The Boss (Chateau #3) - Penelope Sky Page 0,43

me inside her, grinding her hips at the end of every drop to let me feel her more intimately before rising once again. “I can make you forget…”

Eleven

Fidelity

Melanie

We spent most of our nights together, but I always woke up alone.

He would either carry me to my bedroom, or he would leave mine after I fell asleep.

I didn’t demand a change because I knew I would never get it.

When he’d brought me here, I’d expected something more. I expected him to want me all the time, to have me by his side constantly. But our relationship was the same as it’d been in the cabin, where he would visit me when he felt like it, then ignore me the rest of the time.

I should be grateful to be spared, but my solitude was far more horrific than his company. Everything had been taken from me, and even if he was the one who took my sister away, I couldn’t bring myself to hate him.

My relationship with him somehow felt separate from my captivity, which didn’t make any sense. I shouldn’t feel affection for him, but I did. To everyone else, he was the boss, the man in charge of a vile camp that claimed the freedom of innocent women, including my sister and myself. But to me, he was the man who didn’t force me to do anything. He waited for my consent. He took care of me when other men would consider me high-maintenance. He was surprisingly soft at times, always caring about the tears I shed, when he didn’t seem to care about anything else.

He always had something nice to say about me…when no one else ever did.

Fender left that morning, and he hadn’t returned. He never told me where he was going, and I didn’t try to ask. I tried to keep myself busy by taking a walk through his grounds and admiring all the flowers he bothered to upkeep. He seemed like a man who didn’t care about that sort of thing. Then I walked through the house and admired all the paintings on the walls.

There were a lot.

His home had to be twenty-thousand square feet, and every wall had some kind of piece, something evocative and beautiful. I moved from one to the next, seeing watercolors and lily pads that reminded me of the pond in the front of his estate.

“Melanie, lunch is ready.” Gilbert was never pleasant toward me. When he spoke to me, it was like giving an order. When he spoke to Fender, there was more than just an employee kissing the ass of his boss. There was genuine affection there, genuine respect. He immediately walked off without waiting for a response.

I looked at the painting for a moment longer before I walked to the dining table in the garden room, my favorite place to have lunch. Gilbert set the plate in front of me, and the serving was different from usual. It was much smaller, and there were no desserts.

He must have noticed my quizzical expression because he said, “You’re gaining weight.” Like that wasn’t rude at all, he grabbed the teapot and set it on the table along with my lunch.

“Did…Fender say that?”

“No. I am. How do you expect all your clothes to fit if you’re getting bigger every week? You can always take something in, but never out.” He shook his finger. “And you shouldn’t wear those beautiful designer clothes unless you’re worthy of them.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” I blurted out the question because I was exhausted by his hostility. “Fender told you to service me the way you service him, but you’re constantly insulting me when I’ve done nothing to you.”

He looked down at me over his nose, like nothing I said meant anything to him. “He said to service you. Said nothing about liking you.” He walked off and left me there to sit alone, to stare at my small lunch of a salad and a side of fruit. Everything I ate was wonderful, something to look forward to, but now I didn’t have an appetite.

Gilbert brought dinner to my room.

“Is Fender home?” There were other workers in the house, housekeepers and chefs, but they only spoke French. I had no one to talk to besides Fender, so days without interaction felt like an eternity.

He set the tray on the dining table. “Yes. But he can’t be bothered right now.”

I stayed on the couch and swallowed my disappointment.

“Enjoy your dinner.” He excused himself.

“Wait.” I rose