I fall into step with him and enter a chilly corridor with high ceilings. We pass what looks like a library, and he motions to a set of stairs. “There’s a full gym on the next level if you want to work out. And this,” he says as we reach the door at the end of our path, “is your room.”
This is your room. The words echo in my head, and again, I have a memory of another time and place. He opens the door, and I enter ahead of Kayden to find myself in a much warmer room that is truly made for fairy tales. The spectacular bed is the centerpiece, thick, high posts of mahogany towering ridiculously high and draped with sheers. A white wooden fireplace is alight and sits to the left of the bed and directly in front of me, with a comfy-looking brown leather chair next to it.
“Marabella turned on the fireplace for you,” Kayden says, crossing the room to stand beside it. “It’s gas, one of the modernizations I made to the place a few years back, to offset how cold the castle can get.” He reaches for a switch and turns the fire off and then on. “Easy and effective.”
“Great. Thank you. It’s a wonderful room.” But I’m really thinking about him. Me. And that bed.
He motions to a rectangular, narrow, floor-to-ceiling window in the corner. “It doesn’t open or offer much light.” Next, he indicates the flat-screen TV on the wall above a heavy wooden dresser. “The remote’s in the dresser drawer, and there’s a mini-fridge on this side of the bed stocked with drinks and snacks.” He advances on me again, and while the man in my flashbacks moves with grace, Kayden is all loose-legged, rebellious swagger. And I like it. I like it a lot. “We can go shopping for anything you need once the rain dies down,” he adds, stopping in front of me. “In the meantime, Marabella took the liberty of picking up a few things that you’ll find in the closet.”
“She didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to do that. Thank you, Kayden.” I lift my hand to touch him, and catch myself, folding my arms in front of me instead. Awareness flickers in his eyes, and I know he knows what I almost did and still want to do.
We stand there, a weighted silence ticking between us that has nothing to do with my words, and everything to do with the bed sitting behind him. He steps closer, but doesn’t touch me, his gaze drifting to my mouth and back up. “You have no idea how much I want to strip you naked and throw you on that bed. But you were right about memories. They keep the past we don’t want to forget alive, and they remind me of all the reasons I’m bad for you. And why I need to walk out of this room before I don’t give a damn anymore.”
And to my utter shock, that’s exactly what he does. He steps around me and starts walking. I turn in time to watch him disappear into the hallway, the door shutting behind him. Shutting me inside. I’m not sure how long I stand there staring at the space where he was moments before, willing him to return, the way I did in the bathroom when we played out a scene almost like this one. But he doesn’t return, and I finally turn to look around the room that is the closest thing to home I have. A memory surfaces, transporting me to another room. Another house. And that man.
He opens the huge double doors at the top of the stairs and motions me forward. I step into the glamorous room with heavy pale wooden furnishings and a floral love seat in the corner beside a window. It’s amazing, and so unlike anything I have back home. I turn and face him.
“It pleases you?” he asks.
“Of course it pleases me. Thank you for letting me stay with you. I’ll go to the passport office tomorrow and try to figure out how to get home.”
“Don’t rush on my behalf. In fact, I think I might benefit from having an angel such as yourself in the house. It will keep the devil in me in check.” His eyes sweep my body and lift. “Or perhaps not.” He turns and walks to the door, pausing without turning. “You should lock your door.”
I smile as he exits, quite certain I will not be locking the door. In fact, I might just leave it open.
I blink back to the present, and I don’t even have to ask how I ended up leaving that guest room for his. I probably did open the damn door. I rotate and face the one to this room, and while I do not feel any fear or need to lock myself inside, I hadn’t then either, and this version of me does not wish to be as stupid as the one of the past. I rush toward it to turn the lock, but there isn’t one. I rotate again and lean on the hard surface, irritated at the doubt rolling through my mind. That man is not Kayden, and I don’t need a lock. I was naked in a bed with him and he didn’t take advantage of me.
My stomach interrupts my one-on-one chat with myself with a groan of demand. I push off the door and round the bed to note the time from the clock by the bed—five o’clock—unable to remember the last time I ate. I find the fridge Kayden mentioned and go to my knees in front of it, discovering it to be quite well-stocked as promised. I grab a mini chocolate milk and an apple, and sit Indian-style to begin eating, but I’m only a few bites in when my mind flickers with the image of me tied to that damn bed.
I down the milk and put the rest of the apple back in the fridge before standing and removing my purse to set it on the marble-topped nightstand. That’s when I spot the pink leather journal lying in the center of the bed, along with a pen. The bed is so high I have to go up on my toes to climb on top, and once I’m there I grab the journal and pen. Settling on my back, I open the first page, and to my surprise there’s writing:
You will remember. That’s an order.
—Kayden
I laugh, as I am certain is intended, surprised he has managed such a feat when he’s not even here. Shutting the journal, I hug it to me, staring at the ceiling the way I did when I woke up in that hospital and rolled over to stare into his pale blue eyes. Beautiful eyes. And my eyes drift shut, my lips curved. I drift into a state of half awake and half asleep, but my mind will not allow me this brief time of peace, and I am no longer smiling. I am transported back to his room, naked and tied to the bed.
Two hours I have been like this. My hands over my head, knotted together. Cold. Angry. Scared. I am being punished for going shopping when he told me to stay home. I thought he was a Prince Charming, my Prince Charming, a man I could fall in love with. But no Prince Charming does this to a person. I just want off this bed and to go home. I should have gone weeks ago to replace my stolen passport. Why didn’t I replace my passport? Oh yeah. I was living a fantasy. A rich, sexy, and powerful man consumed me until I couldn’t process anything else. That’s time number two I’ve been foolish over a man. I just have to go to the passport office tomorrow and get a new one. I want to call Sara, but she’ll worry and try to rescue me, and she can’t. Not from San Francisco. All I will do is cause her to stress. I’ll call her when I’m headed home.
Abruptly, the doors open, and I jerk my head upward to find him standing in the doorway, tall and broad, his suit so damn expensive and perfect, like he once was to me, but not now. Not ever again. He walks toward me, personifying male elegance and grace, but radiating pure predator. Funny how that appealed to me before, even made him sexy, but all it does on this night is convince me I’m his prey, not his “angel,” as he calls me.
He stops at the end of the bed, shrugging out of his jacket before walking to a chair, where he neatly folds it and lays it down. Precise. Always precise. And controlled. Everything is about control with him. Everything. He stands with his back to me, but I can see him loosening his tie, taking his time to fold it as well. Each second creeps by like years, building the anticipation, the anger. The fear. He continues with this process until he is naked, and then he walks to the chest against the wall, where he removes his watch, carefully laying it inside what I know to be a velvet-lined drawer.