CHAPTER SEVEN
ANNICKWASSTILLstewing by the time she made her way downstairs. She had put on a pair of black wide-legged trousers and a navy blue shirt. Mostly because she knew that he expected her to come down in a dress, given that he was already clad in a suit in the early hours of the morning speaking of dance lessons.
So, she did not comply, because it was the only power she could find in the moment.
She had the terrible feeling that she was outclassed in about a thousand ways as she walked down the stairs that led to the ballroom.
Perhaps it was all a false sense of security. Being able to take him from California in the first place. She had gotten the upper hand, but she had the sense that she hadn’t had the true scope of what was happening. She had engaged in a battle and won a tentative victory. But this was a war, and Maximus had the controlling power.
She’d wanted that power. Finally. To be in total control of all that happened around her, and by engaging Maximus, she’d entered into a devil’s bargain where control wasn’t possible. Even though he was fighting for her, he had still superseded her.
So, small rebellions it would be.
Her heart fluttered strangely as she approached the ballroom, and she took a breath, pushing both doors open and making a rather dramatic entrance. He did not even give her the satisfaction of looking surprised.
“It took you long enough. Come over here.”
“I don’t think you understand. I don’t like orders,” she said, fixing him with her most narrow stare.
“I don’t think you understand. I don’t care what you like. You asked for a very specific thing—in fact, you demanded it. Now you must face the consequences of your own actions. You were a prisoner for a great many years, subject to the whims of other people, so perhaps you have forgotten what it means to have agency.”
“I have always had it. No one could ever get in here,” she said, tapping her temple.
“Perhaps. But I meant in the real world, where real actions take place outside of here.” He tapped the same spot she had just tapped. And she flinched. His touch aroused strange sensations between her legs, and she didn’t like it. “There are real consequences. If you are going to run around acting tough enough to take me on, then you have to be prepared for what comes of it.”
“Threats,” she said. “Many, many threats. And yet here you are, standing in the middle of my ballroom.”
“It would not do to let you die. It would not do to let you fail.”
“Why?” she asked, feeling emboldened. “What is this sudden caring that you have for if I live or die?”
“I’m not a monster,” he said.
“Are you not? For I was under the impression that you were.”
“There is one code that I have, one thing I live by. I will not let innocent women be destroyed. I will not do it. I will not take part in it. I will not allow it. If there is a chance for me to stop atrocities being committed against the innocent, then I will. It is the only thing that keeps me from being a monster. And you should be grateful that it’s a vow I’ve taken. It’s why I won’t just leave you. It’s why I have agreed to help.”
“Why?”
“That, my dear, is none of your blessed business.”
“And why not?”
“You might have discovered some of my secrets, but you don’t get to know me.” He leaned in, and the scent of him wound itself around her, made it difficult for her to breathe or think. Made her head fuzzy. “No one knows me.”
He moved away from her, and she did not find it any easier to breathe now. She could still smell the vague impression of him. Skin and cologne and something very uniquely him.
“You don’t get to know me either,” she said.
He chuckled, and then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up against his hard chest. “You don’t know yourself, darling.” He moved one hand to her lower back and grabbed her hand in his other, holding it outstretched. “Now, we learn to dance.”
He moved her over the ground like she weighed nothing, his strength calling to something inside of her that she could not quite grasp. His strength making her feel vulnerable and empowered all at once.
She had never felt anything quite like this before. The sensations of being held in a man’s arms. She resented that he made her feel this.
But then...
She met his gaze and her stomach turned over.