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“No.”
“Please,” I say in a desperate exhale. My shot at freedom is slipping through my fingers.
The sound of his fist slamming against the desk makes me jump. “I said,no.” he snarls, “I don’t need help with my accounts, little girl. And certainly not from you.”
Little girl.Heat rises to my cheeks, along with a flurry of anger. “You do,” I snap back, “they are an absolute shit show—if you keep hemorrhaging money at this rate, this time next year you won’t have a business—”
He rounds the table in two strides and cups his hands around my face. Not with the tenderness he did last night in his office. Nor with the passion he had before he flipped me over and spanked me in the Museum. No, his grip is vice-like, harsh. My eyes are trained on his lips as they curl into a cruel line. “You’re overstepping the mark, Miss Murphy. You need to remember your place. You’re nothing but a hole with a heartbeat, one that I’ll fuck whenever I please.”
His voice is low and scary, and I immediately pity any of his enemies who have had to hear that in a dark alley somewhere.
A knock on the door cuts through the tension. “Go away,” he snarls, eyes never leaving me.
Orna’s voice floats under the door crack. “It’s important.”
Lorcan’s jaw ticks and his lips purse, before he lets me go.
“Fuck you,” I rasp, the memory of his grip still burning my cheekbones, “I hate you, I hate you so goddamn much, Lorcan Quinn. Whoever you’re trying to protect yourself from,” I stab in the direction of the window with a trembling finger, towards the security lining the bushes, “Whoever is after you, I hope they win. I hope they find you and I hope they kill you. And I hope it’s a slow, painful death.”
Before he can respond, I turn on my heels and fling open the door, pushing past Orna and running down the hall.
I have no idea where I’m going. No idea what corridor will lead to a dead-end, and what will lead me further into the Devil’s lair.
“Poppy, wait!” Orna’s voice sounds a million miles away; I can barely hear her over the blood thumping around my ears. She catches up with me fast, wrapping her soft hands around my waist.
She whispers, “I could hear you screaming and I thought it best if I interrupted.”
Only now do I realize I’m sobbing. “I hate him. I really, really hate him.”
She guides me through the corridors and down the stairs, until the sun I was enjoying so much a few moments earlier is beating down on my back again. Only this time, it burns, the rays boring into my skin like a million angry lasers. “I just want to go to bed,” I mutter, wiping my blurry eyes.
Orna nods, saying nothing, but takes me back to the museum and lets me in. I’m numb as she helps me slide on my pajamas and tucks me into bed. “Are you going to be okay?” she asks, perching on the bottom of the mattress, concern clouding her big amber eyes.
No. No I’m not.
Did I really expect Lorcan Quinn to give me a little more freedom? No, not really. But I’m just tired. Tired of being held captive. Tired of living under the Devil’s reign of terror.
It’s never going to end.
Without another word, I roll over and close my eyes, burying my head between the gap in the pillows. “I’ll let you sleep,” she soothes, patting my leg, before I feel her weight leaving the bed.
But I don’t sleep, not until the sun starts to set, anyway. Instead, I soak the pillows with my tears, letting the feather-down filling muffle my sobs. And only when I have nothing left in me, I give in to sleep.
Poppy
The scraping of the lock rips me from my bad dream.
“Great,” I grumble into the darkness.
From the frying pan into the fire; from a nightmare into another nightmare.
A sliver of light seeps into the crack, followed by footsteps so heavy that they could only belong to the Devil.
“Leave me alone, Lorcan,” I say, my throat dry and raspy. “If you’re not going to let me go, then leave me be. I’ll stay in this Museum every day for the rest of my life if it means never having to see you again.”
Silence fills the room. When it’s borderline suffocating, I peer out from under the cover and at the black mass looming over me. He’s so still that he could be a statue. “Lorcan?” I mutter, fear swelling in the pit of my stomach.
Finally, his gruff voice fills the black abyss between us. It’s strangled, like each word is fighting to leave his lips. “I hate seeing you cry.”
