Page 29 of Controlled

All mine.

Mine…

CHAPTER 10

Bella

I will ravage every inch of your body on a daily basis. And I will lock you inside a cage, keeping you for my eyes only. I can tell you like that idea, my perfect dancer.

Creed hadn’t said anything like that whatsoever, yet I’d been unable to get the sentences out of my mind for hours.

God. What he had told me was bad enough.

Forty-eight hours.

The bastard had actually told me I had forty-eight hours to get my affairs in order. Was he kidding me? Did he seriously think that one time… fucking and I was going to drop everything in my life to do his biddings? I snorted from the ridiculous thought. The man was crazy. Yet I’d been checking the windows every so often, certain I’d find him standing on a corner or watching me from his car. Maybe I was crazy but my instinct told me I should shove aside the connection we’d shared, replacing it with sheer terror.

I’d barely made it home, avoiding seeing anyone from the party. I’d raced into my room, locking the door behind me even though both Grace and Tonya had banged on my door. I wasn’t much of a drinker given my profession, but I’d taken the half bottle of wine from our kitchen counter into my room with me.

And I’d done my research on Creed Saint and his entire family. The press had painted all three brothers as psychotic philanthropists or merciless billionaires. But it was easy to tell why women had flocked to all three of them. The brothers looked like they’d stepped out of a GQ magazine, all three as if hand selected by the gods. But Creed was by far the best looking, his dangerous persona far too attractive.

I couldn’t get over the ominous feeling pooling in my stomach as if my entire world was about to be ripped apart. Sighing, I glanced around the dreary room, wishing I’d brought my mother a potted plant or something to brighten it up. As horrible as it might sound, I’d stopped wasting money because she only used the items I purchased for her against others. Or me.

God, I really was a horrible daughter thinking such ugly thoughts about my mother.

“I just wanted to stop by, Mama, and see how you were doing.” I patted her hand, trying to keep my voice uplifted. I’d turned on her favorite music, a light classical piece that usually soothed her. She was humming, which was a good sign. “You should have seen me last night, Mama. I did so good. You would have been proud of me.”

“Proud?” She hadn’t spoken during my last two visits, eyeing me as if I’d been the enemy.

“Yes. You know how I love to dance. I received a standing ovation. The theater was packed.” I wasn’t certain why I was bothering to tell her about my amazing night. She didn’t care. She’d never cared. But that didn’t mean I would stop telling her. Maybe in hopes that one day she’d love me.

She looked at me as if a light had gone off in her foggy brain. “Don’t become a star, Bella. Don’t let him find you.”

“Who are you talking about, Mama?”

“Dangerous man.”

My mind swept to Creed, but I knew better than to think she was talking about him. Was this about my father? “Mama? Talk to me.”

As quickly as the light and moment of recognition had been there, it had faded.

I kissed her knuckles, hating the tremors that had developed not long after she’d started taking drugs and hadn’t left. Tears threatened to give away how lonely and helpless I felt, which I’d worked so hard to shove aside for so long.

She jerked her hand away, scratching her ragged nails down the side of my face.

Gasping, pain shot through me and I jerked up, knocking over the chair in the process. “Mama. Why did you do that?”

She’d hit me a couple of times before but only during one of her uncontrollable tantrums. I pressed my palm against my face, wincing from the shock of her actions. When I pulled it away, I noticed blood. Jesus. My own mother had drawn blood.

“Who are you? Who the hell are you? Get away from me, you little whore. I can smell him on you. You’re fucking around again. Aren’t you? Aren’t you?” She acted as if she was going to fly from the bed, already starting to throw a tantrum. I backed away further, knowing one of the nurses would come flying in at any moment. I’d debated coming, the heartache worse every time I did. While my mother and I had never developed a real bond, it was obvious that my fear she’d never wanted me in the first place had been right.

A whore. She’d called me a whore.

Or maybe I was just exhausted, incapable of handling her outbursts today. “Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. I’m your goddamn daughter. Okay? I’m the one forking over the money to keep you here. I’m the one who endured all the anger you had, the hatred for everything. You took it out on me, Mama. Me!”

At that moment, the door was flung open and not only did the usual nurse walk in, but her doctor as well. I liked Dr. Zane for the most part. The woman was very qualified and had a very good bedside manner, but she was almost never around, her schedule that busy.

“You’re not my daughter. My daughter cared about me. She wouldn’t do this. She is special. Not like you. You’re trash.” My mother’s nasty words were accentuated by her spitting in my direction just before the nurse got to her side.