He looked away from her, lost in thought, lost in angry thought. Then his eyes focussed on something and he smiled a wicked smile.
Sibyl, in a panic, looked behind her but all she saw was the dining area. She longed to say something, even tell him why, share a piece of herself, maybe he’d understand. But she didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to make him any angrier than he already was.
Colin angry, she’d already learned, was a very bad thing.
He put pressure on her neck with his hand, bringing her toward him and as he did this, he tilted her face up with his thumb on her jaw.
Then his head descended but he didn’t kiss her.
Instead, with his lips against hers, he said, “I’ve been trying to think of a suitable punishment for you breaking the rules. I paid fifty thousand pounds for this privilege, Sibyl. If you were an employee of mine, I’d sack you.”
“Okay,” she agreed shakily and perhaps a little foolishly. “Maybe you should sack me.”
“Then you’d have to pay back the fifty thousand pounds.”
Her eyes rounded in alarm. She’d already “anonymously” donated it to the Community Centre for the minibus.
He watched her expression closely.
“I didn’t think so.” His voice was smooth as silk but not in a good way.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice so far from silky it was ludicrous.
His arm closed around her as his other hand caressed her cheek using the backs of his fingers. She felt a shudder go through her as he drew her against his hard body.
Once his arm was tight around her waist, her body pressed firmly against his, his lips still against hers and his eyes heavy-lidded, he said, “I’m going to f**k you on the dining room table.”
She jerked her head back, shock, fear, anger and hurt all at once coursing through her.
“No!” she cried.
“Oh yes,” he returned smoothly.
“No!” she repeated and started to struggle against him.
She couldn’t believe this, he wouldn’t be that cruel.
“Stop struggling,” he commanded.
“Colin, you can’t do this! You promised.”
“I can, I will and you’re going to let me. In fact, you’re going to beg me to do it in the end. I’ll see to that.”
This was a promise, a promise she was pretty certain he could keep and she felt panic and despair sear through her body.
“Colin, don’t do this!” she pleaded, feeling every bit of the years of Mags’s gently-bred empowerment of her girls flying out the window. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Maybe you should try tears, Sibyl. They won’t work but it might be amusing,” he taunted in an ugly voice.
Sibyl glared at him and she hated him in that moment and, in so doing, she felt fury rage through her system. She completely forgot her vow never to lose her temper again and she didn’t even consider counting to ten.
Therefore, she shouted, “Let go of me!” and very nearly wrenched herself free but his hand at her cheek dropped and his arm sliced around her, slamming her back against his body.
“I said, stop struggling,” he ground out.
“They’re little girls, Colin!” she yelled and he immediately stilled at her words but she was so angry, she didn’t notice. “They’re little girls and they needed me. I couldn’t run out on them. I would have, I promise you, at any other time, but they needed me.”
She pulled free of his now loosened arms and sucked air through her mouth, expelled it through her nose like a bull and she stared at him with all the hatred she felt for him at that moment.