Page 33 of Coercion

I need to wash.

I’m surprised Preston didn’t fling me straight into the bathroom and make me take a cold shower while he watched. I guess I should be grateful he’s not that kind of a pervert.

I run my thumb over the tiny wound in my arm and I’m half tempted to grab a knife and try to gouge the tracker out, though I suspect that won’t work.

I’m fucked.

Completely and utterly fucked.

I slump against the wall, sink down to the floor and let my despair take me, heaving as each sob racks through my body. Once more, I’m on the losing side. Once more, I’m at the mercy of all these arseholes surrounding me.

Only when I can cry no more do I force myself to take a shower.

The bathroom is so big it has an actual antique couch in it, complete with a gilded frame. I drape a towel over the back before turning the handles for the multiple jets that make up the shower unit.

It sprays out at so many angles that, when I step in, my body instantly relaxes despite how frazzled I am. The only toiletries are the ones Preston uses, so I wash my hair with an all-in-one shampoo and conditioner and then I use a shower gel that smells so much like him, I can’t decide if I love or hate it.

Still, it beats the old cracked bar of soap I had back at my uncle’s house.

When I get out, it takes a full ten minutes to ease the knots out of my hair. I don’t have any brush so I have to use my hands, working each strand free. I used to be so prideful of my looks. I used to spend hours learning how to apply makeup from online tutorials and then removing it all before my parents would find out and tell me off.

With my ancestry, my hair is seriously prone to frizz but there’s nothing I can do to help that. I don’t have any products,I don’t even have a band to tie it back. When I was younger my mother used to braid my hair, create intricate styles and weave it all on my head like it was some sort of crown. I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to replicate it.

I let out a sigh, making my way back to the master suite, where a huge dressing room is stacked with my husband’s things.

My husband.

He had me sprawled on that bed, he could have done what he wanted and yet, once again, he didn’t hurt me. Didn’t even beat me for publicly insulting him the way I did by running. Am I fooling myself that Preston isn’t quite the monster I believed him to be? Sure, he’s dangerous, possessive, damned right deadly when pushed, but then the fact he hasn’t fucked me doesn’t exactly make him a saint, does it?

My fingers brush against the fine suits that hang, one after another on the racks. He has shirts too. And ties. It’s all so organised like he’s a neat freak and that thought makes me smile. My father had actual OCD. He had a place for everything and nothing was ever put away wrong or there was hell to pay.

I let out a sigh, pulling a shirt from a hanger. I can hardly stay in this robe all day. As the silk touches my skin, I shut my eyes. It feels so soft. And the fact that it smells of him? Yeah, I’ll admit that I like that, that in a way it’s calming, grounding even.

In the mirror, I check I look decent enough. My legs are so long that the shirt comes to a stop well above my knees. I look sexier than I mean to but I guess that can’t be helped.

When I make my way downstairs, there’s a man waiting for me. He’s in a suit that tells me he’s staff but he’s smiling kindly enough as if I hadn’t made a bid for freedom and gotten two men killed as a result.

“Mrs Civello,” He says. “I’m Sidney, the butler, your husband has asked me to give you a proper tour of your home.”

“Please, call me Ruby.” I say trying not to flinch at the word ‘home’. Besides, Mrs Civello sounds so formal. It sounds so not me.

“As you wish.” Sidney smiles, before putting his hand out, directing me ahead.

I don’t know what I had planned, I only came down because I could hardly hide up in my room all day and yet a tour doesn’t sound so bad. At least then it might feel like this house is less of a gilded cage.

We walk from one ornate room to the next. Sidney tells me what each one is and for some it’s hard not to giggle because it’s so obvious I don’t really need someone to announce that it’s the ‘kitchen’ or the ‘library’. But I let him continue. Clearly, he has a set route for this.

When he opens the door to Preston’s office, I pause, staring back at him in disbelief. I’m allowed to see this? I’m allowed to even be in this part of the house?

“Nowhere is off limits.” Sidney says, as though reading my mind.

I can’t understand that. How can I be allowed in there? Surely my husband has secrets he doesn’t want me to know about? Would Preston know if I rifled through his papers, through his drawers? Is this another test for me?

My mind flickers back to Gunnar’s words, that I’m to be a spy, it’s like Preston already suspects it, like he’s laid a trap and is just waiting for me to fall right into it.

I let out a nervous sigh, deciding that right now, I need to do exactly what my mother did when she first married my father. I need to play it safe. Learn the lay of the land.

I can’t escape - Preston has already seen to that, but I am safer here than I was with my uncle. Maybe I can win my new husband to my side. Maybe I can do what Gunnar instructed me to do, seduce my husband, make him fall for me, only, Iwon’t betray him the way Gunnar wants, I won’t screw him or Nico Morelli over the way they have planned. Preston has had so many opportunities to hurt me, to treat me the way Levi and Gunnar expect and yet he hasn’t, not once. He keeps asking me to trust him and while that feels so far from possible right now, maybe staying hereismy best option.

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