loud enough that every person in this building will call the police, Calvin. I’ll cry rape. I don’t care if I go to jail too. I’ll tell them what you did, and I’ll use every cent of my money to bury you.”
The utter virility of her words surprised even her. She honestly didn’t know she had it in her.
But to her surprise, Calvin smiled.
“What money?” he asked softly. “Don’t you understand? You have nothing that truly belongs to you. Your credit cards belong to your family. Your trust, your allowance, your home—all from them are trussed up tighter than a fucking roasted chicken. And, as we’ve already discussed, your family won’t have a thing to fucking do with you if you disgrace them. You and your little bastard would be gum on the bottom of their shoes.”
Nina suddenly couldn’t breathe. She wrapped her hands around her neck, as if to force air in and out of her windpipe. “No.” Her voice was a breath. Barely a whimper.
“And there’s one more reason I know you won’t leave, princess,” he continued, then licked his bottom lip, like a predator about to pounce.
“Why—why is that?”
“Because if you take one step out of this apartment, you’ll leave that baby of yours alone. Maybe not right away, but one day, you will. And I don’t think you’ll like where she ends up.”
A chill sprinted up Nina’s spine. “Excuse me?”
Calvin tapped his lip, like he was thinking of something else. “You know, come to think of it…some people would pay a pretty penny for a little girl like her. All I’d have to do is draw up the papers.”
The lump in Nina’s throat turned to a rock. “Y-you wouldn’t.”
He leaned in so his rubbery lips touched her ear again. “Try me.”
“STOP!” Nina’s shriek came from deeper in her soul than anything ever had.
Calvin reared. His face turned the color of a ripe tomato, and then, without warning, his hand whipped through the air and found her cheek with a loud slap that sent her ears ringing.
“Stupid fucking cunt!” he growled, then grabbed her collar and rammed her against the bookshelves hard enough that the wood ridges jammed painfully into her back. He slammed her again, this time hard enough that his absurdly large wedding ring, with five separate diamonds set into the thick gold, sliced into her cheek.
But Nina didn’t give him what he wanted. Instead, she held herself as tall as possible against the onslaught. The knuckles meeting her jaw with a particularly vicious backhand. The hard wood corners of the shelves ramming into her hips, her shoulders, her head, again and again.
It could be worse, said some strangely placid voice in the back of her mind. He could use actual fists. He could use his feet.
He could rape you too.
And what would Grandmother say to that?
She’d probably ask what you were wearing to deserve it.
At last, when he had tossed her around the room enough that sweat had dampened the center of his shirt and his breathing was curiously postcoital, he released her into the corner, trapped against the shelves.
Nina slowly worried her jaw and touched her nose gingerly. It didn’t seem broken, but she honestly wasn’t sure. There was a steady trickle of blood falling over her lip.
“Still don’t want to fuck me, princess?” Calvin sneered. “Sure it’s not the lesser of two evils?”
Nina had never been more sure about anything in her life.
She stared at the papers on the desk. The bars of her new prison. Calvin was right. There would be no one there to save her from this. She had created this cage for herself. But she’d be damned if she’d risk making another one too.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I am.”
Calvin spat. “Have it your way. But don’t cross me. Consider yourself warned.”
Beyond the door, there was a distant wail of a child. Olivia, seeking Nina’s attention. Both Nina and Calvin perked at the sound, but neither moved. Calvin because he didn’t care. Nina because she cared too much.
“Greta will get her,” Nina said, hating that she had to concede even that. But there was no way she could show her face to the household staff now. There was no way she could show any of this to anyone. Calvin had made that very, very clear.
“Well, princess? What’ll it be?”
And with that, her heart hardened completely.
“All right,” she said quietly. “But if you want me to be your representative, so to speak, I have a few requirements too. For one,