Page 121 of Freed
“You are freaking unbelievable.”
“I’ve heard that.”
He pushes off the wall and walks toward me slowly, not like a captor approaching a prisoner, but like a man approaching something already wounded. I hate that the distinction matters.I hate that some weak part of me still notices the care in the way he moves.
When he stops in front of me, his voice is lower.
“You were poisoned in my house.”
“I know.”
“You nearly lost your baby.”
“I know that too.”
“And whoever did it knew enough to get close to you.” His gaze drops, just briefly, to my stomach before lifting again. “So until I know who’s coming for you, you stay where I can keep you alive.”
There it is. That ruthless certainty that makes everything sound so simple.
My eyes burn. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“I already did.”
The words hit like a slap.
I laugh once, because if I don’t, I might start crying again, and I am so tired of crying in front of him.
“Of course you did.” I glance around the stunning penthouse with its polished stone and impossible view. “You even picked out the cage in a nice neutral palette.”
“There are worse places to be trapped.”
“Spoken like a man who’s never had to ask permission to leave a room.” I fold my arms tighter over myself. “What happens if there’s a fire? Or I need air? Or I decide I’d rather jump than spend another second with you?”
His eyes flash black. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? You built a prison in the sky. I’m just trying to understand the emergency exits.”
His voice goes colder. “You want out, you ask. Someone will bring the elevator.”
I stare at him. There it is. The final humiliation. I don’t justneed him physically present. I need permission because despite it all, he still doesn’t trust me.
“Your room is this way.”
I let out a thin laugh. “How generous.”
He doesn’t answer. He just turns and heads down the hallway, expecting me to follow like he expects everything else from me.
I do follow, though mostly because standing in the middle of that bright, awful living room with the locked elevator behind me feels too much like being on display.
The hallway is quieter than the rest of the penthouse. The floors are covered by a runner in muted cream and gray, and the walls hold abstract art in pale, expensive colors that mean nothing to me. Every few feet, another recessed light glows warm overhead.
Lorenzo stops at the second door on the left and pushes it open.
The bedroom beyond is huge. Floor-to-ceiling windows line one wall, framing the city in a wash of twilight blue and glittering gold. A king-sized bed sits low and wide against a paneled wall the color of warm sand, layered with ivory linens and a charcoal throw folded with military precision across the end. There’s a chaise near the windows, a pale rug soft enough to sink into, two nightstands, two lamps, a sitting nook with a small marble table, and beyond that an open door leading into a bathroom bigger than my first apartment.
“Did you buy this place for me?”
His silence is answer enough.
