“You’re going to rape me?” I can feel my eyes getting bigger.
His eyebrows arch, and for a moment, I glimpse honest amusement right before he laughs.
“No. Trust me, Princess. When I take you, it will be anything but rape.”
I look from him to the bedpost where I’m chained.
“Then let me go. You don’t need to keep me chained.”
“Not raping you and trusting you are two vastly different things.”
“Where can I go?” I demand.
“Back to your father. Or your friends. Or Miguel, his brother, his father, and their money. You have options.”
“I havenooptions! You want me to go back to my father?” I almost laugh in his face. “I’ve been praying for years to escape him. You want me to go back to Miguel? The man who said he was going to hurt me on our wedding night just so he could hear me scream? That’s who you think I want to run to?”
“You think I’m going to be any better?” he challenged.
That stops me. I honestly don’t know, but I also know I don’t want to live with a chain around my ankle. I need out, I need to cooperate, I need to get away.
“You’re the best of my three options,” I lie, but it works.
Considering me in silence, he finally says, “Do you remember your physics?”
Myphysics? He wants to talk about high school now?
“Uh… y-yes, no… maybe. Why?”
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At no point will that be more accurate than if you violate my trust.”
Circling the foot of the bed, he follows the chain to my ankle before fishing the key from his pocket and unlocking the padlock. He removes the manacle, dropping it on the end of the bed.
“There. Come on, stand up.”
I crawl off the bed, taking only a moment to rub the minor chaffing on my ankle. When he beckons, I go to him. The pit of my stomach knots, reading what he’s doing as both frightening yet somehow erotic. I’m so uncomfortable. I don’t want to see him as erotic, but I need to be obedient. I need to show him I can be trusted because he really is the best of my three options, at least until I can get away.
“Give me your dress,” he says, holding out his hand.
He could not have dropped my jaw any faster.
“What?”
He had to be kidding, but no, his hand was steady, waiting for my compliance. The look on his face says if I fail this challenge, I’ll end up back on the bed with the chain around my ankle faster than I can blink.
Slipping my dress off over my head, I meekly drape it over his waiting hand.
“Slip, too.”
Gathering the silk at the waist, I pull that off as well and hand it over. Standing before him in nothing but bra and panties, every inch of my skin prickles its awareness. The air around me seems so much cooler. My nipples pucker, tightening into buds my bra isn’t capable of hiding, but his eyes stay on mine, not once wandering in even the shortest of lecherous ups and downs.
Is his self-control that good, or is he just not interested? And why does the thought of either make my chest pinch in disappointment? I don’t want to marry this man any more thanI want to marry Miguel, but the thought he might not want me at all doesn’t make me feel better. I’m being stupid. He doesn’t want to marry me. All he wants is his restaurant in my father’s casino.
A casino I already knew I wouldn’t inherit. My father had said as much this morning when Viktor sat down for breakfast at our table.
“This isn’t necessary,” I suddenly realize.
“Oh, I disagree,” Viktor replies. “I want to make sure you understand there are rules, and what freedom I give you depends on how well you follow those rules. I won’t be happy if you suddenly run from my house in desperate search of a cellphone to call your father—”
