She slapped a hand on the table, making my coffee cup rattle in its saucer. “There. I’ve spoken to you. I’ve once again gone against my will. Now, kill me, for all I care, for raising my voice to you. Beat me within an inch of my life for cursing you. But don’t you ever, ever think you’re better than me just because of what you made me become yesterday. Don’t you ever feel superior just because you stole everything that made me me. I curse the very ground you walk upon, Sully Sinclair, and I promise you, right here, right now, that I will find a way to make you pay for what you did. That I promise with every bone in my bruised and battered body.”
Snapping upright, she held up her middle finger, swearing at me in silent language as well as the sewage she’d just uttered, addressing me with no respect whatsoever in front of guests who viewed me as a god with his harem of goddesses. “Fuck you, Sully. Just, fuck you.”
Fuck.
She really, really shouldn’t have fucking done that.
I was livid.
Beyond livid.
I was wrath itself.
For the longest moment, I let her tirade fade from ringing in my ears, replacing her shrill distress with calming twitters of birds and rustles of palms.
Then, I stood achingly slowly.
I smoothed my suit, I checked my tie knot, I glanced down at the guests blatantly rubbernecking at the carnage above them, and then I pinned her to the spot with every rampage and roar percolating in my chest.
Slowly—so as not to snap my restraint—I moved around the table toward her.
She didn’t move.
Her chest pumped with breath. Her breasts strained against the white fabric of her dress, her lips glistened from her violent speech, and her skin flushed with fear not just fury.
But she didn’t run as I reached out and grabbed her wrist.
She didn’t flinch as I squeezed her breakable bones with every vibrating ounce of rage inside. And she didn’t argue when I pulled her away from the banister and goggling guests.
She’d said her piece.
She’d resigned herself to the consequences.
Wise girl.
Stupid girl.
My fingers hurt from squeezing her so hard. Her pulse pounded in my grip. We kept a sedate and gentile pace, leaving behind sunshine and entering the main villa where a coffee house served all-day beverages and café items, sitting above the Michelin star restaurant below.
The pastry chef looked up from kneading dough, went to smile, saw my thunderous expression, and darted his gaze back to his task. A server appeared with a tray of fresh coffee cups, only to turn on her heel and scurry back into the kitchen.
Everywhere, inconspicuous staff scattered.
Eleanor remained as silent and as damning as her savage outburst but she didn’t once try to run. She allowed me to cut off her blood flow to fingers that had already turned a vague tinge of blue. She followed almost at my side, not behind me or beneath me, jinxing the very air between us.
She might not fight or flee, but she wasn’t meek.
Nothing was fucking meek about this girl.
I’d gotten her wrong.
I thought she was a young, fanciful idiot who’d barely lived and definitely didn’t have such reckless abandon for her survival. But really…beneath that false mask, she had a temperament to rival mine. A spirit that just begged to be goddamn broken. A tendency to bury what she truly wanted to say until…she couldn’t stop it anymore.
My palm smashed against the door leading toward the wooden walkway linking this villa with yet another building, allowing us to travel two stories up. We walked in the treetops, brushed past heavy coconuts, and ignored the inquisitive parrots that fluttered around us.
I never released the pressure around her wrist, and with every step, my mood darkened until all I could see was black. Black as night. Black as endless death.
I didn’t look at her.
I couldn’t.
I’d snap.
Reaching the next villa that housed a conference room for those guests who couldn’t turn off from work completely, a high-end safety-deposit room for any valuables, and an in-house doctor who could perform almost every surgery with his highly trained team right here in paradise, I snatched open the door, jerked Eleanor into the empty conference room with its bare architecture, polished hexagonal table, and entire bank of screens ready to link any bigwig to his underlings, then threw her against the wall, slammed the door, and locked it.
But I didn’t turn around.
Instead, I cricked my neck from the overwhelming tension.
I removed my sunglasses and studied the grain of the redwood door.
Inhaling and exhaling, calm and slow, I did my best to rein in my temper…so I didn’t fucking destroy her.
Chapter Fifteen
I’D NEVER BEEN A trapped gazelle in a cage with a lion before. I’d never been a gerbil fed to a snake, just waiting for it to pounce. But I knew exactly how those poor critters would have felt as I stood waiting for Sully Sinclair to snap.