He sucked in a breath as if I’d punched him. He flinched, unable to hide raw, startled shock. His stunned, childlike confusion ripped out my heart and snatched it for his own, even as he sneered and shut everything down. “I don’t believe you. If Marcus demanded you to tell him what I’ve been up to away from his cameras, you’d do it.”
“Marcus?” I wrinkled my nose. “Who’s Marcus?”
“The guy who threw you in here.”
Oh yes, I remembered him now.
“Ah.” I nodded. “He’s definitely a piece of work.”
“So you admit it? You’d tell him everything—”
“I’d tell him to shove his questions where the sun doesn’t shine,” I cut in. “Then I’d demand he let me and all the other girls go.” I smiled. “I would also probably ask Whisper to have some fun and see how he likes being the one in trouble for once.”
He didn’t thaw. “Am I supposed to believe that you wouldn’t trade my life for yours?”
“No.” I fluffed up the pillow a bit more, cradling it under my cheek. “But I do expect you to believe that I’m not like the rest who have betrayed you.”
He bared his teeth at the ceiling. “You’re still determined to convince me that you’re not lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“So even if they offered you five million dollars to either kill me or fuck me...you’re saying you wouldn’t take it?”
I scowled, insulted. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Please.” He laughed with a bitter edge. “Why would you turn down such wealth? You expect me to believe you’d choose me over that? A stranger who bound you in menial labour?” He didn’t look at me, almost as if he didn’t want to see me go back on my previous answer.
“You’re not a stranger,” I murmured. “Not anymore.”
His jaw clenched; he didn’t reply.
I studied him where I lay on my side. The longer I stared at his thick black eyelashes, flawless skin, and sheer agony-rage that always clouded him, the more I wanted to tell him who I really was.
If I told him that five million dollars was a week’s income for me, would that put him at ease? If I told him I was the sole heir and runaway empress of Snowflake Corp, would he even know what I meant?
While cleaning his mansion, I’d come across more correspondence with whoever ran Brimstone Industries. The single flame logo had become very recognisable, even if the contents were mainly boring graphs, forecasts, and meeting minutes.
The fact that they provided him with information about the very company keeping him prisoner was infuriatingly clever and cruel—keeping him involved in the very thing he’d tried to destroy when he was nine (if Laura was right) but was now destroying him.
I’d also gleaned enough to know that his company had done what mine had, and harnessed nature to provide perpetual energy.
The fact that I’d never heard of them filled my stomach with lead because it wasn’t just surprising at this point but suspicious.
How had no one—not one of my board members, researchers, or staff—mentioned Brimstone and the Ashfalls?
We should’ve been all over them. Should’ve tracked their patents and infrastructure, lobbied against them for risk, and done our best to infiltrate the markets they had their eye on well before they did.
And the fact that no one so much as whispered about Brimstone to me made me think that it wasn’t just him that’d been kept in the dark.
“You’re not speaking because you’re having second thoughts?” he finally asked, making Whisper raise his head.
I snuggled lower in the blanket and quietened my mind.
The outside world didn’t matter—not while we couldn’t access it.
Which meant this inside world was far more important because we had to live together. Hopefully harmoniously.
“I can’t convince you of something you don’t want to be convinced about.” I yawned, trying to stifle it into the pillow. “All I can do is tell you the truth.”
He didn’t move.
I waited for him to feign sleep or finally leave, but he shocked me as he slowly rolled onto his side, facing me. “What truth?”
My gaze locked on his mouth.
So close.
So perfect.
I followed the line of his nose, and I lost myself in his eyes.
I completely forgot what I wanted to say.
His throat worked as he swallowed, almost as if he was just as affected as I was.
Whisper huffed, popping up from the floor as if sensing something was going on that needed to be monitored. He placed both paws on the mattress and went to join us.
“Stay down there, you dumb beast,” Lucien ordered.
“Hey.” I scowled. “I told you not to call him dumb.”
“You’re sticking up for him now?”
I nodded, my hair catching on the pillow. “Someone has to after living with you for so long.”
His lips curved in the corners, almost against their will. Beneath all his lethal, murderous exterior, his soul didn’t seem to be made of the same steel imprisoning it. His heart was undeniably broken from loneliness and slightly insane from being trapped, but it was still functioning. Still...human.
I hope.
My own heart swelled and the constant pain in my head faded a little. Whatever healing I’d given him seemed to work both ways. The longer he lay beside me, hidden in the dark where no one else could see or judge us, the more I found peace that I hadn’t felt since before I became an orphan.
“The truth...” I whispered, wrenching his gaze back to mine as I answered his lingering question. “The truth is that you might be trapped in here because of your family’s company, but I ran away from mine because I couldn’t cope.”
He didn’t speak, his eyes dancing over mine as if trying to rip out my secrets faster than I could spill them.
“Your weakness is forced,” I continued quietly. “But me? My weakness is my own nervous system. I told you I prefer to avoid all kinds of pressure, work, and expectations. I’m sure I come across as lazy and entitled, but it’s a coping mechanism.”
Once again, he stayed silent, letting me try to put into words what the doctors had trouble diagnosing.
“There are few names for it and I’m unsure which one I fall into, but psychogenic syncope or functional neurological disorder is probably the closest.”
He didn’t move, his breathing even and steady.
“I get stress-induced blackouts and trauma migraines. However...” I licked my lips, highly aware as his gaze dropped, locking onto my mouth. “Working for you is the first time I’ve been able to handle stress in a very long time. It’s surprised me, actually. I should pass out every time I’m around you with how fast you make my heart race but...there’s something about you.”
I didn’t know what else to add without sounding as if I was using my own condition to manipulate him. I also didn’t want to sound like I was searching for pity and so...I stopped.
Silence fell again, dense and soft.
Whisper settled on the floor and Lucien rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.
Time ticked onwards until the drowsiness in my system stuck to my thoughts, dragging me slowly into dreams.
And just as I slipped from this world into sleep, Lucien’s voice tangled with the night. “There’s something about you too.”
My eyes flew wide.
He rolled onto his other side, giving me his back as he added, “I just don’t know if I like it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“GO AND TATTLE, I DON’T CARE.” Moving toward the cat, I ducked and pressed a loud kiss on his giant silky head. “I’m leaving. Tell that nasty boss that I’m taking tomorrow off for sanity reasons.”