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Maeve has no idea how important she is to me. How badly I tried to keep this from her so she would never find herself in this position. How many times during their friendship has Ada covered for me? To ensure that Maeve doesn't stray from the life goal that she had always set for herself. How many times have the two of us gone above and beyond to hide things from her? Even though she could understand the essentials of our life, we all decided—my parents included—that she would be kept out of it.
All of that work,yearsof being careful in my own home, undone just like that because of a mistake.
If she leaves this room in the state that she’s in currently, my men will call for her death. They will follow me, of course, but it’s still too close to my father’s passing for them to not questionmy reasoning. Her safety is and always has been my top priority. Which means that she’s not leaving this fucking room until she calms the hell down and listens to reason.
Carefully, because I know how much the apron means to her, I fold it and turn it over in my hands as I take another step into the room. Surely she has realized that there is nowhere for her to run in the damned bathroom.
“We both know that you’re not going to call the damned cops, Maeve,” I speak calmly as if she were a frightened animal. But try as I might, I cannot get the razor’s edge out of my voice. If I fail to get through to her, then there will be no choice but to keep her here as my captive.
Not that it would be a hardship to have a stunningly beautiful woman locked in my bedroom, waiting for me. I fiddle with the straps of the apron, pulling the cords around in my hands as I advance on Maeve. Her eyes dart to the door like she’s going to make a run for it. I’m counting on it actually. I rather hope that she does.
“Yes. I am,” she seethes, gritting her teeth at me. “You can’t stop me.”
“I think you will find that I can,” I answer.
“Fuck you, Cristiano!” She screams, making her move.
She should be ashamed of herself as it is so damned easy to catchher. She bolts, and I quickly wrap an arm around her waist to draw her back into me. In the next instant, I lassoher hands with the apron's straps, pinning them down at her sides. She virtually froths at the mouth as she struggles in my arms. She doesn't realize how much I've always liked her fiery side. Her temper is unmatched. I've never been shy about playingwith fireand hers is undoubtedly the most alluring.
Her back is pinned to my chest and I have an arm banded around her middle. The scent of her shampoo covers my face as she writhes in a futile attempt to free herself.
“Why don’t you stop fighting me so that we can get to the crux of the issue? Hm?” I breathe in her ear. My lips brush against her soft hair, and I have to fight to keep my mind from running away with me. “Not that I’m opposed to keeping you in my arms like this.”
“Now isn’t the time for your damned games, Cristiano!” She hisses in response.
She’s never taken a single one of my offers seriously. No matter how obvious I feel like I’m being, she always assumes that my suggestive comments are just me teasing her. Perhaps the mistake that I made was refusing to be even slightly violent around her. I’ve kept that side of myself completely hidden.
“No games, Maeve, just conversation. You want to tell me how you feel about what you saw?!”
“What are you now, my damned murder therapist?! Let me go!”
She tries to throw herself back,and I stop her. I turn us so that she is completely immobile and wedged between the bathroom counter and me. I can’t help but smirk. She must hatebeing pinned more than any other feeling or ideagoing through her mind. She's not even looking at me, even with the mirror right in front of her face.
I can’t stand that.
My free hand lifts, gripping her chin to force her to look up at me in the mirror. I hold her gaze, noting the flush to her cheeks, the red nearly drowning out the freckles that I adore. All I see is temper. I should be relieved. In the basement, I was so afraid to look her in the eye because if I had just inadvertently changed everything between us, I didn’t want to know. But of course, it did. She can’t see me torturing a man and then be the same. I stand here, all bloody, and yet, the longer I look at her, forcing her to look at me back, something shifts. Something in her deep brown eyes seems to soften. Does her inquisitive side overrule the fear that I’ve instilled in her?
“I know that you have questions, and I intend to answer the ones I can, and I know that you want to know what the man was saying about your mother. I understand that too. Maeve, I am not the enemy here and I need you to work with me, now more than ever,” I say plainly. There’s no point in beating around the bush. “To be frank, if you are not willing to work with me, your options are going to become very limited, very quickly.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I am merely telling you the facts.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Maeve snorts and tries to wrench out of my hold once more.
“We can’t take back what happened. Did I want you in the basement? Absolutely not. I would not have chosen this life for you, and I still wouldn’t, but we have no choice now. The damage has been done. The only choice moving forward is handling what you know.”
Above all else, my men will demand a damned good reason for letting her live. The obvious answer isn’t one that she’s going to like, even if it has been something that I’ve considered a great many times over the course of my life. She will never know just how many times her image crosses my mind late at night, how her voice has lingered in the back of my head for years.
“And what options are those?”
“I have a bargain for you, one that will ensure that we both get what we want.”
“I don’t care what you want.”
“Yes. You do,” I smirk.
She softens in my hold. I know for a fact that she didn’t mean to. She might claim otherwise, but she likes it a whole hell of a lot when I tell her what to do.
