Page 88 of Isle of Seduction
“No. I’m just confused.” I sigh, a little extra dramatically to lull Louis into a false sense of security. “Can you help me get into the bath?” A small quirk of my lip, a dip of my gaze before coming back up. It’s a well-rehearsed choreography.
I’m Giulia Myers again, the alter ego I created when Lana and I studied in London. The social butterfly with nothing in the head. The sultry party girl Louis fell for.
“Of course, baby.”
The warm water feels like a balm on my tired body, but my muscles tense up when shuffling sounds come from behind me. I don’t dare turn around and wait for Louis to climb inside the tub with me.
He makes me lay on his chest, his hard cock pressing into my back, his large hands resting on my stomach and breast. The touch is searing, my stomach reeling with nausea. It’s a mark that will never leave. He takes a washcloth and gently cleans the wound on my shoulder before going for the rest of my limbs.
The more he washes me, the dirtier I feel.
The more his hands roam, the more I retreat into my head. Steel wraps around my heart and my mind goes empty. I watch myself in the bath with him from above.
His hands go down my stomach, caress my thighs, and find the valley in between.
I don’t fight him.
I feel nothing. I am nothing.
My eyes close and I let my body take over. The touch is too rough for it to be comparable to Andrea, but it’s him I see behind my eyelids. It’s the only way my brain can allow what’s happening.
“God, I’ve missed you,” the disembodied voice comes from my left and I don’t recognise it, but I don’t try. It’s like the person associated with it is in a fishbowl. The voice is distorted, I can’t make out what else it says.
It takes too long for me to come, but I do, painfully, barely there. I’ve done it before too, when another man who wanted something from me held his own life above my head like a threat. Knowing my life now hangs in the balance barely makes a difference to the knowledge of losing my autonomy.
When I come back to my senses, it’s like I never left, a part of the past hour missing but deep down, I know what happened. And fury is a cold mistress waiting for me to exact the vengeance she deserves.
* * *
After Louis dries me and helps me into new clothing, a black cardigan over a simple skin tight white-T and another pair of jeans, the replica of the ones I wear, he makes breakfast. The scene is so domestic, but the idea of eating anything he prepares makes me want to throw up already. My stomach is tied in knots so tight it’s a miracle if I can keep anything down. The burn radiates up my oesophagus to invade the back of my throat, my tongue almost swelling like if I’d stuff my mouth with cotton.
“We will have to send the divorce papers soon so we can get married. Give me the ring, baby, seeing it on your fingers makes me really angry and we don’t want that, now don’t we?”
“Of course not.”
These rings are my salvation, my only reminder that something better might be looking for me out there. That I will have something to come back to when I get out of here.
But Louis holds out his hand open, waiting for me to give him my tether to my husband, willingly. I swallow and remove the rings slowly before dropping them in his open palm.
He signals for me to join him on the couch, and I take a breath before settling on his lap. His lips quirk up in a satisfied smile. I pleased him. Good. It’s one more step towards my freedom.
Louis twirls my mother’s ring in between his fingers. “You know it’s a piece of junk right?” he laughs at the heirloom. If I wasn’t so intent on getting out of here, I’d be furious right now. Andrea would never dare insult something that means so much to me. “And this cheap gold band, that’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Nothing fitting for a queen like you.”
He moves me to sit next to him and gets down on one knee. Finding the will to smile is an herculean effort when he pulls a red velvet box out of his pocket and opens it with a bright smile. “Wear this one.”
He isn’t looking at me at all; I don’t even have to fake it. I should have known Louis didn’t care about my opinion. He glides the gaudy ring with diamonds and rubies where Andrea’s was and I do my best to beam at him, smacking my lips on his and repressing another gag.
I dream of wiping the smug smile on his face, but he doesn’t notice. My apathy from earlier morphs into an ugly monster made of blood-red rage. I hold onto the beast by the horns and don’t let go, letting it grow inside my chest, ready to tear the flesh of the other monster in the room.
“I’m glad you found me,” I lie. “It must have been hard.”
I need to know, for my sanity, how he did it. How despite my security measures and Andrea’s, he found a way to get to me.
“Oh no, baby, it wasn’t hard at all. I’ve kept good contacts with a few of Pierce’s hackers. We placed an alert on your face, so when you landed in the U.K., it wasn’t hard to find you. I was so overjoyed. It was a sign, you know. A sign that you were ready for me.”
“Why kill Xan and Mia? You could have just talked to me.”
I caress his cheek, pleading for a guardian angel to protect me so he doesn’t see the revulsion in my green eyes.