet cake with your face on it. Really round out this little pity party.

He keeps his eyes on the road. “When did you do it?”

I can’t look at him. “In the evidence room. I didn’t… I didn’t swallow all of it.”

“Of course,” he seethes, teeth white and vicious. My shoulder throbs with the memory of those teeth digging into it. Claiming me in ways I didn’t ask for but also didn’t deserve. “You couldn’t help yourself. Did you at least enjoy it?”

He spits the words like filth, like they’ve left a taste in his mouth that he can’t wash out. Me. The taste of his little viper.