ten
A wave of nerves settles deep in my belly and radiates lower and lower with each concrete step, and I really have no clue why. Oh yeah. I have a wolf at my back. A really sexy, rather cranky wolf, who I’m apparently about to be living with. In other words, he really does have me at his mercy, as he’s unapologetically made clear. So why am I not afraid of him? Nervous, yes. Afraid? No. Kayden does not scare me, and unlike last night, when I ran, I don’t seem to fear my lack of fear anymore. In fact, as I reach the top of the stairs and a huge dungeon-style dark wooden door greets me, my nerves are quickly replaced with the excitement of seeing the castle.
I quickly thumb down the door lever and shove it open, entering into a foyer with yet more stone beneath my feet, and I discover a giant winding staircase on the opposite side of the stunning room. In awe, I happily give Kayden space to enter behind me and cross to the center of the room, seeing towering dungeon doors to my left and right. Turning in a circle, I admire the intricate trim work around the walls with what appear to be handcrafted roses. There is a flicker of a memory in my mind that I reach for, though I do not believe it’s about this place, but another. He sent me roses. Dozens of roses. I frown, not sure where the words came from, but nothing else follows, and I let it go to look up and inspect the conical ceiling, with more of the same design dissecting it into quarters.
Kayden joins me, stopping in front of me, his eyes half veiled, his energy dark, his expression all hard lines and shadows. “It’s gorgeous,” I say, when he doesn’t speak. “How big is it?”
“There are three towers in total. The central tower behind us is about eight thousand square feet. The east and west towers, divided by this room, are both around six. Adriel, his sister, and the housekeeper live in the east. You’ll be staying with me in the west.”
I’ll be staying with him. This pleases me, though I suspect he simply wants to ensure I don’t lead him on another race through the rain and frigid temperatures.
“This way,” he says, motioning toward one of the dungeon doors.
I nod and follow him, watching as he keys in a code and then hits a button, and the massive wooden door begins to lift. “The door is code protected,” he tells me, “with an alarm if it’s breached. I change the code once a week, and each wing has its own code. Right now, ours is one-nine-eight-nine.”
“One-nine-eight-nine,” I repeat. “Got it. Is the central tower empty?”
“Adriel runs a high-end collectibles store out of it.”
“High-end collectibles?” I ask as we enter yet another foyer, with an archway directly in front of us that appears to lead to some sort of sitting room. “What do you mean by ‘high-end’?”
“Anything and everything, all high-dollar items, many of which are museum-worthy.”
“That can’t be as profitable as treasure hunting.”
“Yeah, well, his father was killed on a hunt two years ago when his sister was sixteen. She blames The Underground.”
We reach the next level and enter another foyer, and before he can continue forward, I grab his arm and stop walking. “He died because of a hunt?”
“Yes.”
“So what you do is dangerous.”
“We each choose the jobs we take, and accept the danger that comes along with them. Generally the higher the payday, the greater the risk.”
“And Adriel’s father, what was he after?”
“A file that proved a certain pharmaceutical company had faked the results to clinical studies to get FDA approval. Which I damn sure found and turned the payday into a trust for Giada. She gets it at twenty-five.”
“How much was it?”
“Ten million.”
I gape at the astounding figure he mentions so nonchalantly. “You gave her ten million dollars?”
“Yes.” Tightness forms around his mouth. “I gave her ten million dollars, but all that money doesn’t bring their father back, and it damn sure didn’t stop the pain.” There is a hint of rasp to his voice, and he cuts his gaze to indicate the room beneath the arch and the end of the topic. “You have to enter the living area to get to the kitchen. It’s well stocked, and Marabella, the housekeeper, picks up anything I need. She’ll do the same for you. She has a whiteboard on the counter to leave a note.” He points to the walkway forking left and right of the arch. “You’re left. I’m right.” He starts walking left.
I fall into step with him and enter a chilly corridor with high ceilings. We pass what looks like a library, and he motions to a set of stairs. “There’s a full gym on the next level if you want to work out. And this,” he says as we reach the door at the end of our path, “is your room.”
This is your room. The words echo in my head, and again, I have a memory of another time and place. He opens the door, and I enter ahead of Kayden to find myself in a much warmer room that is truly made for fairy tales. The spectacular bed is the centerpiece, thick, high posts of mahogany towering ridiculously high and draped with sheers. A white wooden fireplace is alight and sits to the left of the bed and directly in front of me, with a comfy-looking brown leather chair next to it.
“Marabella turned on the fireplace for you,” Kayden says, crossing the room to stand beside it. “It’s gas, one of the modernizations I made to the place a few years back, to offset how cold the castle can get.” He reaches for a switch and turns the fire off and then on. “Easy and effective.”
“Great. Thank you. It’s a wonderful room.” But I’m really thinking about him. Me. And that bed.
He motions to a rectangular, narrow, floor-to-ceiling window in the corner. “It doesn’t open or offer much light.” Next, he indicates the flat-screen TV on the wall above a heavy wooden dresser. “The remote’s in the dresser drawer, and there’s a mini-fridge on this side of the bed stocked with drinks and snacks.” He advances on me again, and while the man in my flashbacks moves with grace, Kayden is all loose-legged, rebellious swagger. And I like it. I like it a lot. “We can go shopping for anything you need once the rain dies down,” he adds, stopping in front of me. “In the meantime, Marabella took the liberty of picking up a few things that you’ll find in the closet.”
“She didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to do that. Thank you, Kayden.” I lift my hand to touch him, and catch myself, folding my arms in front of me instead. Awareness flickers in his eyes, and I know he knows what I almost did and still want to do.
We stand there, a weighted silence ticking between us that has nothing to do with my words, and everything to do with the bed sitting behind him. He steps closer, but doesn’t touch me, his gaze drifting to my mouth and back up. “You have no idea how much I want to strip you naked and throw you on that bed. But you were right about memories. They keep the past we don’t want to forget alive, and they remind me of all the reasons I’m bad for you. And why I need to walk out of this room before I don’t give a damn anymore.”
And to my utter shock, that’s exactly what he does. He steps around me and starts walking. I turn in time to watch him disappear into the hallway, the door shutting behind him. Shutting me inside. I’m not sure how long I stand there staring at the space where he was moments before, willing him to return, the way I did in the bathroom when we played out a scene almost like this one. But he doesn’t return, and I finally turn to look around the room that is the closest thing to home I have. A memory surfaces, transporting me to another room. Another house. And that man.
He opens the huge double doors at the top of the stairs and motions me forward. I step into the glamorous room with heavy pale wooden furnishings and a floral love seat in the corner beside a window. It’s amazing, and so unlike anything I have back home. I turn and face him.
“It pleases you?” he asks.
“Of course it pleases me. Thank you for letting me stay with you. I’ll go to the passport office tomorrow and try to figure out how to get home.”
“Don’t rush on my behalf. In fact, I think I might benefit from having an angel such as yourself in the house. It will keep the devil in me in check.” His eyes sweep my body and lift. “Or perhaps not.” He turns and walks to the door, pausing without turning. “You should lock your door.”
I smile as he exits, quite certain I will not be locking the door. In fact, I might just leave it open.
I blink back to the present, and I don’t even have to ask how I ended up leaving that guest room for his. I probably did open the damn door. I rotate and face the one to this room, and while I do not feel any fear or need to lock myself inside, I hadn’t then either, and this version of me does not wish to be as stupid as the one of the past. I rush toward it to turn the lock, but there isn’t one. I rotate again and lean on the hard surface, irritated at the doubt rolling through my mind. That man is not Kayden, and I don’t need a lock. I was naked in a bed with him and he didn’t take advantage of me.
My stomach interrupts my one-on-one chat with myself with a groan of demand. I push off the door and round the bed to note the time from the clock by the bed—five o’clock—unable to remember the last time I ate. I find the fridge Kayden mentioned and go to my knees in front of it, discovering it to be quite well-stocked as promised. I grab a mini chocolate milk and an apple, and sit Indian-style to begin eating, but I’m only a few bites in when my mind flickers with the image of me tied to that damn bed.
I down the milk and put the rest of the apple back in the fridge before standing and removing my purse to set it on the marble-topped nightstand. That’s when I spot the pink leather journal lying in the center of the bed, along with a pen. The bed is so high I have to go up on my toes to climb on top, and once I’m there I grab the journal and pen. Settling on my back, I open the first page, and to my surprise there’s writing:
You will remember. That’s an order.
—Kayden
I laugh, as I am certain is intended, surprised he has managed such a feat when he’s not even here. Shutting the journal, I hug it to me, staring at the ceiling the way I did when I woke up in that hospital and rolled over to stare into his pale blue eyes. Beautiful eyes. And my eyes drift shut, my lips curved. I drift into a state of half awake and half asleep, but my mind will not allow me this brief time of peace, and I am no longer smiling. I am transported back to his room, naked and tied to the bed.
Two hours I have been like this. My hands over my head, knotted together. Cold. Angry. Scared. I am being punished for going shopping when he told me to stay home. I thought he was a Prince Charming, my Prince Charming, a man I could fall in love with. But no Prince Charming does this to a person. I just want off this bed and to go home. I should have gone weeks ago to replace my stolen passport. Why didn’t I replace my passport? Oh yeah. I was living a fantasy. A rich, sexy, and powerful man consumed me until I couldn’t process anything else. That’s time number two I’ve been foolish over a man. I just have to go to the passport office tomorrow and get a new one. I want to call Sara, but she’ll worry and try to rescue me, and she can’t. Not from San Francisco. All I will do is cause her to stress. I’ll call her when I’m headed home.
Abruptly, the doors open, and I jerk my head upward to find him standing in the doorway, tall and broad, his suit so damn expensive and perfect, like he once was to me, but not now. Not ever again. He walks toward me, personifying male elegance and grace, but radiating pure predator. Funny how that appealed to me before, even made him sexy, but all it does on this night is convince me I’m his prey, not his “angel,” as he calls me.
He stops at the end of the bed, shrugging out of his jacket before walking to a chair, where he neatly folds it and lays it down. Precise. Always precise. And controlled. Everything is about control with him. Everything. He stands with his back to me, but I can see him loosening his tie, taking his time to fold it as well. Each second creeps by like years, building the anticipation, the anger. The fear. He continues with this process until he is naked, and then he walks to the chest against the wall, where he removes his watch, carefully laying it inside what I know to be a velvet-lined drawer.
Finally, he faces the bed, closing in on me, his body as perfect as his suit, his cock jutted forward. I look away, refusing to be seduced by a man who is obviously a chameleon who has only now shown his true colors. My gaze might have left the man, but it lands on the statue of a tiger in the corner, so a part of him. He says it’s about power, control, and a willingness to do anything to defeat his enemies. I was wrong. He’s no chameleon. He’s a pure predator.
The bed shifts and his hands come down on my knees, and before I realize what is happening, he’s pressing them to my chest. His fingers dig into my legs and he moves closer, leaning over me. And damn it, I am looking at him when I swore I would not. “You’re angry,” he says.
“Two hours,” I say. “Two hours you left me here.”
“I told you not to leave the house.”
“You don’t own me. You can’t tell me—”
“I can and I will. And I left you here to make sure you think twice the next time you disobey me. A painless punishment, considering how disobeying me might have ended. I am a powerful man, angel. You know this. My enemies will lash out at anyone I care for. And that’s you. So if I tell you to fucking stay in the house, I fucking mean it. Understand?”
His demand is guttural, the rasp in his tone telling me he truly feared for me. “Yes,” I say, realizing now that I really was in danger today, because he isn’t the only one who will do anything to win in life. So will his enemies.
He stares at me for several seconds, assessing my reply, weighing it before his voice softens. “Good girl.” He lowers my legs and slides between them. “There is always a price for power, but losing you will not be mine. I protect what is mine.” He leans into me, his cheek pressed to mine, his lips at my ear, to add, “And you are mine.”
I jerk to a sitting position and look down to discover the journal still clasped to my chest. Scanning the bed, I locate the pen and open the journal, trying to document everything I just remembered, along with the stupid certainty that I forgave him that night. I search my mind, looking for more details, trying to see his face, or identify a clue that tells me he’s Niccolo. Five pages later, I’ve discovered nothing new about myself or him.
Frustrated at how unsuccessful this journal-writing session has been, I set the pen and journal on the nightstand, the throbbing in my scalp warning of an imminent headache. Scooting off the bed, I reach for my purse on the nightstand. I dig out my bottle of medicine and snatch another chocolate milk, downing a pill with it, and then finish off my apple. Taking my purse with me, I head to the bathroom, discovering a room of pale blue and white the size of a small bedroom and, to my delight, a massive claw-foot tub in the corner.
Walking to the tiled white counter of the double-sinked vanity, I admire the matching wooden cabinets with cute blue knobs, and I can’t help but wonder what Kayden’s room looks like. Dark and moody, like the man, I suspect. After setting my purse on the counter, I walk to the tub, pleased to find a small bag of toiletries on the ledge that includes razors, bubbles, and body wash. I turn the faucet and pour some of the bubbles beneath the spray of the water, the scent of sweet honeysuckle flaring in my nostrils. I ignore the razor, since I appear to be waxed, and considering how fast and horrific my first dye job was, I doubt that was to hide my hair color.
Searching for something to wear, I walk into the closet, a light automatically flickering to life to illuminate a room half the size of the giant bathroom. Clothes intended for me, I assume, hang to the left, while the right is lined with built-in drawers and shelves. A cushioned stool claims the middle, as does a variety of bags from various stores. Lots of bags, and guilt hits me hard. Kayden not only paid my hospital bills, now he’s giving me a place to live and replacing all the things a woman has when she doesn’t have a past. Maybe I can help in the store, or with his hunts, to do something to pay him back.
I squat down and begin digging through the bags, and guilt aside, I’m downright giddy to find a curling iron, a blow-dryer, and a flatiron, along with all kinds of makeup and products. There is also a bag of lingerie from a store called La Perla. I frown, almost certain that’s the name on the label of the bra I’m already wearing. I tear away my T-shirt and remove my bra to discover I’m right. It’s the same brand. I’m not sure what to make of the coincidence.
Still trying to conjure my memories, ready to evoke some magic I don’t possess, I undress and select a black bra-and-panty set, a black Chanel T-shirt, and a pair of Chanel black jeans that fit surprisingly well, after several other items have failed to work out. Then I undress, pile my hair on top of my head, dig my phone from my purse, slide into the wonderful, warm bubbles of my bath, and Google La Perla. Aside from admiring the lingerie on their site, I find nothing seems familiar.
Frowning, I decide I need to go by the store to jar my memory and search for a location, only to discover there are stores across the world, including several in the US, including Las Vegas, New York, and San Francisco. San Francisco. I sit up, a memory from the dream coming back to me. Sara lives in San Francisco, which means I must, too. I reach for a towel and drop the phone. In the water. No! I fish it out, and have to wipe bubbles away to even see the screen and discover it’s dead. Of course it is. I just gave it a bath. I grab the towel and start drying it off, when a loud pounding starts on the bedroom door. I search for another towel and can’t find one, and there is more knocking, telling me something is wrong.
I set the phone on a silver tray but still have to contend with a sheet of bubbles on my skin that will leave a trail on my way to the door, brushing enough off to finally secure the towel at my chest. Grabbing the edge of the tub, I step to the small light blue rug, securing a footing at the same moment I hear the bedroom door open, followed by Kayden’s voice. “Ella!”
“In here!” I call out, rushing to the door and reaching it at the same instant Kayden appears in front of me. He grabs my arms and pulls me to him, but not before my towel falls to my feet. “Why didn’t you answer the door?”
“Kayden, my towel—”
“You have a damn concussion,” he continues, his tone a hard reprimand. “Marabella couldn’t get you to answer and she came to me, afraid for you.”
It seems more like he was afraid for me. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. I was in the tub and—”
“I called your phone. Keep it with you.”
“I dropped it in the tub.”
He downright glares at me and gives a guttural “Fuck” as his response.
“Sorry,” I say.
“I don’t give a damn about the phone,” he says, and while his gaze does not leave my face, I know from the darkening of his eyes and the straightening of his spine that he’s fully aware of my state of undress, proven by how quickly he sets me away from him. “Marabella made dinner. She wants to impress you.”
I grab the towel and hold it in front of me. “I’ll be right there.”
I’ve barely spoken the words and he’s gone, exiting the bathroom, and he seems unaffected by me being naked. I stand there, questioning the attraction and connection I thought we shared that I can’t shut out, while he doesn’t seem to suffer the same affliction. But then, according to the “me” in my flashbacks, I’m pretty bad at judging men. In fact, I’d say it’s a good bet that’s what got me in this boat in the first place. The last thing I should want is a man, or a relationship, and yet I do want Kayden.
Several beats pass, and I realize I haven’t moved, but neither have I heard the door open and shut. Tentatively, I walk to the archway separating the two rooms to find Kayden still here, standing at the door, his back to me, his hand on the knob, his head on the wooden surface. I inhale and don’t dare breathe, counting out several more beats before he curses and leaves the room. I lean on the doorjamb, a heavy breath escaping my lips. He wasn’t unaffected, and I am reminded of his earlier declaration about memories. They keep the past we don’t want to forget alive, and they remind me of all the reasons I’m bad for you. A monster lurks in his past, and I wonder what torments a man as strong and dominant as Kayden Wilkens, and why do I know I’m a trigger that gives it life? I push off the wall and hurry to get dressed, determined to find out why, and ready to meet the real man behind those seductive blue eyes.