“Everything okay?”
“I’ll call you back.”
He wouldn’t knock, Eden silently acknowledged on the second knock. Dominic was not one to value her privacy. She pocketed her phone and tentatively journeyed to the door. Rising on her toes to peer through the peephole, she saw one of The Roosevelt’s concierges holding a long, black garment bag across his right arm, while his fisted left hand prepared to rap once more at her door. Eden pulled the door open before he could knock and was greeted by the concierge’s practiced smile.
“Ma’am, Mr. Armstrong has requested we bring these up for you?”
Of course he did. Eden stepped aside, allowing him to enter the room. “Where do you want this, ma’am?”
“Where ever is fine.” He didn’t miss a beat as he effortlessly set the black bag on the massive, well-made king mattress and hastened to fetch the black shoe box he’d left at the entrance. He wasn’t stupid enough to wait around for a tip and Eden made no move to stop him when he turned on his heel and left soon after.
* * *
In the ensuing two hours, Eden fought a hard, mentally exhausting battle with herself that ultimately led to her pounding headache. Try as she might she couldn’t come up with a way to leave this damn hotel room. She hadn’t even figured out a way to outsmart the guard dog at her door. She’d thought about calling his bluff several times now. She could push Dominic’s hand and see just how far he was willing to go. But she feared doing so would set off a domino effect that would somehow affect Liam and Jenna insome way. Dominic had his security in Amesbury for a reason, a warning maybe, but Eden wasn’t ready to test the theory yet, not when Liam and Jenna’s safety depended on it. What she needed was more time, but that too had quickly slipped from her fingers when the clock struck seven a few short minutes later. Doom settled in the pit of her stomach like stone as she was forced to face the inevitable.
Dominic had stacked the deck against her, and there was nothing Eden could do in that instant but bide her time once again, until she could find some leverage to use against him. While she headed to the bathroom to freshen up, resolve settled in her. She would go along with his game, play the arm candy he’d married, until she figured out how to beat him. Thinking it however was one thing, actually carrying out the act, reverting back to that loathsome role, donning that degrading mantle was like wading through a cesspool. It felt like she was betraying herself.
Eden felt a piece of herself wither further when she finally slipped into the cream colored dress he’d purchased for her.
It was designer, delicately embroidered lace that hugged her curves and stopped about mid-thigh. Stepping in front of the mirror, Eden was faced with the reflection of her old self; the expensive, well bought girl who’d feared destitution like the plague and had willingly sold her soul to the devil for a life that had turned out to be less than ideal. It was difficult looking at the girl, looking at exactly what sort of person she’d been a little more than a year ago.
For just a moment, that shallow girl, along with her insecurities and fears, threatened to overshadow the self-reliant, courageous woman Eden had worked so tirelessly to become. But Eden was quick in nipping it in the bud. She would be damned if she allowed that snake to strip away her self-worth. God, she couldn’t believe it had come down to this! All that planning and all that saving just to end up back at square one! Right under Dominic’s thumb. Despite the direness of her current predicament, Eden refused to concede defeat. There was still fight left in her. Self-preservation thrived at her core, made her carefully evaluate the situation and strategize accordingly.
Eden made sure to remain in the suite for as long as she possibly could before James’s persistent knocking had her walking to the door. By the time they made it to the restaurant, it was well past the allotted hour, but Eden was beyond caring. If she had to endure him back into her life, she sure as hell wasn’t going to make it easy. Once was she safely ensconced inside the cossetting interior of the sleek, black Rolls Royce he’d sent for her, they were off. The ride was surprisingly brief, but it afforded Eden enough time to gather herself and try not to act like a complete moron when she finally faced him. She scrounged up some much needed bravado and fueled it with renewed ire. She was however takenslightly aback when she alighted from the vehicle and found herself facing a high-rise rather than the restaurant she had been expecting. Puzzled she turned to James who silently stood at her side.
“Where are we?”
“There’s been a slight change of plans, Mrs. Armstrong.”
“I can see that, but why?”
“Please, ma’am, Mr. Armstrong has waited long enough for your arrival.” With a steady hand on her lower back and an arm indicating that she should walk forward, James urged her towards the entrance of the building. Blood rushed to her head, her heart was beating too fast now, and sweat began to pearl against her skin. Everything was a blur to her, even the elevator ride to the very top floor of the high rise didn’t seem to register in Eden’s current state. She hadn’t anticipated this. She could’ve handled the restaurant—the buffer of the patrons would’ve made it easier for her to fend him off—but it was just them now. Eden’s heart lurched painfully in her chest, warning of an incoming panic attack. She told herself to breathe, even as they drew nearer to the place where she least wanted to be. Turning back however was no longer an option when the door flew open before James had the opportunity to knock.
He stood there like the devil incarnate, the tautness of his features and the barely restrained hold he had on his fury put the fear of that devil at Eden’s core. He looked murderous.
“That will be all, James,” came the terse dismissal, and he failed to give his bodyguard anymore mind as he wrapped a hand around Eden’s wrist and brusquely tugged her inside, closing the door soundly in James’s face.
Eden struggled to free herself from his unyielding hold as he dragged her behind his unforgiving frame. When he finally stopped it was to shove her onto the leather couch that thankfully broke her fall. His unnecessary brutality sparked Eden’s rage again, and she shot to her feet facing him with a glare of her own. “How dare you—”
“Sit down.”
“Like hell…”
“Sit. The. Fuck. Down.” His naked fury was terrifying; his dark green eyes gleamed and his mouth compressed in a hard line. The aggression radiating off of him smacked into Eden instantly, pushing her back down on the couch. He loomed over her, a great big shadow of a man with a snarling face. “Listen to me very carefully,” he breathed, barely containing himself, “do not mistake my tolerance for patience. I can only be pushed so far.”
“And how far are you going to push me?” she fired back, hands balling into fists at her side, refusing to stand down. “What is it going to take for you to leave me the hell alone?”
“You are my wife!” he roared as though that was the answer to everything.
Eden laughed without humor. “Do you honestly think that’s what I am? Do you honestly believe this joke of marriage is anything other than a well-dressed act of prostitution? I wasn’t your wife, Dominic, I was a very well paid sex toy, and you were the sad and pathetic asshole who paid for it.”
“Well then,” he bit out, tearing his shirt out of his trousers and raising a hand to undo the remaining buttons, “seeing as I am still paying for it, I might as well get my money’s worth.” With the shirt hanging open, he was exposed to her now from throat to navel and a little further down, a point where she absolutely refused to look.
The implication of what he was about to do hit Eden squarely in the face, and she regarded him with a mixture of disbelief and resentment. “I hope you’re prepared to rape me, Dominic, because that’s the only way you’re going to touch me,” Eden said gravely, feeling completely unhinged by the situation and Dominic’s menacing form.
He took a staggering step back from her the instant she uttered those words, and then another as if suddenly faced with a two headed monster. Shock turned his face noticeably pale, and Eden was glad to see that she’d finally struck that boundless ego. “I wouldn’t…” he trailed off, abandoning whatever he had been about to say, and lanced Eden with his narrowed stare instead. “You are not to leave here until I return,” he ground out. Turning away from her, he marched out of his penthouse without a second glance.
Chapter Seven
