Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,79

up.”

He turns around to look down at me. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

I close my eyes. I’m not about to start another argument and set him off again.

“Come. If you give up, you won’t see the surprise I have planned for you.” He gives me a gentle shove, and it has me opening my eyes.

This man is giving me whiplash.

“I’ve experienced your surprises. Not interested.”

He laughs as if I’ve just complimented him. “I promise you will like this one.”

Seemingly done with trying to convince me with his words, he reaches in and pulls the covers back. Cold air settles on my skin, and I dart up to get the covers back. This just gives him the space he needs to lift me up.

He plucks me out of the bed like he’s picking a flower.

I’m too tired to fight him anymore.

Fighting gets me nowhere. Well, at least nowhere that I actually want to be.

He puts me down in front of the fire, and that’s when I notice his surprise. Strawberries. A whole tray of them. Fresh, not dried, and dipped in something brown that could only be chocolate.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

I like strawberries, and I love chocolate.

But what type of woman would eating them make me?

The type that can be bought for a fucking strawberry, that’s who.

“I don’t want to eat them.”

“That’s fine,” he replies, taking me by surprise with his agreeable tone. “You can sit on my knee, and I’ll feed them to you.”

I would raise my eyebrows if I could summon the energy for it, but I can’t. So instead, I just turn around, giving him my back.

“My gran told me you love chocolate,” he continues.

“She wasn’t lying.”

He chuckles, and a moment later I feel his hands on my shoulders. “Then why won’t you eat?”

Does he really not know?

Surely nobody can be that ignorant.

The fact that he went to even a scrap of effort with me shows that he clearly knows his actions went too far last night. Otherwise, why bother?

But if this is his way of apologizing… he’s going to need to try harder.

I turn around to face him, and his hands slide from my shoulders. “Look at us? I’m not even allowed clothes! You want me to sit on your knee—naked—while you feed me strawberries? Tell me, who does that benefit? Is this really for me, or is this just another way of you getting what you want and pretending it’s all for me? All of your games, all of your lessons, even your shitty apology—they’re for you, not me.”

He takes a step back and tilts his head to the side.

I remember when that used to scare me.

My stomach would twist in knots.

Not anymore. He’s already done his worst. What else could he possibly do now?

We stand there, staring at each other, while I wait for him to answer me.

He doesn’t, though.

He turns and walks away.

And I’m not about to watch him leave.

The door closes behind him with a click, and I’m just staring into the flames.

I take a couple of steps toward the fire. My skin goes from warm to hot to almost unbearable the closer I get. But I don’t mind the discomfort. At least it’s not the impossible mixture of numbness and frustration and hurt I was feeling a minute ago.

The discomfort blocks all of that out.

I wonder if this is why Ruby always liked the fire so much?

I’ve learned more about my best friend in the time I’ve been away from her than I did in all the years I was with her. Ruby taught me so much about the world that can’t be learned from magazines and newspapers.

But I never actually walked in her footsteps. I never experienced the things she did.

All those years of being hurt and toyed with, used and humiliated, and she still barged through my curtain every day with a smile on her face and a giggle simmering under the surface.

It’s only now that I’m realizing just how hard that must have been. To keep up an act, all the fucking time.

But right now, with the fire scorching against my skin, it’s hard to hold on to the numb feeling. Was that her secret? Engulf the pain with something even worse? Did she cauterize her body every night just to save a tiny piece of her soul?

“Get away from there.”

I’m pulled from my thoughts when hands yank me back from the fire. I was so deep inside my own head that I didn’t even hear him come back