Page 15 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

Ten

Beautiful Poison

I wake to a room bathed in soft morning light that would be lovely if it didn’t make my aching head threaten to split open.

For a disorienting moment, I don’t know where I am.

The bed beneath me is too vast, the sheets too luxurious, the silence too complete.

This isn’t my suite at Reed Tower with its pastel walls, heavy drapes, and linens soft only because they’ve been washed so many times.

Creature comforts are not something my father spends his money on. At least not for anyone but himself.

Then it all comes rushing back. The gala. My father’s announcement. Escaping with Grimm. Then finding him in Elysium.

To say it’s been a whirlwind would redefine understatement.

With a groan, I sit up slowly to keep the headache at bay as I glance around the room, my eyes landing on the white gown, crumpled where I’d left it, a deflated mockery of my father’s plans for me.

I savor the moment, recalling the pleasure of stripping off that straitjacket last night.

Now, I push the covers away, ease out of bed, and stretch. My hands are shaky, and I realize I must be hungry. I sigh. I’m going to have to either put the dress back on or go to the kitchen in the robe.

The idea’s not appealing, but wearing my pseudo-bridal gown is less so.

I’ve just slipped back into the robe when I notice the tote bag sitting just inside by the door.

Curious, I retrieve it and am delighted to find a pair of leggings and a soft gray T-shirt.

I lay both out on the bed as memories of last night filter back in fragments.

His fingers are on my wrist. His voice, low and dangerous: “Sex. Control. Obedience. Ownership. Surrender. Call it what you want, Princess, but that’s the price for escaping with me tonight …

and for keeping you safe tomorrow and beyond. ”

I’d slept naked, and he’d clearly come into the room to deliver clothes. I swallow, my pulse kicking up and my body going warm as I imagine him tugging back the covers. Touching me. Kissing me. Stroking my skin.

I shiver, and my cheeks heat at what might be a memory but is probably just desire.

I should be furious. Desperate to learn the truth. But I’m not. Because there’s something else there too—a shameful, persistent heat that lingers whenever I think of those words and the way his dazzling blue eyes had darkened when he spoke them.

Stop it!

I force myself to push the thoughts away, then slip into the bathroom. My head spins, and I hold onto the counter as the dizziness passes.

My reflection makes me shudder. My face is a disaster—mascara smudged beneath my eyes, foundation creased, lipstick long gone. I look exactly like what I am—a woman who fled in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind.

The state-of-the art shower calls to me. It’s nothing like my bathroom, which has had only a modest update since Reed Tower was built over a century ago. I even find a shower cap in one of the drawers.

I put it on, then strip off the robe, turn on the overhead spray, side jets, and steam, then step into heaven. I stand for a blissful moment, letting the water wash away the sweat of uneasy sleep and the lingering traces of my old life.

Then I sit on the polished bench and soak up the damp heat as I take stock of my situation. I’m in Liam Grimm’s apartment. And I’ve agreed to help him destroy my father in exchange for a price I’m not sure I fully understand.

A price I’m both desperately nervous about and shamefully eager to pay.

His .

I’m to be his from here on out. And he’s entitled to everything.

And while last night gives me some clue as to what to expect, I’m well-aware that I didn’t see the real man yesterday. Or, at least, not all of him. Not the man who holds in so much anger. Who is fueled by the hatred of his father, which is something I understand all too well.

Liam Grimm is a broken man. I know, because I’m broken, too.

What I fear now is that he’ll break me more when I’m forced to pay his price.

Once I’m out of the shower, I stare at my reflection, noting how different I look without the layers of make-up my father insists upon. Younger. Rawer. Maybe even stronger.

When I go back into the bedroom, I slip on the leggings and oversized shirt, relishing the way it smells faintly of laundry detergent and something else I can’t quite identify. Something him . Then I tie my hair back in a simple ponytail that falls just past my waist.

With nothing left to keep me in the bedroom, I take a deep breath and open the door.

The apartment beyond is flooded with morning light from those damn floor-to-ceiling windows.

Beyond them, a dizzying view of Manhattan stretches out in all directions.

Instinctively, I step back, panic rising.

But then I force myself forward, determined not to be ruled by the fear my father so carefully cultivated.

I walk slowly, careful to make sure one foot is flat on the ground before lifting the other. Intellectually, I know that’s absurd. But I can’t evade the fear that I’ll be sucked into the void if some part of me isn’t fully grounded.

Grimm stands in the kitchen area, his back to me as he prepares something at the counter.

He’s traded last night’s formal wear for a simple button-down and dark slacks, the sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms. Even in this casual moment, power radiates from him—controlled, but unmistakable.

I clear my throat, and he turns. For a moment, his expression is unguarded, and I glimpse something that looks almost like relief. Then his mask slides back into place, all cool assessment and calculation.

“You’re awake,” he says, his voice neutral. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve made a deal with the devil.”

A hint of amusement flickers in his eyes. “Not the first time I’ve been called that.”

“No surprise there.” I move further into the room, drawn despite myself, then take a seat at the counter. “About last?—”

“Coffee first,” he interrupts, sliding a mug toward me. “You look like you need it.”

He’s not wrong. I take the first sip, then sigh. Heaven.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he adds, with a nod toward the living area behind me.

I swivel the stool, and only then do I notice the woman seated in the far corner of the room, petite and poised in a simple black pantsuit. She rises, then strides toward us as I stand.

“Sasha Reed, this is Dr. Margaret Chen.”

“Doctor?” I take a step back, wary. Another physician to diagnose me, to prescribe medications, to tell me how fragile I am?

“Dr. Chen is a biochemist and an MD who specializes in neuropsychopharmacology,” Grimm says, as if he’d heard my unspoken fear.

“Neuropsychopharmacology.” I say the word slowly, enunciating each syllable. “So that means your focus is on brains and drugs?”

“Something like that.” Her soft voice sings with both comfort and competence.

“She’s here to help us understand—and prove—what your father’s been doing to you.”

A chill runs through me as I remember what I learned last night. All the things my father did to make me scared and fragile.

To make me need him.

I hug myself, desperate to run back to bed. Instead, I lift my chin. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Grimm and Dr. Chen exchange a glance. “It isn’t good,” Grimm says.

“Perhaps we should sit,” Dr. Chen suggests.

But I don’t want to sit. I just want to know. I want to hear every horrible thing, because once you understand the nightmare, that’s when you stop having it.

Except that’s not really true. I know better than most that nightmares never really end.

So I walk with them to the kitchen table and sit, then look from Grimm beside me to Dr. Chen across the oval tabletop.

“Well?”

Grimm shifts to look at me more directly. “The medications your father’s been giving you for anxiety and agoraphobia—they’re not legitimate pharmaceutical compounds.”

Bile rises in my throat. I don’t want to hear any of this. And how the hell can he know so much about my meds, anyway?

At the same time, I believe him. This is my father we’re talking about.

I sit up straighter as I look at Dr. Chen. “Have they—have they damaged me?”

Her smile is almost maternal, and I fight the urge to go cry in her arms the way I imagine I used to with my mother. And the way I still do now with Lydia in the towers of Elysium.

“No damage,” Dr. Chen assures me. “But they have affected you. Based on your symptoms and my review of footage from your public appearances over the last few years, I believe you’ve been administered a cocktail of benzodiazepines, memory suppressants, and mood stabilizers, not to mention a number of experimental drugs, most likely to enhance dependency. ”

I look between the two of them, not understanding.

“To keep you controlled and docile,” Dr. Chen says softly.

“No, no.” I shake my head. “Dr. Linden would never do that.”

“He’s not,” Grimm says. “You have a legitimate prescription. But you take what your father gives you instead.”

I stand and start pacing. “That’s … That’s insane.” But even as I say it, pieces begin falling into place. The foggy thinking. The missing memories.

My stomach churns. I don’t want to believe this. I don’t. I want to close my eyes and sleep for a hundred years. I want to shout that the Grimm family is our enemy and that I know this is just a ploy, and it won’t work. I won’t let it work.

I want to race out of this room and back to reality.

Except I do believe them.

More than that, I’m not even sure I know what reality is anymore.

“Sasha?”

I look up at Dr. Chen, mentally clinging to her soft voice and kind face.

“Why would he do that?” I finally ask.

“Control,” Grimm says, the word sharp and certain. “Your father needs to control everything in his orbit. You most of all.”

“I’d like to perform a basic physical examination and take blood samples,” Dr. Chen says. “The sooner we can identify what’s in your system, the better we can manage your withdrawal and document what’s been done to you.”