Page 17 of Enraptured

“You keep hurting me.”

“I know.”

“Will you ever stop?”

“Probably not.”

“I wish I never applied for a job on the Oasis.”

He doesn’t respond but takes me by the elbow guiding me out of the room. When we reach the ornate formal dining room, he pulls out my chair indicating I should sit. Then he takes his seat at the head of the table, which is to my right.

A man dressed in a formal butler’s uniform enters carrying two piping hot bowls of soup on a silver tray.

“What is the place, Downton Abbey?”

Christos frowns not understanding my dry humor. “It’s my mother’s ancestral home. It’s been in her family since the Victorian Age. I grew up here. Well, before my father sent me to boarding school in Scotland.”

“Is that where you met Alex?”

He dips his head. “I don’t remember telling you that.”

“You didn’t.”

He picks up his spoon but waits for me to explain. “I looked you up on the internet. One article mentioned you and Alex went to school together…”

His face darkens, my face heats. Great. Just when I thought I might be able to keep the sane Christos from hurting me, I had to remind him about the internet and the day he found me emailing his records mistakenly believing I was feeding the social media paparazzi information about his personal life.

“Alex is…well, Alex. He has extreme tastes…isn’t always a good man. But then again, neither am I. He was abused. His father beat him. When we met at school…the other boys sensed his weakness, that he had different sexual tastes. But he was the only one who talked to me. He went missing one day. Never showed up for class. I found him curled up in a ball under a canoe. They beat the shit out of him. Both his eyes were swollen shut. He was fourteen. He couldn’t see and screamed thinking I was one of the boys that beat him. I carried him inside to the infirmary. Slept in a cot next to his making sure no one but the doctor came near him. He had two broken ribs, a broken nose and PTSD. Don’t mistake me for having any feelings about it. It was pure instinct. I made sure he physically healed. But he’s saved me as much as I saved him. Alex was the first person I told my secret to. At that point only my mother guessed I was different. Alex listened as I poured out everything. When I was done, he sat up, still blind with his eyes swollen shut and told me I’d be okay. That he’d help me survive. And he did. He taught me how to fake my way through life, smile for the cameras, laugh at jokes and fool the world. I’m loyal to him for life, no matter who he is. I accept him, just as he accepted me all those years ago.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, little one…no one made me want to try. I just accepted who I was. But you—you made me want to try to actually live instead of just pretending to live. But as you know, I couldn’t process the emotions that ripped through me. It’s safer for you if I let them go. But I can’t ever let you go, knowing you have the power to rip me apart.”

“That makes no sense Christos. Keeping me here will rip you apart. Set me free, pretend I don’t exist…drop me off in Siberia. Let me go. Setting me free will release you. You’ll see.”

“Noagápe. The thought of you loving another man…being with another man—getting married, having a family—enraged me. If I can’t have that with you, no one will. You can’t meet anyone else to fall in love with living inside my tower.”

“Are you serious? I’m barely twenty-three. Are you saying you are denying me the chance to have a normal life out of spite? That you plan to keep me here, aging, year after year until I die?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. But we’ll age together, little dove. You’ll have me.”

“I don’t want you. I want my life back.”

“I’ll give you anything but that.”

“There’s nothing more to discuss. And don’t you dare think—I’ll spread my legs for you. I’m not your whore…your consort or anything but a woman who’s being kept against her will.” I push back my chair, throw down my napkin and bolt from the table. I yank the French doors open, walking out into the cold fall night. He has the sense not to follow me. A twig snaps causing me to turn around, holding my hands out defensively. My fists clench. I can see him, sitting at the table. Eating his dinner without a care in the world. So calm. So, collected.

It’s dark out here. So dark the sky’s littered with stars, as many stars as you can see from the bow of boat out on the ocean. The wind picks up, either I’m delusional or it carries the smell of salt and the sea. We must be close. If that’s true, maybe there’s a chance I can escape his latest prison. I keep walking into the night, hearing the sounds of animals all around me. Crickets, hooting owls, howling wolves… I walk towards the sounds, dressed for a ball. It’s surreal. Everything is since the moment my foot stepped off the dock that day in Capri and I boarded the Oasis. Christos doesn’t live in the real world. He never did. But now I’m trapped in his demented fairy tale. I laugh out loud to the full moon. How fitting I’m his muse. I’m a far cry from a perfect princess with my gap teeth, knotted hair and tomboy frame.

For once, I wish I was beautiful. Maybe then he wouldn’t have looked twice at me. I’d be living my life or at least figuring out what to do with it.

The lights from his cold castle fade in the distance as I walk further into the forest. Streams rush over rocks; thick ferns brush against my gown. Being outside in nature helps lift the oppressive aura choking my heart.

“I wouldn’t go any further miss.”

I twirl around, at the man leaning against a tree with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. A long gun hangs from his shoulder.

“There’s a pack of wolves that roam these woods. They’re protected in the national park but if they cross onto Mr. Devillo’s land I have permission to shoot.”

I shudder. Christos isEl Diablo,but he never made my skin crawl the way this man does.

“Who are you?”

He doesn’t reply, but slips back into the shadows, disappearing. I linger a bit longer, but my feet are two blocks of ice. I had no idea my night would end up in the middle of the woods when I put on the silk ballerina slippers.

The house is silent when I slip back inside. But I know he’s watching. He’s always watching me. I slip off the ruined shoes, holding them in one hand as I walk up the spiraled staircase to my room. I breathe a sigh of relief that he’s not in it. I’m not sure how much longer he’ll wait. I remember the things he said…how he touched me when we were on the plane. He wants me. Burns for my body…the same way mine does for him. But my body and mind have severed. One wants nothing to do with him while the other just wants to be under him.

I sigh, holding my hands to the crackling fire someone lit in the fireplace on the opposite wall from my bed.

What a pretty hell I’ve landed in.

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