His eyes narrow to slits. “You think you’re the expert on me? You think I’m selfish?” His laugh is cold. “You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed for you.”
“I never asked you to.”
Gnashing his teeth, he knocks the box from my hands. It falls on the floor with a thump. “Do not be ungrateful for what I’ve done.”
The violence jars me, locking me in place.
Dragging both hands over his head, he tilts his face to the ceiling and walks away from me. “Fuck.” He stays at the far end of the room for a moment before turning back to me. His hair is even wilder than before when he finally drops his arms to his sides. A war rages in his eyes. For a minute, he’s not my kidnapper, but the man who cares about me. He’s just a man making himself vulnerable by opening up and dropping his defenses. “I don’t want to scare you, Zoe. After your father—”
“Don’t.”
Sighing, he comes back and picks up the medicine box. “I’m going to tell you a story. A young man goes to a market and sees a beautiful woman admiring a precious object. He can see she wants it, but when she opens her purse, she doesn’t have enough money. This man, he was paid to abduct that woman. He has two choices. He can either grab her, tie her up, and drag her away, or he can go up to her and tell her how beautiful she is and buy her that precious object she wants so much. He can do that for her and be kind, inviting her to dinner. They can have a good time, have great sex. He can ask her to go away with him and knows she’ll say yes. Tell me, Zoe. Which man is kinder? Which man is the most selfless?”
“The honest one,” I whisper.
A shutter drops in front of his eyes. The man who was reaching out to me a second ago retracts back into his shell. I mourn the loss, the almost-intimacy, but I can’t lie to him. I can’t betray myself. I can’t strengthen his warped belief that lies can smooth over his crimes.
“You better take care of that,” he says flatly, pointing at my foot and handing me the medicine box.
I act on autopilot, taking out disinfectant and a Band Aid. My hand shakes when I pull out the piece of glass. The sting burns all the way to my heart. I glance up at him. He’s watching me quietly, his face an unreadable mask.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“When I couldn’t track you down in Marseille, I knew you’d skipped the country. It wasn’t that difficult. I only had to have your family followed.”
My heart starts beating in my temples. “Damian?”
“His wife.”
I jump to my feet. “Stay the hell away from them, do you hear me?”
“Whether I stay away from them is up to you. However, you will speak to your brother tomorrow and tell him we’re back together. You’re going to take me to meet him. How things happen from there depends on how convincing you are. We can be like the couple in my story, leaving nicely, or I can kill a few people before we go. As I said, it’s all up to you, my little flower.”
His voice is even, disinterested almost. It’s as if his fire has burned out after our fight, but I know better. I know him too well. He’s pulled away, hiding deep inside himself. He’s become the cold psychopath again. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep on trying to draw him out of his shell and hoping to reach him. This love I feel, this hopeless, wrong, painful love, I’m not sure it’s worth fighting for. It almost destroyed me once. I can’t let it happen again.
When he pushes me down with a hand on my shoulder, I’m too weary to resist. I simply sink down into the cushions and let him take my foot in his hand. I watch him disinfect and bandage the cut with the meticulous attention that makes him Maxime. I sit quietly while he cleans up the broken glass and mops the floor. I don’t say a word while he boils water and makes tea.
“Have you eaten?” he asks, handing me a cup.
“I’m not hungry.” I can’t be a complete monster. “If you are, there’s food in the fridge.”
He doesn’t smile at the offer. He waits for me to drink my tea, then helps me to my feet.
“Can you put weight on that?” he asks, looking at my bandaged heel.
I flinch when I put my foot down. “I think it may take a day or two.”
Scooping me into his arms, he carries me to the bedroom and lays me down on the bed. He sets the gun on the nightstand and settles next to me before pulling the covers over us. I don’t brush my teeth or wash my face. We don’t undress. We simply lie next to each other in the layers that protect our bodies and hearts, breathing quietly in the dark, both of us staring at the ceiling.
After a long moment, a big, masculine hand rubs against my smaller one where it lies on the mattress, his pinky locking gently over mine.
Chapter 8
Maxime
Waking up early is an inaccurate statement. It’s more like I never slept. At the crack of dawn, I take the
