“You did what?” His face darkened with rage. He stepped into her, took the mostly empty glass of whiskey from her and threw it sideways away from them. The glass shattered against the piano.
Winston backhanded her casually, but hard enough to knock her backward. He followed her, slapping her breasts three more times. Each blow made her stumble back more. Pain exploded through her, a shock wave that made her nearly vomit. She knew he was holding back too. He didn’t look like he wanted to.
“You little bitch. Do you think I’m going to let you ruin everything because you’re so spoiled you want every single thing your way? I want you cleaned up and looking presentable in the next half hour and then we’re going to finish up here with the plans we made.” With each sentence he hit her again, her ribs and then her stomach, finally knocking her to the floor.
With a look of utter contempt, he reached down, pulled her cell phone from her pocket and tossed it on the couch before he turned away. “Just in case you get stupid. Now go to the bathroom and put some makeup on.”
Soleil picked herself up gingerly. No one had ever hit her before Winston. It hurt. Her face throbbed and burned, feeling as if her cheekbone had exploded. Her breasts and stomach hurt with every movement. She recognized that he’d been careful not to hit hard enough to injure her—to make her see a doctor. Her face might swell later, but she’d have some time before it did—enough time to get married.
She made her way to the bathroom, avoiding the master bedroom because he’d gone in there. She didn’t want to get anywhere near Winston. The stranger, Lana, had been so right. These things did go badly very, very fast. She didn’t even have her phone to call for help. Not the cops, not Lana, no one.
She didn’t look in the mirror, what would be the point? She wasn’t going to clean herself up and marry Winston. She didn’t care how much he hit her or yelled. She wasn’t about to tie herself to him.
The sound of male voices made her jam her fist into her mouth after realizing she was crying—making broken sobbing noises. She needed to hear whatever Winston was saying. Maybe, if it was room service, she could call out and let them know he was threatening her. Her fist had the flat golden key in it. She had never put it down, not when she’d drunk the whiskey and not when he’d hit her. At least she had that, the key to the elevator.
She opened the bathroom door cautiously. Winston was in the bedroom. He’d left the door open, presumably in order to hear if she came out of the bathroom. He was pulling on another of his immaculate shirts. He had called someone, and they were on speaker.
“How the hell could you fuck this up, Winston? It was a golden opportunity. We handed her to you on a silver platter. All you had to do was get her to the altar. Monroe would do the rest. Another month and your wife would die in an accident and you’d be a young widower, ripe for so many desperate wealthy women to console, and we could do this again. How hard could it have been?”
“I’ll marry the bitch, but she’s going to meet with an accident on the honeymoon. Spoiled little bitch, not even a good lay. All she ever did was talk to Bennet like a little baby. He coddled her.”
“We cleared the road for you. We’re good at accidents, Winston, but if you can’t close this deal, you’ll be the one dead on the side of the road, like Bennet. You wanted in and we gave you this one chance and you blew it. Get it done.”
“She’ll do whatever I say,” Winston assured. “I made sure of that and she doesn’t have the guts to fight back.”
Soleil felt the color drain from her face. She actually felt light-headed. Monroe was the new lawyer she’d just fired. She recognized the voice of Harbin Conner. Harbin was a decorated policeman, assistant chief and moving up, one of the many men she had met through Winston. He’d been on the “list.” It sounded like Conner had arranged an accident for Kevin. And he kept saying “we,” as if there were more of them. They planned to kill her. Winston wanted her dead. Winston and his friends wanted her dead.
She drew in air and told herself not to faint. She just had to make a run for it. Her phone had landed next to her denim jacket on the couch. She’d left the jacket there when she’d tired of their original argument and had just wanted to go for a walk to think. He’d followed her, of course, not giving her time at all, and he’d gotten so angry he’d shaken her. Not once, but several times. He went back to the room declaring she wasn’t going to stand him up at the last minute.