A Million Different Ways to Lose You (Horn Duet 2)

He wasn’t mincing words. They hit me like a brick and left a bruise. It was a whole new level of control freak, completely out of hand––even for him. But if I was now a prisoner, the cage had been fashioned by my own hands. This was the price for lying to him. And I couldn’t make a stink about it when he was in such a state. I knew him too well for that. It would only cause him to entrench more firmly. All I could do was be patient and pray he would come to his senses as soon as possible. Blindly, I reached up in an instinctive move to rub my tiny, gold cross and remembered it had been lost. My mother’s cross…another piece of her gone.

“Stay,” he ordered, and walked away to discuss something with Gideon.

As we pulled out of the underground lot, insect like creatures swarmed the SUVs, snapping pictures and hurling inaudible questions at us. My careful house of cards was quickly collapsing. Sooner or later, the paparazzi would get what they wanted and my face would be plastered on every Internet site and tabloid newspaper in the world. The Albanian authorities wouldn’t have to look too hard to find me.

The drive back to the estate was tense, the silence in the car suffocating, an unquantifiable distance separating us. I noticed that he’d shaved and his hair was perfect, his clothing immaculate. His literal and metaphorical armor was back on. Remote, unreachable, this was the same man I met all those months ago––a part he played a little too well.

He stared out the window without making any contact, eye or otherwise. If it was meant to be a punishment, then he succeeded spectacularly. I’d never felt more alone. My muscles, what was left of them that is, trembled uncontrollably even though it was the middle of August and well in the eighties.

“What happened to Sergio and Etienne?”

Sebastian gaze flickered over me in an impersonal study before it swung back out to the passing scenery. “Arrested on drug trafficking charges. The boy pled down. It was his first offense. The older one is going away for a long time.” I was glad to hear that Sergio had been spared, and prayed he would use it as an opportunity to take a different path in life. He wasn’t cut out for a life of crime.

“Do you have any idea how lucky you are that I found you,” he stated. It was pretty clear it was a rhetorical question. “You could’ve spent the rest of your natural life as someone’s personal fuckpet.”

His crudeness achieved the desired effect. I cringed, cowed by the truth of his words. Human trafficking had risen exponentially in recent years. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Yuri had a hand in that as well.

“You said not to worry about Paisley, but you never explained why.”

A slight smile lifted one corner of his mouth while his gaze remained out the window. “She’s busy putting out her own dumpster fire. She doesn’t have time to fuck with my life anymore.” He sounded bored, his bloodlust quenched. I didn’t like it one bit. There was an undercurrent of maliciousness I’d never sensed in him before. Then again, I’d never seen anyone threatened him, either.

“You’re being purposely vague,” I grumbled in frustration.

Shooting me an examining glance, he reached into his computer bag and pulled out a tabloid magazine, the last thing on earth I would ever have expect Sebastian to be carrying around. I was about to tease him when his expression checked me. He handed me the magazine and steered his gaze out the window again.

On the front cover was a picture of Sebastian. The caption over his head kicked me in the stomach. In Love With His Very Own Cinderella. Good Lord, how cheesy. I quickly flipped to the article and devoured every word. The story was completely airbrushed, Photoshopped until only the barest resemblance to the real story remained. How we’d fallen in love when I was working for him as a lowly housekeeper…how we were getting married in some exotic location like Fiji.

“Where did they get this nonsenses?”

“From me,” he calmly admitted. His eyes connected with mine, bright with shock. “Let’s just say the best defense is a good offense. That reminds me, I don’t want you seeing your friend anymore. It’s too dangerous. She’s living with a hardened criminal.”

My gaze jerked towards him in shock. The casual tone he used did nothing to diminish the significance of what he had just demanded of me. Because it was abundantly clear there was no room for discussion on it.

“What?” I blurted out.

“You heard me,” he warned, aiming a heated glare in my direction. I searched his face for a sign of weakness, something that told me that there was a way to reason with him, but there was none. His Highness was back, firmly standing on the other side of the fortress walls.