Page 57 of Sold to My Ex's Brother
“Come,” he orders me, pushing open the door and nodding for me to step inside. I just cross my arms over my chest.
“I’ve spent enough time in that room as it is. I want out.”
He sighs, pushes a hand through his hair. “My office, then. This way...”
I follow him, closing the distance between us, my heartbeat picking up slightly in my chest as I go after him. It’s not that I’m nervous, not exactly, but I’m all too aware of everything he is capable of, both the good and the bad.
I can still remember the cold, callous way he took the shot on his own brother, putting him down like it was nothing. I need to remember who I’m dealing with here. As much as he has protected me, I know that he is brutal when it comes to doing what needs to be done, and I don’t want to find out what might lay on the other side of that.
He closes the office door behind me and pulls out a seat for me, an arm around my shoulders as he guides me to sit down.
I swallow hard, trying to steady my nerves. It’s the strangest thing, how a man like this could have given me pleasure beyond anything I had ever imagined, and at the same time be capable of violence beyond anything I have been exposed to before.
Hard to trust that it is so easy for him to switch the latter off, and I need to keep my wits about me if I’m going to make it through this.
“What is it, Maya?”
“I want to go back to my apartment, collect some things.”
“You have everything you need here.”
I sigh.”I know,” I confess. “But it’s notmystuff. I know that I don’t need anything here, but it’s all – it’s all come from you. The clothes, the books, the apartment. I just want to add something to it that makes me feel like I’m the one who lives here, you know?”
Silence. He leans back in his seat, a loud creak cutting the quiet.
“Why?”
I frown at him for a moment. Is it really so much of a mystery as to why I would want my own damn stuff here? He is acting like I have laid out some outrageous demand, but this is the bare minimum I could expect, just to make this place feel a little less foreign to me.
“Uh, because I have a life I don’t want to forget about?” I reply, digging my brows together. “I get that you want to?—”
“Keep you safe?”
He fills it in pointedly for me, and I shift in my seat. Yeah, that’s part of it, but there’s more than just that, too...
“You were attacked at that apartment,” he reminds me. “Going back there would be a mistake.”
“Yeah, and the man who sent someone after me is dead, in case you forgot,” I shoot back. “You’re the one who killed him, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean the threat just goes away. It takes time.”
“How much time?” I demand, my voice taking on an exasperated edge. “How long is this going to go on for, Anton? Because I just got away from someone who was trying to keep me under lock and key, and I’m not about to walk into the same thing again because…”
“Because what?” he shoots back, his voice low, almost warning. I meet his gaze as steadily as I can, given the circumstances, but it takes everything I have not to waver as he looks back at me with those sharp eyes.
“Because... because it’s over now, isn’t it?” I ask him softly. “When you killed Anton, you ended it. God, I know that there are probably still so many women out there who need help, but I’m not in danger anymore. He’s not coming after me, not like he did before, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life pretending that he is just round the corner when I know he isn’t.”
He doesn’t move for a moment. His jaw is tense.
“You’re going to stay here, with me, where I can keep an eye on you,” he tells me, almost calmly, as if the conversation is already finished. A flare of anger courses up the back of my spine, and before I can stop myself, I retort with something I know isn’t entirely fair.
“So you and your brother both like keeping women under lock and key, is that it?” I ask him. He jerks back slightly, as though I have reached across the table to strike him.
“I’m nothing like him,” he growls, the anger overcoming whatever hurt he might feel.
“But you’re not letting me out when I ask for it,” I point out. “How is that any different to what he did to me?”
“Because I’m not selling you to the fucking highest bidder?—”
