Stop.
I shook my head as if the physical gesture would snap me out of it.
“I want to go home,” I said. “Now.”
“That’s not possible,” he said softly, like I was a child who needed something broken to her gently, like I’d lost my favorite blankie and he’d been the one tasked with telling me it wasn’t coming back.
“You said that if I wanted to go, I could.”
“Emery, if I let you go, those people -- the ones who took your father -- they’ll come after you.”
“Then pay them,” I said. “Please, just… pay them their stupid money and let me go!”
His eyes bore into mine, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take that he kept changing the rules. But had he? He’d never promised me I could leave, had never promised that he’d pay the money to let me go early, at least not since my apartment had been broken into. In fact, it had been the opposite. He’d wanted me to stay with him past the seven days, isn’t that what he’d said? I was confused now, wondering what was real and what wasn’t, what words, what actions, what promises were lies were true.
“I should have left with Maddie when I had the chance,” I said. “You’re nothing but a monster, you’re nothing but a psycho.” I spit the words, hoping to hurt him, to wound him.
He was on my like a flash, his hand back on my wrist as he pulled me toward him, his touch burning my skin. “Watch what you say,” he growled, “because you will be punished for it, and it will hurt no one but yourself. Anything you say to me is nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Quick as a flash, regret stabbed at my heart. I remembered those scars on his abdomen, white and faded, like they’d been there for a long time, the kind of scars you got when you were younger, not the kind of scars you got from being in a bar fight in your twenties.
But I wouldn’t allow him to play on my sympathies. It wasn’t my problem he’d been through something when he was younger, wasn’t my responsibility to save him.
Hadn’t he said that himself? That I shouldn’t try to save him, that there was no way he could be saved? And the way he’d said it -- so matter-of-fact, like I wasn’t the first woman to have that kind of crazy idea. London Banks. Vienna. Had they had the same idea? That they could be the one to break through his exterior?
“I hate you,” I spit as I wrenched from his grasp like a child having a tantrum. I caught sight of myself in the mirror on the wall, and I looked crazy. There was color high on my cheeks, my eyes wild.
But everything else about me was perfect.
My dress, perfect.
My hair, perfect.
My makeup, perfect.
My hand drifted to my head and I slid my fingers through my hair extensions. Suddenly, I wanted no part of him, wanted nothing of Liam on me. I wished I could rip them out, but I was afraid it would hurt, was afraid my real hair would come with it. So I reached down and pulled a tissue from the box on the desk and began swiping angrily at my makeup.
“Emery, stop,” Liam said, and for the first time, I could hear emotion in his voice, could hear that dominating side of him threatening to come out.
My body instantly responded, my pussy flooding with wetness, my pulse quickening, heat flushing hot through my body and searing my veins from the inside. He’d trained me well.
But I was determined not to give in.
“No,” I said, as I wiped off my lipstick and threw the tissue onto the floor. Next I started with the eye shadow. It must have been some kind of industrial strength eye shadow that rich people used, because it seemed determined to stay on my eyes.
“You’re acting like a child,” Liam said, crossing the room to me in two full strides. I saw him appear behind me in the mirror, and my breath caught at how tall he looked behind me, how big and powerful. I’d never had that experience before, of a man making me feel so dainty and petite. Because I wasn’t. And I hated and loved that he could make me feel that way.
“Isn’t that how you’re treating me?” I shot back. “Like a child?”
He shook his head. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I brought you here for a reason?”
“Yes,” I said. “Actually, it did occur to me that you brought me here for a reason. And the reason is that you’re an asshole.”
“Jesus, Emery,” he said. “You’re being immature and childish. I brought you here because I wanted you to see your father, wanted you to see with your own eyes the man you’re protecting.”
“And you thought what? That it would help me?”
“Yes! I thought it would help you to see that you don’t need to do this for him, that you don’t need to be so concerned about helping him. You don’t need to be beholden to him.”