to leave but I’m pretty sure the first place I’ll go to is the police precinct. ‘I won’t cause you any problems if you just let me leave.’
‘You’re either much stupider than I thought, or I dosed you a little too hard. Non.’ His earnest expression falls, like the curtain falling at the end of a play. ‘Maybe you think I am the stupid one.’ In two steps, he’s towering over me. In one frightened heartbeat, he’s crouched in front of me, his hands on my knees. ‘You’re going nowhere. So, I’ll tell you everything.’
‘No! I don’t want to hear.’ I recoil from his touch, cold tendrils of dread wrap like vines through my insides, filling my veins with ice water—the sensation seeming to wake me the fuck up.
‘Of course you do. Fear lurks in the unknown, Rose. Better to face your future. Make friends with it. Accept it, I think.’
‘My future is not here with you.’
His smiles indulgently. I almost expect him to reach out and ruffle my hair.
‘How long do you think that Austrian man kept his daughter underground?’ My heart jolts, my spine stiffening. ‘Years, certainly. You see, I’m going to keep you here for as long as I see fit. Or until I get bored of your company. Whichever comes first, I think.’
‘I don’t want to hear this!’ Like a small child afraid of the dark, I screw my eyes closed, my hands pressed tight to my ears. ‘You’re not keeping me here.’ I kick out, pushing to stand when he’s suddenly towering over me, his hand at the back of my head, yanking me by my hair.
‘You will listen, putain.’ His breath is as hot on my cheek as my knees are weak. ‘You remember the coffee shop?’ He smiles as I try to nod.
Sinister, sinister, my smile screams out.
‘I’ll give you the abridged version. ‘Emile fucked your mother for a time, and she must’ve been a very good fuck because, almost thirty years later, he left you shares in the company. You! Who did nothing to deserve or even earn them! Bad enough that he promised me the running of the company, bad enough that he left Remy the majority share, but he has to go and leave an interest to you. All this time, you’ve been fucking your brother. How’d you feel about that, ma chérie?’
‘That’s not true. I know it’s not.’ Even through my denials, I feel like I’m going to throw up. It can’t be true—it can’t!
‘And the worst of it is, Remy has known all along. Beautiful, tortured Remy.’ Ben pouts, his brown eyes sad. ‘Sleeping with his sister. So wrong.’
‘I-I don’t believe you.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Remy might be a lot of things, a lot of things I don’t yet understand, but he isn’t that. He isn’t that kind of corrupt, I know, as the image of him flickers to life in my head.
His broad shoulders blocking out the sunlight, his face smiling down at me, shining with such love.
But that’s not a reasoning I’ll share as, from my scrambled brain, one thought rises above the morass.
‘If I am his Emile’s daughter, then I wouldn’t just deserve a share. I would be owed it.’
Like a child thwarted, he huffs unhappily. ‘It was a slip of the tongue. Good catch.’ ‘You’re not his child. Remy made sure of that, though not before he’d fucked you first.’ Suddenly, his face looms closer, spittle hitting my face as he rants. ‘You’re just the child of his whore of an ex!’ He releases me, but not before pushing me back down against the stone bench.
‘This had got nothing to do with me. I never met Emile—I don’t even want his money.’ Money I know nothing about. ‘Please Ben. Let me go.’ Tears track down my cheeks, my head feeling like it’s been split in two. And I’m scared. So scared.
‘No, you don’t need the money because now you have Remy.’ His head tilts to the side, his eyes feral. ‘Or you did. And now you’ll have me.’ His fingers trace my cheek and I do everything in my power not to move, not to show how his how repulsive I find his touch. ‘One way or another.’
‘No, Ben. Not like this, please.’
‘It’s not ideal, of course. But it shouldn’t have come to this, you know. I saw you first. In the office on your first day. Remember I told you that?’
‘At the club.’ I try to nod and wince and try to swallow my fear. My