Page 54 of Crushed
That darkness grew, making my body tight. Cormac had isolated his child here, inside the walls of his home. It might have been to protect her, but at what cost? Would she ever feel the sun on her skin?
“That’s no way for a child to live,” I said. “She needs to see the sun. Play in the grass.”
He held my shoulder. “And she will. Once I am confident that I’ll always be able to provide her with a safe home, and safety from disease.”
That kind of complete protection simply didn’t exist. But that must have been the real reason he went into pharmaceuticals, so that he would always have the latest and best protection for her.
It was admirable and bleak. His entire world was centered around protecting this smart, sweet little girl from the terrors of the world, and yet it was tragic too. There was no such thing as safety like that. Burying her inside of a fortress only presented her with other troubles, like the fact that she might not get the social skills she needed, seeing only adults. Isolation like this would probably affect her brain’s development too.
If my father had done that to me at ten years old, if he had survived, if he had tried to protect me from the world by sheltering me from the sun, would I have been grateful for his protection? Or would I have sunken down into depression?
But this was all Rose knew. What could I do to convince him to let her free? To give her some space to roam and play? She was just a kid.
“The Decadence Revelry is tomorrow night,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. I was grateful for the change in subject; I needed to think clearly before I could come up with a plan to help Rose. I hadn’t realized that the event was so soon. “I want you to attend as my property and my guest.”
Finally. I could do that. “What does that mean?” I asked.
“You will only speak when I speak to you. If anyone asks you a personal question, you will defer to me. I will send an outfit to the Dahlia District with instructions on how to wear your hair and makeup.”
I wasn’t sure what to think about this level of control. Did I like that he knew exactly what he wanted? Or was it too demeaning?
“If I force you to spread your legs, if I expose your ass to a crowd of onlookers, if I make you come in the middle of the ballroom, you’ll do it. You won’t hesitate to obey me.” His jaw was stern. “And Scarlett?”
“Yes?”
“Just because you’re my property doesn’t mean you’re not valued.” I raised a brow, and he rubbed a thumb across my chin. “Quite the opposite, in reality.”
“You value me?”
“I trust you,” he said. “That’s worth more than any value. Do you trust me?”
The entire universe wound down to this single question. All of our interactions had to do with whether or not we trusted each other. I had thought trusting Cormac would be impossible.
But the more I thought about it, the less I thought of Cormac like that. He was fucked up, and his sense of morality was skewed, but everything in his soul was rooted in his daughter, to protecting her.
Maybe he thought he was protecting me too by engaging in total power exchange.
“Yes,” I said. “I trust you.”
