35. WOOED
PANDORA
The last few days have been strange. I have the oddest sensation of being, what… wooed? Does that even happen nowadays?
I had no idea how much time Leon spends indoors. I guess when your club is connected to your apartment, all you need is supplies of the solid kind—food—but even so, unless this week is different, Leon must be quite the homebody.
In the morning, he’s all tousled when he gets up to make us coffee. I’m always hung over and my limbs stiff from dancing and Leon’s after-hours “workout” regime. Every day we get up past noon, and now I’m at his breakfast table. Bleary-eyed, I study him with my head heavy in my hands.
Predictably, he’s beautiful today too. Those wintery blue eyes and the pale tan beneath his raven-colored bangs seem to be eternally accentuated by an almost indistinguishable smirk. I know nothing about this man; the mystery he surrounds himself with hasn’t decreased even though we spend twenty-four hours a day together.
At the club, Leon doesn’t usually raise his voice to make people obey. His presence fills the room at his will, and his staff follows his instructions to a T. Me, I’m just glad for the way he occupies my days. If only he could saturate my thoughts too.
Out of habit, I scour the kitchen with my eyes in search of my phone. It disappeared already on my first day here, so it’s not that I expect to find it. I must have removed it from my purse at some point that night, because nothing else is missing.
I’m having withdrawals. Not from my friends or my parents. After all, Shannon and the rest of the girls will be here soon, and I’m relieved as hell to be away from Mom and Dad.
No, it’s from Dominic; I miss him. His texts. Our phone conversation on my last night at home left my heart in shambles. When I heard his voice again, everything we shared while he was in Deepsilver, everything he did for me—all of our chats before I stopped accepting his calls—flooded in. Dominic has taken over every brain cell I own.
Yes, they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but for me it’s not just fonder. I’m in love. I really, truly am in love with this guy, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Another glance over the table reminds me of how I’m using Leon. I fold my arms around my waist, hugging myself. Though Leon practices a rough, angry sort of sex—and frequently too—he is good to me and doesn’t deserve my fake company.
He narrows his eyes as he passes me the mug of coffee, one cream and two sugars as I asked for.
“What’s going on, Pandora?” he demands in the no-nonsense tone he pulls off so well. I’m physically attracted to him, but it’s not enough for me. Unintentionally, I find myself playing a role, and I feel dirty.
“I miss my phone,” I say, because I have no interest in divulging my mixed feelings. Am I “dirty” when Leon and I are exclusive? Am I a slut for being with him when I love someone else? Who am I wronging here? Leon, for exaggerating my dedication to him? Dominic, because I should be honest, tell him how I feel? Then, it hits me, and it’s so obvious. More than anyone, I’m wronging myself.
I’m wronging myself.
“We’ll get you a new phone, Pandora,” Leon decides. “I get no-markup deals from the owner of Phone-Biz down the street. He’ll be back from Florida by New Year’s.”
I don’t remember Dominic’s number, but once I buy a new phone, I’ll get my old number back. God, I hope he doesn’t give up on texting me in the meantime.
“You can always borrow my cell or the office phone,” Leon continues.
I reach over and caress his cheek. It’s strange with Leon. He doesn’t stop me, but to touch him outside of sex seems like an intrusion. He holds my gaze calmly until I lower my hand. Then, he takes it and kisses my fingertips.
Leon is an excellent distraction, but at the moment, it’s not working. “I’m going shopping today,” I inform him.
“Sure, I’ll take you on the motorcycle.” He drops my hand and gets up. Starts rummaging for something in a drawer. His keys, I think.
“No Leon, I can walk to Target—I just want air. We’ve been cooped up for a while, here.” My laughter comes out forced; I crave alone-time but I don’t want to be impolite.
He surprises me by clouding over. “You’re better off with company, Pandora. What if your father is in Deepsilver searching for you?”
“What? Nu-huh, he wouldn’t hang around, especially not when I promised to check in with him so soon. New Year’s is tomorrow.”
He sinks down on his haunches in front of me, steadies my chin, and drills his gaze into me. “Let’s play it safe for a while, shall we? I won’t be able to forgive myself if he finds you and I’m not there.”
This is Leon unleashing all of his discrete authority. It’s what causes people to listen without question, and his commands are disturbingly easy to follow. I lean back in the chair, relaxing at his tone of voice, because maybe, just maybe, he’s right.
“Call me overprotective,” he adds, his pitch softening, and that, right there, is what raises the hairs on my neck. My brain fights my emotions in a fast, inner dialog.
“Overprotective!”
No, he’s keeping you safe, Pandora.
But safe from who… Dad? Myself?
He’s controlling me!
I inhale, using all my restraint not to show how disturbed I am, because I’m at his house, in the lion’s den—he’s got the keys, the lock, my stuff in his room. I have no phone, nowhere to live until my friends arrive, I—
I should have gone to a hotel!
The room is closing in, but I have to pull off another twenty-four hours. I can’t overreact, let this suffocate me.
Focus: tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.
My dad, in the shape of a young, handsome club owner, lifts me to my feet and embraces me. I push the comparison away before the need to throw up overpowers me. My survival instinct keeps me from launching into panic mode as an unsuspecting Leon bites my neck lightly.
“You want to change before we leave?” he chuckles, bright gaze flowing over my robe and bunny slippers.
“Yep,” I chirp. “Be right out.”
I feel better once we’re at the mall. With other customers chattering and bickering, milling around and getting their New Year’s party shopping done, my claustrophobia from Leon’s apartment slowly dissipates. I’m even able to detach the idea of my father from him.
I take my sweet time checking out clothes. I’d love to wear Leon out. If he shows any sign of becoming impatient, I’ll simply tell him I’ll take a taxi back.
I need to not lose my cool at the same time as I make the hours pass by until Shannon arrives. At the moment, this means sliding through every clothing store at turtle pace with Leon patiently flanking me.
Under other circumstances, I’d be ecstatic to have someone like him carrying my bags. Tall, dark, and handsome, he catches the eye of the female mall population. Leon doesn’t seem to notice, though, because his attention doesn’t stray from me. I unintentionally giggle at an especially pretty dress, and his smile widens as if he enjoys this as much as I do.
“That a good one?” he asks sweetly, and it’s hard to connect him to the authoritative figure I saw only hours ago.
“It’s fricking awesome,” I burst out.
“Yeah, well, you’d be hot as hell in it, tell you that much.”
I’ve got money on my credit cards. That’s one thing my parents have never skimped on with me. But whenever I have what I want in a store, Leon lifts a brow and flicks his gaze pointedly between my steals and me as if saying, “Are you set?”
“Done,” I reply out loud, which prompts him to snatch the entire heap from my arms and get in line to pay.
Considering my plan for tomorrow—leaving him—I can’t accept this. What I should have known, though, is that no amount of begging or coercion works when Leon’s got his mind set on something.
I give up after the third store. Neither of my plans succeed. Not once am I allowed to pay, and I don’t have the skillset needed to wear out the patient sphinx of a man waiting for me to finish my spree. Shop ’till you drop, right? Well, I drop before he does.
Three hours later, Leon has me pressed against the koi-shaped sculpture of a Vegas-sized fountain in the mall patio. We’re surrounded by enormous shopping bags brimming over with amazing clothes and shoes. Leon’s body is hard against me, and the hand he’s wound around my ponytail tugs my head back, opening my throat up for his mouth. Against it, he tells me why he steered me away from the mall’s phone store.
“You don’t want to spend your money on cheap phones that work for five minutes, Pandora. Tomorrow, my friend’s back in town, and he’ll set you up with an iPhone again.”
I’m excited about the clothes. I can’t deny the rush his lips cause as they move over my skin. But the control he wields over me causes the dread to grow stronger by the second.
“You’re right,” I whisper, because I don’t want to cause a fight. I can’t see an outcome where me fighting with Leon turns out in my favor.
“Do you know how gorgeous you are?” he whispers to me, something akin to tenderness seeping into his eyes.
“You think?” I say, because I have nothing else to say.
“Yes, I think,” he hums out, kissing my lips. I want to turn away after everything he’s stirred up in me today, but I can’t. Again I can’t. It’s instinctual self-preservation.
“You, Pandora—” he starts, smattering kisses that are much softer than any he’s given me before down my neck, “are so perfectly flawed. So broken, so beautiful.”
But I’m not damaged. I’m just on hiatus. I’ll get there. I’ve got plans and stuff to do as soon as the semester starts. I won’t become one of his prized, broken dolls.
He wouldn’t like the way I’m thinking, though, so I peck him back and slowly ease out of his arms. “Where’s the restroom here?” I ask in a bright voice. As if I haven’t been here before.
“I’ll show you, sugar.” He grabs ten bags and lets me carry the small one with the necklace he picked out for me. Then, he interlaces our fingers and starts walking ahead of me.
“I’ll pay you fifteen dollars if you lend me your cell phone and don’t tell anyone,” I whisper to a wide-eyed tween in the ladies’ room. I’m probably overreacting, but I can hardly breathe right now. Without a word, the girl holds out an empty palm, ready to accept my money. Seconds later, she watches slack-jawed as I sob my way into a conversation with Shannon.
“Shannon?”
“Pan! Damn, girl—you could have called, you know. Did you drop off the face of the earth? What’s that number? New phone?”
“No, I’m borrowing one… from a girl,” I sniff.
Shannon is quiet for an instant while I try to subdue the urge to cry.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “Did you get yourself into trouble again? Gah, I swear, Pandora.”
I swallow the lump in my throat so I can explain myself. “Shannon, I’m all right, but I… Crap, I—”
“You’re freaking me out.”
“Christian hasn’t told you?”
She growls on the phone. “All he’s told me is that you’re fine, that he sees you around, that you’ve lost your phone, blah, blah, but when I ask him to put you on, you’re either not there, or he… Never mind.”
“He what?” I grab a paper towel and dab below the eyeliner.
“Nothing. Just starts phone-sexing me, or whatever.”
“How romantic,” I joke.
“What was he supposed to tell me? I’m going to kill him, or, or—wait—not—have sex with him when I come back tomorrow!”
That makes me laugh. “Who’s the punishment for? Him or you?”
She huffs angrily. “Spill, Pandora.”
“Don’t be mad at him. He’s just being loyal to his boss. But yeah, I forgot the key to the apartment, and I’ve been living with Leon since I got here.”
Her stunned silence says it all.
“You’re living at his place? Pan, you’re not in a relationship with him now, are you? I mean, your no-strings thingy before Christmas was bad enough…”
I can’t even go there, so I tell her the most important part. How he’s not letting me out of his sight and how trapped I feel.
“Get out of there,” she almost yells. “He’s flipping creepy, Pandora. Dude’s trying to possess you!”
“Shannon, I’m trying to be smart. I can’t take any chances on Leon snapping while I have nowhere to go and no friends around. I’ll wait it out—wait for you guys to come.”
She heaves out frustrated air. “Okay, I’m calling Dominic,” she says. “No, wait—you remember his number?”
“No, I—”
“I’ll give it to you.”
God, it’s tempting. I flick a glance at the little girl I borrowed the phone from. I’ve been on the phone for ten minutes already. She’s chewing the cuticle off of a finger, waiting for me to finish.
Ha, I’d be true to form, impulse-calling Dominic all upset. He can’t exactly skip on over and save the day either. Yeah, how about I think of what’s best for him? This whole situation would make him so frustrated, and he doesn’t need that right now.
“No, Shannon, don’t. I can do this. Leon is waiting for me outside the bathroom door, probably wondering by now—I have to go. You’ll be here in no time at all. I just have to fend Leon off for twenty-four hours,” I whisper. “Tomorrow night we’ll be back in our apartment, and I’ll call Dominic then.”
Yeah, tomorrow I’ll call him. Tomorrow!
A rush of happiness races through me at the thought. I’m going to fess up. Dominic can do whatever he wants with it—probably nothing—but at least I’ll tell him how I feel about him.
As I walk out into the corridor, Leon’s glittering gaze flows up to meet mine from his lounged posture against the wall. “Ready?” he asks, like he’s a regular boyfriend, someone who’d never inhibit a girl’s every move. Smother her.
I might be wrong about Leon. For all I know, what I sense from him might be pure imagination. But even if it is, with the nerves he has awakened in me, the temporary relief he gave me before has vanished.
To shield my thoughts, I wink at him, allowing a perky chin pump to confirm that he’s right. “Yes sir, I’m ready to get outta here.”
A New Year’s resolution brews in my mind, and I smile. But first, I’ll have to close out this tired, old year. The only way I know how to stop wronging myself emotionally relies on harming my body one last time.
I sneak a swift glimpse at my watch. I’m so jittery I half expect Leon to interrogate me about counting hours. I’m glad he doesn’t, because it would be hard to lie. It’s six p.m. In two hours the doors open at Smother, and I can begin the last, fast breakdown of myself in the name of freedom. Of not surrendering to Leon—to anyone—ever again.