Chapter Twenty-Six
My hair is still wet.
I’ve only been in bed a few hours. Of course I showered as soon as we got home from the theater, the water scalding, scrubbing the place on my thighs where his come had been. There’s no trace of him, but I can still feel the warm spurts, the throb of intense pleasure that he triggered with his come.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so dirty if he’d just taken my virginity the first night. Regular sex, right away. Even coming on me, as sharp and intimate as it is, I could have withstood.
It’s the orgasms he forces from my body that feel like a violation.
That’s how I find myself getting out of bed at two a.m., twisting the knob all the way to HOT. I stand under the spray for seconds, minute, hours. There’s no need for soap, not the physical kind. I just need to forget his fingers around my clit, his breath at the back of my neck.
The hot water heater in this massive house lasts a long time, but it eventually gives up on me. Or maybe it just doesn’t want to watch it go down the drain. This isn’t going to help, the cold water says, stinging my skin. I stand there for as long as I can take, until my teeth are chattering and every part of my skin has pebbled.
Eventually I step out of the shower onto the warm tile. God, even the bathroom tile has warmers. Everything in this place is perfectly modulated for the comfort of the master. For the comfort of Gabriel Miller.
I turn off the shower and dry myself off. A strange sound comes from the room. My hair prickles not from cold but from warning. Animal instinct, the opposite of Gabriel’s hands on my sides.
Wrapping the towel tight around me, I peek out the bathroom door.
Nothing.
Maybe I imagined it, just like I imagined the feel of Gabriel’s come on my thighs when it had already been washed off, just like I can still hear the whispers and feel the stares of the entire theater.
Then I hear it again, a knocking sound. Not from the door. From the other side of the room. The window. Pale face. Dark eyes. Someone looking inside my window.
I let out a shriek before recognition can slow my heartbeat. God.
Then I’m across the room, shoving open the window, whispering desperately, “Justin! What are you doing here?”
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says, his voice grim. He looks different than the last time I saw him. He was never fat, but he’d had the rounded cheeks of a boy who had never had to work very hard. Even sailing hadn’t made him lean.
Now he looks more gaunt, his eyes shadowed.
“Through the window? This is crazy.”
His eyes flash. “What’s crazy is putting yourself up for auction.”
His gaze flickers down my body, and I become painfully aware of how little the white towel covers. It hadn’t mattered when I thought I was alone in my room. Now he can see the tops of my breasts and most of my legs.
“Please,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m pleading. For him to leave? For him to understand? He’ll never understand. “I didn’t have a choice.”
He looks away for a moment, and I take in the fact that he’s on a ladder. A ladder. Where did he get it? Some kind of toolshed? Or maybe he brought it with him. This is some insane rescue attempt, except I don’t need rescuing.
No, that’s a lie. I need rescuing, but I need the money in that escrow account even more.
His nostrils flare. “God, Avery. Why didn’t you call me?”
“You broke up with me!”
“Still,” he says, seething. “Gabriel Miller! The man ruined your father.”
A flush steals over my cheeks, my chest. “I know. I didn’t have a choice in who won the auction.”
“I can’t believe you let him touch you. He turned over fake evidence to the state’s attorney. And then he had him attacked! He’s the reason your father even needs a nurse.”
My heart clenches. “No. He didn’t send those men.”
“Did you ask him?”
I did, but I’m not sure I believe him. And I’m afraid to push. Afraid to find out that he might have sent those men. Because he won the auction either way. We need the money either way. It’s sick and twisted, like the chili juice on my fingers. But sometimes we do sick and twisted things for the people we love.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The auction is over. He won.”
“You’re leaving,” he says flatly.
“And give up a million dollars? Daddy needs that money.” And I needed the house more than ever. The only trace I had left of my mother. She would have known what to do, what to say, but I didn’t have her. All I had was the place that she’d lived. The place that she’d loved.
“He doesn’t need it from Gabriel Miller. The man’s a fucking criminal.”
“I know that.” My stomach turns over. “But Daddy wasn’t innocent either. That came out in the trial.”
Justin snorts. “The trial. It was a fucking sham. The whole prosecutor’s office is in Miller’s pocket.”
That’s not possible, is it? Daddy maintained his innocence until the end. Until the attack, when he’d almost lost his ability to speak at all. There’d been so much evidence, though.
And Gabriel Miller has more money than God. He can make anything happen.
Except that honesty is the most important thing to him. He keeps his father’s last bottle of moonshine to remind him of how much he believes in the truth. He wouldn’t have given false documents. Wouldn’t have lied to me.
Unless everything was a lie, even his supposed belief in honesty.
I take a step back. “You need to leave.”
“Are you listening to me?” he asks, his eyes wild. “The man’s a fucking monster.”
I had that thought in the theater, but somehow it’s different when Justin says it. More offensive. Less true. “You don’t know him.”
“Oh fuck.” Justin laughs. “You aren’t falling for him, are you?”
The air seems thin, because I’m terrified that he’s right. It’s horrible. Impossible. “Of course not. But a deal’s a deal. And they take their promises seriously in this criminal business. That’s what got Daddy into this mess.”
“What do you think they’re going to prosecute you for, your virginity? It’s fucking gone. Done. Even Gabriel Miller isn’t going to bring his whore to court.”
I flinch. This was the man I had been going to marry. Whore.
“Leave, Justin.” I pull the towel tighter around me. “Now.”
He seems to realize what he said. “Avery—”
“No. I know you mean well, but this isn’t going to work. I need the money from the auction. Daddy needs it. And if Gabriel finds you here, he’s going to be pissed.”
“Pissed,” comes a low voice from behind me. “That’s an understatement.”
I whirl and face an enraged Gabriel Miller, his face twisted into a snarl. My hands go up in automatic defense. I don’t think he’s going to hurt me, but he might hurt Justin. However much he betrayed me by breaking off our engagement, he doesn’t deserve to be injured.
“Please.”
Gabriel looks incredulous. “You’re begging for his life?”
Panic beats in my chest. Would Gabriel kill him? “He hasn’t done anything.”
“He came onto my property. He tried to take what’s mine.”
Me. He means me. I feel lightheaded. “I’m still here. Please.”
He grips my wrist, firm and implacable. He moves me out of the way, and I spin from out of his hold. The towel comes lose, and I use both hands to cover myself.
Two strides. That’s all it takes before Gabriel has Justin by the collar, face turning red, his stance on the ladder precarious at best. I run to them, modesty forgotten, pulling Gabriel’s arm.
“Let him go!”
Gabriel makes a growling sound. “I’d bury him in the woods. No, I’d leave him out. Let the wolves take care of him. No one would ever find his body.”
Justin’s eyes are wide and full of fear. “Stop,” he wheezes. “Know. The. Truth.”
“The truth?” Gabriel asks, his voice deadly soft.
God, doesn’t Justin realize how close he is to death? Threatening Gabriel Miller with the truth will only make him angrier. No matter what happened with my father, I know that Gabriel cares about honesty.
And Justin’s figuring it out too as the life squeezes out of him. His eyes are glazed over. Gabriel doesn’t even have to suffocate him. He only has to let go. Disoriented, dizzy, Justin would fall to his death.
“I’ll be good,” I promise, my voice low and serious. I’m grasping at Gabriel’s white shirt—he hasn’t changed, I realize, since the theater. He’s still wearing his tuxedo shirt. It doesn’t matter how hard I pull, I’ll never move him. He’s made of stone.
What can I do?
What can I give him?
The string. My very sanity. “I’ll play with you. I’ll play chess.”
Justin makes horrible wheezing sounds, his limbs flailing. For a horrible moment I think he’s going to fall, but Gabriel’s hold on the front of his shirt keeps him on the ladder.
Gabriel must have loosened his grip, because Justin’s eyes come into focus, though his face is still red and puffy. “You bastard,” he gasps.
God, he has no survival instinct. “Get out of here,” I whisper.
He glances from me to Gabriel and comes to the right conclusion. On unsteady legs he makes it down the ladder. I watch as he runs across the lawn, through the woods where he must have entered. For a moment I worry about wolves, until I realize that I have my own wild animal to think about.
Gabriel turns to me. “Did you call him?”
“What? No! Check the records if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I have,” he says grimly. “Mr. Stewart. And Harper St. Claire, your friend from school. You could have sent a message through her.”
I’m shaking with anger, realizing that he’s been looking at my phone logs. For all I know there’s a camera in the room, too. Nothing is sacred to him.
What about the truth? Is that sacred to him? Would he have manufactured evidence for the state’s attorney to indict my father? Would he have used bribes to ensure my father’s conviction?
My father might be innocent after all.
Gabriel slams the window down and locks it. “We play tomorrow.”