Sonia started retreating again in exactly the same way as before.
“Do you like blondes?” she queried with a bite in her tone.
“No,” he replied honestly. Her shoulders hit tapestry and she was forced to halt at the same time she gasped at his effrontery before he finished, “Or, I should say, not until recently.”
He got close and she tried, quickly, to move to the side to escape him.
This failed.
With no effort at all, his arm shot out, hooked around her waist and he pulled her in front of him, took a step forward and she was back against the tapestries, pinned there by his tall frame.
Sonia decided she’d fight her way out of it. Not physically, she wasn’t stupid or, at least, not that stupid.
Verbally.
“You sequestered her,” Sonia accused.
“I did,” he replied, gazing down at her patiently, one arm around her, the other hand coming up to curl around her neck.
Sonia tried to yank her neck away.
This failed too.
She quit trying and went on, “That was cruel.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Sequestering Mona?”
“No,” she shot back. “Everything you did to Mona.”
“Sonia, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She opened her mouth to speak but his hand at her neck moved to her jaw and his thumb pressed against her lips. “But if you’d calm down a second, I’ll explain.”
She jerked her face from his hand and then snapped, “I don’t want an explanation. You’re right, I don’t know what sequestered means. But I know you humiliated her in front of a room full of men. Then you forced her to go somewhere she didn’t want to go and she barely got a word in edgewise. There is no explanation for that.”
Callum watched her speak with curiosity then he muttered, “Bloody hell, Ryon was right. Baby doll, have you been holding onto this for a whole f**king month?”
“Has it only been a month?” Sonia retorted sarcastically. “It’s felt like years.”
He studied her a moment still with that strange curiosity then he remarked musingly, “I thought this would be annoying but it isn’t. You’re pretty all the time, little one, but you’re spectacular when you’re pissed off.”
Sonia growled and shoved at the massive wall of his chest.
He rocked back a few inches but recovered quickly and returned to his previous position.
“All right, Sonia, you obviously need to talk, we’ll talk,” he offered but it looked like he was fighting a smile. “Tell me what’s on your mind. All of it.”
She stared at him in astonishment.
He was enjoying this!
Her vision covered with a film of red.
She’d never been so incensed and she didn’t care that he could snap her like a twig. She shoved him again, harder this time, but he just rocked back and then came forward yet again.
So she went back to her earlier strategy.
“I don’t want to talk!” she yelled in his face, “There’s nothing you can say about how you treated Mona. About me being here without you even asking me if I wanted to move, wanted to leave my business, my friends, my home. There’s nothing you can say about coming back from… wherever, whisking me away, just like that, without even saying hello! There’s nothing you can say about me not having any of my clothes here, about you taking over everything, every move I make, everything I wear, everything I eat. There’s nothing you can say to explain all… things… you!”
He was still fighting a smile when he commented, “There’s a lot there, baby doll.”