Page 16 of Scorched Rose

“Looks like you won’t having any dinner tonight, Miss Hemingway,” he said, with a tone of utter boredom.

“You can’t keep me locked in here. It’s imprisonment,” I rushed out.

He turned his back to me and walked through the door.

“It’s illegal!” I scrambled to my feet. “I want to leave. Now.”

I ran the three paces to the door only to feel a whoosh of air as it slammed shut. I launched for the handle but just as it turned, so did the key in the lock.

“This is AGAINST THE LAW,” I yelled. “It’s kidnapping.”

A low voice fed itself round the edge of the door. “Not on this island it isn’t.”

I staggered backwards until I felt the edge of a glass coffee table at the back of my knees. Then, fuelled with absolute rage, I spun around, lifted it off its three legs and hurled it at the wall.

Dax

It tookeverything in me to not slam the door so hard it shattered the eighteenth century frame. Rage levitated me and sorrow dragged me down. I clung to the banister winding round the staircase and clawed my way up two floors to the tower – to the room I had insisted I move to after the countless surgeries had failed to restore my face. I couldn’t bear to see the pity in peoples’ eyes, the questioning looks and the shocked intakes of breath. I didn’t want to be reminded that my whole future had melted in seconds, just like everything south of my hairline. I needed to be as far away frompeopleas I could get.

I did slam the door to my own room and stormed straight to the window. With my fists pounded into the wall on either side, I let out a thunderous curse, one so loud the glass shivered. I knew no one would’ve heard me. Father had installed state-of-the-art sound-proofing shortly after I moved into this room, to shield my mother from the heart-splitting cries I couldn’t hold in.These outbursts had grown few and far between, but in moments like this, they simply couldn’t be contained.

The second she’d appeared in the doorway, my entire being lit up. My gut softened, assuring me the photograph she’d posted online was not only genuine, it had done her very little justice. In the flesh she was…perfect.

She was demure in stature, yet bold in character – she would have to be to sell her virginity to a total stranger. Her hair shone gold with a strawberry hue and it fell over one shoulder just as I’d imagined it would. Her petite nose and delicate chin were eclipsed by almond eyes that expressed everything in one glance. And that’s what reached into my ribcage and squeezed a little bit of the life out of me.

There was no mistaking the desire beneath the flutter of her lashes as she first took me in. When I turned my whole face towards her, she couldn’t stand to look anymore. She averted her eyes and stared down at her hands. It was a reaction I’d almost got used to but, the fool that I was, I’d dreamed of something different with this woman. Ever since I’d found her online, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head. The second I laid eyes on the photo in her profile, my heart was taken.

I meant what I said. I didn’t want to take her virginity if her heart wasn’t in it. I wanted her to want it. Ineededher to want it. Genuine desire was the one thing money couldn’t buy. Yet, the sound of her sharp inhalation when I delivered my condition would haunt me forever, because nothing about it said she would ever willingly give herself to me. At least, not for less than a hundred thousand pounds.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key. It was large, brass, and like everything oppressive in this house, highly polished.

I would bend her to me.

She would submit to my will.

And I felt serene confidence in this, because she wouldn’t be going anywhere until she did.

Rose

I stared blanklyat the door, my stomach growling despite the fact I didn’t want to eat a thing this place tried to serve me. I assumed it was mid-morning. The dawn chorus woke me from a chequered sleep and I drifted off again for what felt like a couple of hours. I was so high up in the tower, and so far from any other part of the Hall, there were no other sounds to be heard. No trays rattling, no voices chattering, no engines running outside on the drive.

What was it he’d said? I had towantit. That was his condition.

How the hell he expected me towant itafter keeping me imprisoned in a goddamned tower, I didn’t know. And to think I’d found him attractive even with the scars exposed. He could screw his hundred thousand pounds. I didn’t want a penny of his money, not if he needed to kidnap me to make sure I held up my end of the bargain.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between watching the door and drifting off to sleep. When the sky blackened and it became clear I wouldn’t be given dinner, let alone breakfast or lunch, I climbed back into bed and stared unblinking at the ceiling until I became so bored there was no other option but to sleep.

The sound of movement in the next room jolted me awake, but terror rooted me to the mattress. Someone was inside the suite.

“Who’s there?” I forced out through croaky vocal cords.

A small figure appeared in the doorway. “Sorry miss, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

I rubbed my eyes and narrowed them on a young girl dressed in black with a white collar and apron.

“I’ve brought you breakfast.”

“You’re a day late,” I snapped, sliding out of the bed.

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