Page 19 of Redemption

“But you like when I make you cry.”

I gape at him even as my stomach turns at the truth in his words.

“Not like this.” I force the denial through my constricted throat. “And never again. I trusted you. I thought I knew you.”

His eyes flash. “You do know me. I’ve let you see me in a way I’ve never shown myself to anyone. You chose me. You love me.”

“Stop saying that!” My words are roughened by desperation. I think I’ll vomit if he says it again. “How can I love a stranger? How can I love the masked man who assaulted me?”

He shakes his head, as though my words irritate him like swarming gnats.

“You weren’t supposed to find out about that.”

“You think that’s the problem here? That I found out, not that you attacked me in my home?” I glower at him, allowing him to see the depth of my disgust. “I know what you really are now. I could never love you after what you did to me.”

He blinks, and his expression smooths to stony, unfeeling planes once again. “You’re upset. I understand that you didn’t agree to leave Charleston. But things will be better for you now. You don’t have to scrape by with your barista job anymore. You don’t have to live in that shitty old apartment. I’ll provide a life for you that you deserve, Abigail.”

My jaw goes slack for a moment. The depth of his delusion is truly unfathomable.

“I want the life I built for myself.” I defy him. “I don’t want anything from you. I want to go home and never see you again.”

His eyes narrow. “That’s not happening. You’re mine. Nothing will change that.”

“Saying I’m yours doesn’t make it true,” I shoot back. “I won’t willingly give myself to you.”

“You signed the contract,” he reminds me.

“I signed a contract with the man I met at the café. I signed myself over to the Dane that I knew. The Dane who promised to protect me and honor my consent. You are not that man.”

A shadow flutters at his jaw. “You didn’t meet me at the café. You don’t even remember the night we met because you drank too much and blacked it out. Do you know how maddening it was to see you all those mornings, and you looked at me like I was just another customer? Like we hadn’t shared something unique?”

“What are you talking about?” I demand.

“We met at the bar a few nights after I moved to Charleston. You told me your dark desires, and I let you see a glimpse of the real me. You wanted me then, and I only let you go when I realized you were too drunk. I didn’t want you to regret being with me.

So, I found out where you worked. I approached you the next morning, and you had no idea who I was. What we had shared. What we could have been so much sooner if you hadn’t been so stubbornly evasive.”

My mouth opens and then closes. I’m not sure what to say in response to this new revelation. It’s not completely unbelievable that I might’ve had too much to drink on a night out; I like a cocktail or three to ease my inhibitions when I go dancing.

I think back to that first morning I met him—the first time I remember meeting him.

He’d acted so strange at the café. Intense and familiar in a way that unnerved me.

But then, I convinced myself that I’d just been nervous because he’s so gorgeous. I could barely look at him when he came in for his daily Americano because he’s intimidatingly handsome.

Now I know that he made me nervous because deep down, part of me knew he was a predator. I have no idea whathappened between us at the bar, but it must’ve been dark enough to set my senses on high alert in his presence. That giddy, fizzy hit of adrenaline had made me enamored with him on our first date.

I didn’t recognize the thrill for what it was: a primal warning of danger.

My mind catches on something odd that he just said. “And how did you know where I worked?”

His gaze cuts away from mine for a heartbeat, and then his eyes narrow with something like defiance.

“I followed you home when you left the bar. You stumbled off before we could truly get to know each other. How else was I supposed to find you again?”

He makes stalking me sound so reasonable.

“You could have simply asked for my number, like a normal man.”

---