When the impact of what I’ve done hits me full force, I extricate myself from Damien’s hold and run to the bathroom. I wish for the hundredth time that he weren’t able to see me through the glass.

My body itches for a shower, to be scrubbed of the scent of him. Sobs grip me before I can turn on the water.

I crumple against one marble wall and slide to the cool floor. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, trickling down my cheeks and neck.

After he fucked me, I felt strangely whole. Now all I feel is a deep, empty abyss in the center of my heart.

For a long time, Damien keeps his distance, though his eyes are on me. When he finally enters the bathroom, I’ve wept for a long time and I’m lying on the dry shower floor, my damp cheek pressed against the tiles. His muted footsteps move across the room toward me. I sit up and wipe the tears away. I don’t look at him.

“I thought you wanted this.” He inhales sharply. “You specifically made it clear that you wanted me to fuck you.”

I swallow the rest of the tears lingering in my throat as sudden confidence fills my body. I lift my chin and meet his hardened gaze. “Answer me one thing.”

He folds his arms across his hard chest. I try not to look below his naked waist. “Anything.”

“Why me? Why did you pick me? What made you decide I was the one you wanted to torture? Did moving into that dorm room put me in the wrong place at the wrong time?” My tongue rolls over my dry lips and I taste the salt of my tears. “If not me, would it have been Jennifer? Or someone else?”

“No.” He slides his gaze from me and takes a few steps back until his calves meet the edge of the bathtub. “Let’s not taint our new life with the past. You are right for me. Leave it at that.”

“Do you really expect me to feel fortunate?” I wrap my arms around my body. I’m too angry to stop bombarding him with questions. “Am I supposed to feel lucky that I’m the one who had the privilege to be kidnapped by you?”

“No.” The word is as hard as marble. “Again, you have it all wrong. Kidnapping is the wrong word.” He perches on the lip of the bath. “I brought you into my life because I love you. You belong to me.”

“You’ve got such a messed-up definition of love. This is not love. Whatever you feel for me is a sickness, an obsession. You have to be broken somewhere to believe it’s anything else.”

He shoots up from the tub. The next thing I know, he’s holding me up by the nape of my neck, yanking me out of the shower cubicle. He pulls my face to his. “Don’t you ever say that again. Don’t disrespect my love for you. Ever.”

“Or what?” I stand on tiptoes so I’m as close to his face as possible, ignoring the pain in my neck. “What will you do to me that you haven’t already done? Kill me?”

“If you push me too far, I just might. Don’t test me.” He lets go of me so suddenly I stumble back. “Do what you have to do in here and come back to bed.”

He strides back into the room, leaving me shaken and vibrating with anger. I remain in the bathroom for a long time, huddled in a corner, afraid to return to his side.

I shrink back when he reenters the bathroom. For a moment he stands in the doorway, watching me. Then he stretches out a hand.

Ignoring the gesture, I rise to my feet and push myself past him. He follows without a word.

I climb under the sheets and move as far away from him as possible without falling off the bed. Instead of reaching for me, he simply turns off the lights.

Ten minutes later, he’s asleep, and as usual, I’m wide awake, hearing the memories, the sounds of our earlier lovemaking. I want to say I’ll refuse to give myself to him again, but it’s a lie.

As much as I hate him, as much as I hate the way I feel after he’s fucked me, there’s no denying that my body wants him. It belongs to him without my consent.

In the days and nights that follow, I fall right back into bed with Damien. No amount of anger is strong enough to quench my desire for him. Every time I sleep with him, I hate myself, but I can’t seem to stop. The mind-numbing orgasms he gives me at night make being locked up all day more bearable. They’re something to look forward to.

I don’t push him away, even though letting him fuck me isn’t getting me any closer to my freedom. He still struggles to trust me. The only time I leave the stifling room is for dinner in the dining room.

As the days pass, Damien seems happier than ever, pretending we’re in wedded bliss.

Perhaps I should give in and accept my fate, but the faint stubborn streak inside of me refuses to let go completely. There has to be a way out.

The next time Damien is away, I spend some time roaming the room. It’s not that I want to acquaint myself with my surroundings, necessarily. But this is the room Damien sleeps in, which means he could’ve left pieces of himself lying around—snapshots of his life that would help me better understand him. Something I could use to destroy him.

Knowing I’m being watched, I’m careful not to act too suspicious, and pretend to be tidying up the place. After almost an hour, I find nothing noteworthy. It’s as though Damien moved into the room at the same time he brought me here. Apart from clothes and toiletries, I find no personal items. By the time I’m done snooping around, I’m bored out of my mind. There are no books for me to read or anything else for me to do here.

To occupy myself, I enter the walk-in wardrobe and sit down on one of the cushioned stools. My eyes take in all the clothes he’s bought for me, the clothes he delights in seeing me wear.

Not knowing what else to do, I stand and start pulling clothes off hangers, dropping them to the floor, where they form a sea of expensive fabrics. I take my time hanging them up again, which gives my hands something to do and prevents my wild thoughts from causing chaos in my mind.

It takes me another hour to tidy up the wardrobe again, but my reward is an exhaustion that makes me feel human.

I’m just about to walk out of the wardrobe again, to go lie down on the bed and count the minutes until lunch is served, when I spy a big white box at the top of one of the shelves. It’s too high for me to reach, so I climb on top of the stool I was sitting on earlier. I’m still unable to reach the box, so I fold a few pieces of clothing to pad the stool up some more and give me more height.

As I stretch my body and arms to reach the white box, I wonder if Damien has forgotten, or deliberately chosen, not to install cameras inside the wardrobe. Why else didn’t Adrian intervene when I turned the wardrobe upside down?

At this point I don’t care whether he’s watching or not. A moment later my curiosity has me wrapping my hands around the box and bringing it down with me.

A cloud of tulle and silk meets my gaze as I lift the mother-of-pearl cover. My brows draw together and my hands dig into the fragile fabric. I don’t need a label to tell me it’s a wedding dress. Is it the one I wore to our fake wedding?

The gown is beautiful: pure white, with pearls and crystals scattered over the bust.

Sitting down on the stool, I allow the dress to spill over my knees as I study each intricate detail. I don’t know what I’m searching for, what I want the dress to tell me, but I’m unable to stop the palms of my hands from sweeping over the fabric, my eyes following as though on a mission to uncover some kind of mystery.

I lift the dress to my nose and inhale deeply. In spite of its crisp new look, there’s a faint old, musty odor attached to it that screams “already been worn.”

“What’s your story?” I whisper, pinching a piece of tulle between my fingers.

A scratching sound outside the door of the suite brings me back to my senses, and I start to fold up the dress as best I can. A small tag in the lining catches my attention, and I brush wisps of tulle out of the way to lift the tag to my eyes. The tiny, cursive words are sewn in gold thread: Damien and Kristi Forever.

Alarm bells shrill inside my head as I quickly fold the dress and return it to its place on top of the shelves.

I return to the bedroom, hands clasped in front of me to stop them from shaking.

The fact that he used to be married isn’t what has my heart pounding. Plenty of people get married multiple times—they divorce, remarry, and move on. But I can’t shake the chill that’s running down my spine, telling me it wasn’t divorce that separated Damien and Kristi. Do I even want to know what happened?