Entrapment (Morelli Family 7.5)

“It’s only for two more days,” I tell him. “I only need to make her hate me for two days, just long enough for them to talk to her. Then I’ll stop. Then I’ll tell her the truth. She’ll forgive me and we can pick this right back up. Dante’s right, though. The test needs to happen, and I need to follow my original plan.”

“That isn’t how people work,” Adrian advises me. “Whatever spark of feeling you think she might have for you, whatever you think you can build on? You’re going to kill it if you do this.”

I shake my head, dismissing his concern. “Not with her. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

Adrian pivots and walks away, shaking his head as he heads for the door. “Famous fucking last words.”

“Where are you going?”

His tone drips with disdain—I’m not sure if for me, or for himself. “To guard your fucking prey.”

—

Dinner is over and instead of looking forward to retiring for the night and going to spend time with Mia, I have to go with Alec. Once Dante left, I debated how far I needed to take this. I’ve done a great deal of damage, planted seeds of sympathy and understanding, watered them. I’ve been tender with her, let her get a glimpse of a less guarded side of me. I’ve let her too close for my original method to work. The night in the library she was just starting her mission to get to know me, but she didn’t have the kind of hard evidence she thinks she has now that I’m not a lost cause. It was enough to betray her that way when she didn’t know me—it was enough to invade her sense of privacy, fucking her in place of her boyfriend. It was enough to pull the rug out from under her and corner her in my bedroom. It was enough to force myself on her when she begged me not to.

I’m not sure it will be enough now. I’ve already started training her to expect brutal sex. She’s already training herself to be fine with it, to respond to it like she would the kind of sex she’s used to. I’m not sure I have the ability to rape her now; she’s more or less willing.

I can push the orgasm, though. And I will. I’m a little worried about the potential for shame to flood her, but if it does, I think I can fix it. It may not even happen. She’s started to accept that her body belongs to me now, not Vince, so it might be okay.

Might have been, anyway. There are certain lines even I won’t cross—I’m not going to hit her. That shit pisses me off, and given her willingness to accept shitty treatment, she might tolerate it and piss me off even further. No, I won’t do that. I don’t want to do anything that might damage her ability to feel for me permanently, but I do need to piss her off right now. I need to piss her off enough that she’ll rescind her consent, because that’s the only way I can violate her again and that’s something I know she can get past.

It’s all rather unpleasant. I’d rather not do any of it at this point, but it has to be done. I tell myself I’m not really wounding her, I’m only manipulating her.

It has to feel real to her, though.

I have to be a world-class asshole tonight and tomorrow, then Monday morning I’ll send the men to talk to her, and Sunday evening I’ll begin making it up to her. I’ll explain why I had to do all this to her—I may even drag out the Beth story, much as I hate to, because it will make her sympathetic to me. If I let her have a peek at the tattered heart she’s convinced exists in my chest cavity, she’ll be able to forgive not only my brutality, but the accompanying deception.

Alec sighs, shoving open the Escalade door. “This is a bad idea,” he informs me.

I ignore him, climbing out and walking ahead of him. “Every bad idea is a good idea under the right circumstances.”

“Not this one,” Alec disagrees. “You’re letting Dante get in your head but Dante’s an asshole.”

“So am I.”

“She’s going to hate you. This is a bad idea.”

“No, making her hate me is the idea. Don’t worry about it. Just lead me to the stripper with the strongest perfume.”

“Blonde, brunette, redhead?”

“I couldn’t give a fuck less,” I tell him. Then, on second thought, I add, “Not blonde.”

It makes my skin crawl walking into this place. Before Beth, I had no problem hanging out here the way Alec does. This is where I met Colette, Dante’s ex-girlfriend. Back then it seemed fun, the women seemed sexier. Now it all reeks of bullshit and desperation. Now it’s the same performance, night after night. Women who couldn’t give a fuck less gyrate against men who can’t get a fuck otherwise, money exchanges hands, everybody goes home as alone as they were when the day began.