Page 14 of Scent of Desire
I knocked again.
Still nothing.
Facing the silence, I turned away, surrendering to the evidence of his absence until a commanding voice penetrated my insides and froze me in place. “You can enter, Lily.”
I lowered the handle and slid the door open. I hoisted myself into his office fashioned from shadows and the chill of wintry wind, a lullaby of moonlight that held the tale of lost souls.
Radcliff’s shadow blanketed the cracking floor, the rays of the brindled light of dusk bypassing him. He was enthroned behind his wood desk, his spine straight and his palms further apart on each side of it. His face was closed off with merciless edges and his eyes impenetrable.
He rose from his regal silver-and-black leather chair, keeping his fists locked on the desk. He smoothed his tie and readjusted his five-piece suit, his eyes firmly set on my bouquet. He approached me with slow steps that echoed through the room to the point that the walls could shake with misery and misfortune.
“Flowers,” he stated bitterly as if I was holding the most repellent of things.
A shiver scoured through my back like a heavy draft, telling me to escape. His hard stare fired at mine, and cold crept underneath my skin.
“Yes, it’s a beautiful bouquet, right?”Please, say yes. I handed him the bouquet with moist, trembling hands, my heart slamming with apprehension. “What do you think?”
He seized the bouquet and observed it on each side with disdain. His lips twitched in an expression of disgust, and now I could only hear my heartbeats pounding in my ears. He clutched the fragile bouquet in a fist with all his strength and crushed the stems in his palm.
“What are you doing? You’re gonna kill them!” I shrieked. “Stop!”
Pitiless, he ditched the bouquet on the ground like it was nothing, and a silent scream tore my insides. I dug my nails inside my palms, feeling as if there was a rift breaking my heart into small pieces.
Radcliff crushed the flowers under his foot, bleeding and killing them without an ounce of humanity.
“Noooo!” I fell to my knees, my strength vanishing under this massacre.
My chin shook, all my hopes vaporizing into the decaying air. The walls seemed to shrink away, and the coldness of the office stole my warmth, my heart decaying. With a trembling hand, I reached for the petals, but I retracted it, feeling my eyes glistening.
“Why did you do that?” I screamed, madness tinting my heart with its bitter colors. “Are you crazy?”
He didn’t reply verbally, but a muscle in his jaw ticked. He was made of ruthless stone, shielding his heart from light and making sure nothing and no one would penetrate it.
I got up with a growing rage and spit the words with fury. “Why, Radcliff? Why would you—”
“Heoffered you those flowers.” The harshness of his words was cruel.
The entire mansion reflected Radcliff. The frost on the window widened, as if it was imprisoning the manor, condemning it to coldness. Spirits huffed through the halls, a dark sigh of despair. The high-pitched cries of the taps, as if the water had been tainted with acid.
“What are you talking—”Adonis.My lips parted, mist escaping my mouth.“You saw Adonis and me today.”
“I did,” he ground out between clenched teeth, towering over me with all his terror. “I should make you pay for this.”
“I think you already did.” My temper sparked, glancing at the crushed flowers. The fresh swell of revenge rose in me like a tide and festered in me. “Plus, I can see whoever I want. You don’t own me.”
“Oh, but I do, little witch.”
Before I could open my mouth to retort, he had pinned me against the wall, brimming with hostility. My stomach coiled. His hand gripped my throat, and the darkness in his raven eyes defied mine as the purple shades of chaos inside his gaze confronted the golden magic inside mine. His muscles tensed, and flames of anger licked through him like the most hellish fire.
“You’re. Fucking. Mine,” he articulated so close to my neck in a dangerous whisper, his fingers clasping on my waist. I was at his mercy. “You let him offer you those ridiculous flowers as if you were his, and on top of that, you made him come to my property. Don’t fucking betray me like that ever again, or I’ll kill him, and I’ll deliver the picturesque scent of his corpse to you as a gift.”
“What? I didn’t even know he’d be here!” I locked my eyes firmly with his. “You have to believe me. He was worried—you misunderstood. I was just being a good friend, nothing more.”
“And now, thanks to you, your little Junior will taste how it feels to defy me,” he snarled with malicious glee, his lips sketching into a dark sneer.
His gaze dropped to the hold he had on me, then to my eyes. With gritted teeth, he released me from his grip and turned around, pacing back to his window. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding, shivers of bitterness running through my body.
“Leave,” he ordered, his back facing me and the mist of his breath stretching against the glass.
