“No die. Lady sad.”
Three frowns hit her audiences’ faces, even the boy. “Aw,” the older lady cooed as she bustled over and jerked Yasmeen into one of the roughest hugs she’d ever received. She was pulled out of a big bosom after losing a few strands of hair. The woman said something.
“
Bunicuţă
say lady no sad.
Bunicuţă
say lady get happy. Eat. Sit. Now.”
Yasmeen looked through her book to find that word. Okay. The older woman was his grandmother. So that meant this was a mother and daughter team who worked for Lucian. She found a few more words. “May…I…help?
Vă rog?
” Did her ‘please’ sound as if she was begging?
She didn’t even get the opportunity to indicate she meant with the cooking of the meal before she found herself by the sink. A bowl of potatoes was shoved in front of her, and a peeler was jammed into her hand.
She flipped a few pages.
“Mulţumesc,”
she said, thanking them.
“Cu plăcere!”
both women said, beaming at her. They pointed and waited.
“Uh, hang on…” She flipped pages to the tourist section. “I am Yasmeen.” She put her hand to her chest and silently repeated the phrase she’d found at the back of the book a couple of times before attempting it out loud.
“Cum te cheamă?”
They both flew through their response and looked at her expectantly. After a few seconds, the grandmother brought the boy forward. He went from oldest to youngest, pointing to make sure Yasmeen got it. “Teodora. Iulia.” He took a hold of Yasmeen’s hand and kissed the back of it. “Mihai.” The slap his mother landed to the back of his head had him jumping away with a grin.
Yasmeen smothered a giggle. “It’s nice to meet you all. Really, you have no idea.”
They nodded and Iulia pointed at the bowl. They waited.
Okay. They were going to watch her peel the potatoes? She efficiently zipped around a spud with the knife, taking the peel off in one piece. She held it up, feeling kind of smug but careful not to show it. Teodora nodded and slapped her back as hard as a man would have. Iulia appeared slightly put out as if she’d wanted Yasmeen to fail. She sniffed and patted her arm lightly before eventually offering her a warm smile and going back to her bread.
Feeling better because she was among rational human beings, Yasmeen tackled the bowl of potatoes and tried to pretend she didn’t see Mihai leaning on the end of the counter, his chin in his hand as he stared at her. She smiled at him once and went back to her task when his cheeks grew ruddy.
How adorable.
♦ ♦ ♦
Twenty-four hours later, nothing was adorable. Everything from the scenery to the delicious meals to the lovely company she’d found in the form of two Romanian cooks and an enamored young boy was fucking infuriating—the latter, because they’d kicked her out of their domain.
Yasmeen roamed the bedroom like a caged dog. She’d long ago given up trying to rip off the stupid collar Lucian had clamped on her before he’d fucked off. It wouldn’t budge. The sonofabitch had apparently gone with the deluxe unit, after all. The one that allowed only the owners to remove it from their pets. The motherfucking thing was probably tricked out with an electrical impulse that would zap her into a coma if she crossed the property line.
“Fuck.
Fuck!
I need to get the hell out of here. No more. You inconsiderate sonofabitch!” she hissed quietly, in case someone could hear her talking to herself. Not that there was anyone around
to
hear her. It seemed any human who’d been in the castle when they arrived was now gone. She hadn’t realized until today that the workers she’d heard that first day had never been heard again, let alone seen.
She went to the window and peered out into the clear evening. Trapped.
“Ugh!” she wheeled away and stomped around, looking at all the fucking beautiful shit surrounding her. She ended up back at the window. “So, are you gone? Will you come back for me? Have you forgotten me?” The very idea made her chest ache like she’d been beaten. “Where are you, Lucian? You can’t just leave me here. You can’t. Have you forgotten me?” She pressed her lips together as the possibility came to her again. Was this to be her underground bunker? Was he done with her for now? Would he return in a few weeks, or God forbid, months, and expect a few days of non-stop sex before leaving again?
She banged her forehead on the glass and looked at the darkening countryside.
Or, maybe, she was free to leave and he just hadn’t seen fit to tell her.
She turned from the window and looked out over the room. Had she stayed in this castle for the last two days for nothing? Back to the window she spun when she heard the faint sound of a vehicle. Excitement and hope burst to life…only to fizzle and die when she saw it was a delivery truck. She squinted. Was that a woman driving?
Of course, it was. Her demented Romanian had pulled his staff and the workers, leaving her with no one but women in the castle. He, or more likely Sorin, had even gone so far as to arrange their supplies be delivered by someone who didn’t have junk hanging between their legs.
Oh, who cared? What did it matter? The point was, he’d left her here. She eyed the door and deliberated for only a few more seconds as her need to invade Lucian’s privacy morphed from a desire to a necessity.
“Fine. Fuck you. You have no respect for me. Why should I continue to offer it to you?”
She left the bedroom and rushed through the corridors. She was silent and quick, and she made it to Lucian’s office in under ten minutes after having to backtrack only once because she’d taken a wrong turn. Her heart pounded and her breaths were loud as she turned the knob. Expecting it to be locked, she stood there waiting for the guillotine to fall when it clicked and the door swung in.
“Hello?” she said, following the non-existent horror movie script.
Silence.
She reached out and clicked the light switch to illuminate the large room and walked across the soft carpet. The heels of her boots made a muted thud that was the only sound in the entire wing of the castle it seemed. A chill skittered down her spine as her eyes darted around. She went to the desk and found nothing on its surface but a copy of the New York Times. It was open to an article detailing Markus’s rise to the top in the business world before his tragic death.
“Oh, Lucian,” she whispered. “People lose their loved ones every day. You can’t let your experiences do this to you. You’re stronger than this.” She picked up the paper to read what had been written and jumped when something fell out. “Shut. Up.”
She reached out as if it was a mirage and picked up…her passport. She flipped it open to see her unsmiling face staring at her.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was clutching the document and racing from the room. She ran as fast as she could back to the bedroom and skidded to a halt in front of Lucian’s nightstand. She didn’t think twice about stealing from him. She just yanked the cabinet open and took a stack of money. Didn’t count it. She just took it and ran.
She made it to the foyer, grabbed her handbag that had been sitting on the table since her arrival, and scooped her faux-fur out of the closet someone had put it in that afternoon that seemed light years away.
Minutes later, Yasmeen was sneaking into the back of the delivery truck and tucking herself behind some boxes of lettuce. Her lungs were burning as hot as her eyes as tears tried to form. She blinked repeatedly. After all he’d done to her, he wasn’t worthy of these feelings cutting into her. He wasn’t worthy of the agony filling her that was making her want to howl like an injured animal.
She didn’t want to leave.
She wanted to stay.
She wanted to wait for him.
For as long as it took, she would wait for him.
Forever. She would wait forever.
Because…she did love him.
She was in love with her warden. A sob caught in her throat as she doubled over, holding her chest. He saw her as an object to fuck. To tease. To control. To lead around and call pet. He saw himself above her. He considered himself her owner. He saw her as nothing but a release.
And, her, being the desperate, lonely girl who craved contact and just wanted to be wanted, had fallen irrevocably and utterly in love with every side of him he’d allowed her to see. The powerful billionaire. The unfeeling bastard. The madman. The erotic commander. The gentleman.
The lost boy.
“I love you, Frosty,” she whispered. “I love you. I want you to know that. I see who you are, all that you are, the good and the very, very bad, and I love you anyway.” She slid down the wall and hugged her knees to her chest as the door was pulled down. The sudden darkness was terrifying, and the loud clang of the lock engaging hurt her ears. “I wish I could tell you that even after everything, I love you anyway. But you wouldn’t hear me. And if you did, you’d use it against me.” She dropped her head down to hide. “And I’d find a reason to let you.”
As the truck pulled away from the castle and headed down the mountain, she gave up and finally cried freely. Her cold fingers curled around her collar, and as she clung to what it represented both physically and symbolically, she vowed to do exactly what Lucian had done; put this warped and broken fairy tale out of her mind and get on with her life.
As the limo came out of the dark lane and circled the drive, something that had been winding tighter and tighter inside Lucian from the moment they’d left New York reached the end of its tether. He couldn’t give it a name; he just knew he needed to take care of it. And he would. With her. Right now. He discarded a few ideas in favor of others. He might need a couple of days to get through everything.
The car had barely come to a complete stop before he was out the door. He didn’t care in the least that he appeared anxious. He was anxious. He needed to feel her. Taste her. Lose himself in her for hours. He wanted her mouth under his, her body wrapped around him. Her scent in his nose. The sound of her voice in his ear. He wanted to listen to her jabber and laugh. Moan. He needed to see her eyes lighten then darken, then smile.
He needed to tell her what he’d done. Who he finally had in his possession.
He needed to apologize for leaving her alone for so long. Pets didn’t appreciate that.
He took the stairs two at a time and entered the castle, not pausing before he was making his way to the second level.
He was breathing heavily and was marble hard by the time he threw open their door.
Her scent saturated the room, but it was empty. He cursed and went into hunting mode, traveling the corridors, sniffing her out, listening for the sound of her voice. The ballroom, theater room, sitting room, and library were all as empty as the bedroom. His heart was now racing, his demons leading him to the last place she could be. The kitchen.
He entered the room and smelled apple pie. Teodora and her daughter were the only two there.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
They hadn’t heard his footsteps, and both started and spun to face him. “Oh! Mr. Fane! Welco—”
“Where is she?” he rudely cut into the older woman’s greeting.
The two looked at each other. “Yasmeen?” Iulia asked.
His groin stirred. “Yes. Where is Yasmeen?”
“She retired upstairs earlier and has not come down since.”
“I just came from our room. She was not there. Nor was she anywhere else I looked.” His chest started burn. “When did you last see her?”
They looked at the clock. “Two hours ago,” Teodora stated. “The six-thirty delivery came shortly after she left us.”
She left us…she left us…she left us…
The words echoed, bouncing off the walls faster and faster, beating on Lucian as they whizzed by. He walked out and went straight to his office. As he approached and saw a crack of light coming from the door, which had been left ajar, he had no more reason to check the security footage. She had indeed left. The Times was upside down on his desk. Her passport gone from where he’d tucked it into the pages.
He lifted his head and settled his gaze on a painting of the back gardens blooming with summer flowers, and pictured every horrific thing that could have already happened to her. An accident, attacked by one or a group of men, raped, mutilated, murdered. He was burning alive by the time he texted Sorin, who walked into the room within minutes.
“You’re working now?” he asked, frowning.
“You will shut down every possible method of transportation she could take to leave this country. Have her flagged as a terrorist if you have to. I do not care.” He straightened the newspaper and noted his hand was shaking. “Go get her and return her to me. Right now, Sorin.”
“She
left
? How the fuck?”
“In the delivery truck. Two hours ago. Go get her.”
“You are not coming.”
“No. It would be dangerous for her if I were to see her right now.”
“Lucian.” Disapproval weighed down his name.
“Go.”
Sorin didn’t go. “Now that the one who deserves your contempt and rage is in your possession, do you not think it is time we spoke openly about what you are doing with the one who does not but is suffering under the weight of it anyway?”