Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (14 page)

Wanting
you
. Just hearing the words weakened my knees. “That’s
all it is? Conflicting instincts?”

He gave me a trace of a
smile. “You say that as if it’s simple.”

“Isn’t it? If you
can’t feel both things at the same time, then you have to choose.
And you need to do it tonight. I’m done hanging around waiting for
you to decide.”

“I don’t expect you
to.”

He stared at me, his
expression calm and unruffled. The only clue to his internal struggle
was the tic of a muscle near his left eye. “I want you to come to
Provence with me as we planned,” he said.

I snorted. “Are you
serious? Why?”

“Why not? You don’t
want to fly back to New York yet, do you?”

Suddenly exhausted, I
sat heavily on the end of the bed. Everything ached – my legs, my
back, the muscles in my throat. “That’s the last thing I want,”
I said. “I don’t want to be in the same hemisphere as Trevor. If
I had to deal with the police right now…I’m not ready for that.
Not even close.”

“Okay. How’ll you
write your article if you don’t come with me? Katherine is
expecting you to go.”

“I’m going on
Monday by myself. I’ll call a real estate agency that caters to
Americans and try to set up interviews with prospective buyers.”

He sighed. “I’ll be
there at the same time, Sophie. I know the area and I already have an
agent. I’ll help however I can.”

He came over and sat
next to me. I looked up into his face, feeling as vulnerable and
broken as I ever had in my life. “I’m not leaving this hotel
tonight,” I said. “I need time alone. I need sleep.”

“Take all the time
you want,” he said, his voice husky from exhaustion. “But I’m
not ready to let you go. I want to be the person you deserve after
what Trevor did to you. After everything you’ve been through in
your life.”

I frowned, hearing
something in his voice that put me on edge. “The person I deserve –
who would that be exactly?”

“Somebody who doesn’t
hurt you and put you in danger.”

My eyes burned with
uncried tears. Now I understood. It was a vow to change, to be as
withdrawn as he’d been before seeing my picture and choosing me.

“No, Marc. You can’t
go back to being who you’re not. It didn’t work then and it won’t
work now.”

“It’ll be different
this time,” he said, his forehead creasing. “
I’m
different. I have a very good reason to be.”

Far from reassuring me,
his words felt like a crushing defeat. “I won’t be one of those
women you pretend with,” I said. “I can’t be. Not after what
we’ve had.”

“Just give me a
chance,” he pleaded. “It’s only three days, and after that you
can decide whether to stay or go. The power is yours. It always has
been.”

“Bullshit,” I said.
“Tell me how the power’s mine.”

Instead of answering,
he raised his hand slowly toward my face. His head tilted and a frown
flashed between his eyebrows.

“You’re so
beautiful,” he said. “You know that? More beautiful tonight than
you’ve ever been.”

“Don’t touch me,”
I said, unable to tear my gaze from his.

“I won’t,” he
said in a gruff whisper.

Eyes piercing into
mine, he traced the air around my cheek before lightly touching my
skin. At the feel of his fingertips, my defenses wavered and crashed.
A slow burn snaked through my gut, an endless craving for him that
went beyond sex to my soul.

In spite of everything,
he could still tear me apart with a glance, lock into a part of me
I’d never revealed to anyone else. I was naked in front of him,
completely myself with no pride.

“Say you’ll come
with me,” he whispered, and brushed his lips against mine.

When the tips of our
tongues touched, I let out a whimper, audible proof that I was still
completely his. In an instant I was soaking wet for him, my nipples
stiff against the inside of my t-shirt.

I couldn’t help but
rejoice in the primal feeling of hot, heart-pounding arousal. Only a
day after I’d feared that Trevor had killed off my desire for good,
Marc had restored it. With one kiss, he’d already returned to me
what had been brutally ripped away.

How could I say no to
him? How could I resist the only man who’d ever known who I was and
what I needed?

He trailed his hand
down my jaw, over my neck, and across my collarbone. When he grazed
his finger over my aching nipple, the last of my resistance crumbled
to dust. Maybe he was right – we didn’t need handcuffs, or
collars, or any of those things. After all, we had this, the deep
pleasure of a touch and a simple kiss.

Surely I could survive
three days with him. Couldn’t I? I’d survived Trevor and the loss
of my parents – this was nothing in comparison. Odds were that the
trip would end in heartbreak, but I’d never forgive myself if I
didn’t try.

I took a deep breath,
feeling as if I were about to plunge into a cold lake. “All right,”
I said. “When do we leave?”

Two afternoons later, I
followed Marc off the train in Provence.

While he wheeled our
suitcases, I carried a new Louis Vuitton duffel that had mysteriously
appeared in my hotel room the day before, filled with the clothes,
shoes, and perfume Marc had given me. I’d dressed somewhere between
the old and new Sophies, in skinny jeans and a sweater and a camel
trench coat, with the black Mary Janes I’d worn at the M Society.

It seemed like a year
since Marc had fucked me to a shrieking climax on the restraint
table, but it had been less than a week. How quickly things changed.

Following Marc through
the crowd, I marveled at how well I’d bounced back. I’d caught up
on sleep and submitted my restaurants reviews to Katherine just
before deadline. I’d gone a full day without crying and my bruises
were starting to fade.

Though I was still
rattled by flashbacks of being tied and gagged, I’d been putting on
a brave face, mostly for myself. I knew I was burying feelings that
might resurface later, but I refused to let Trevor taint another
minute of my time with Marc.

I couldn’t erase what
had happened. There was no telling what the police in New York might
do, or not do. Moving on quickly might be the closest I’d ever get
to revenge.

We walked out of the
train station into a bright, Indian summer afternoon. By the time we
found our rental car outside the station, I was almost faint from the
heat. I took off my coat and tossed it into the trunk on top of my
suitcase.

“I guess we’re not
in Paris anymore,” Marc said, pulling off the V-neck sweater he
wore over a t-shirt. The hem pulled up as he raised his arms,
revealing the structured muscles of his stomach. I swallowed hard and
looked away. I couldn’t stop my body from responding to him, but I
didn’t have to let it show. He didn’t need to know how much I
craved his touch and attention.

I’d hoped we could
pick up where we left off before Trevor, but we hadn’t even texted
after our conversation in my hotel room. We’d hardly spoken on the
train.

Was it just the strain
of a few days apart? Was there something he wasn’t telling me? I’d
tried to talk on the trip down, but he’d buried himself in his
laptop and spent an hour on the phone with his partners. Maybe he was
just busy. But I had a sinking feeling it was more than that.

We drove to our hotel,
a restored former monastery at the edge of town. While Marc checked
in I lingered in the courtyard, a stone-paved area shaded by tall
plane trees. Trying to empty my mind and focus on the moment, I
watched a flock of birds flutter from one tree to the other, then fly
off in a sudden rush over the tile roof.

“All set,” Marc
called from the doorway.

“Great.” I walked
toward him across the terrace. In his hands, he held two keys on old
iron rings.

“Separate rooms?” I
said, stopping in front of him.

He shrugged. “After
everything that’s happened, I thought you’d appreciate some
privacy.”

My blood simmered.
Everything that’s happened
– did he mean Trevor, or the fight in my hotel room, or the awkward
trip down? I was too dumbfounded to ask.

“That’s very
thoughtful,” I said coldly. “Are we on the same floor? In the
same building?”

“A few doors away
from each other,” he said, ushering me inside.

Scowling at his back, I
plodded after him to the second floor. He stopped outside Room 17 and
said, “I thought we could have lunch downstairs on the terrace. The
restaurant’s supposed to be excellent.”

I gave him a shrug. “As
long as they serve food, I don’t care,” I said, shoving the key
into the lock.

I opened the door to
find my luggage already inside. The room was bright and updated, with
a pressed tin ceiling and cobalt blue fleur-de-lis stenciling on the
walls. It was lovely, the perfect place to spend three days cursing
myself for coming here.

“I’ll be back in
about half an hour,” Marc said.

“Fine.” I shut my
door and slumped against it, angrier at myself than at him.

I’ll
be different, Sophie.
I
have a good reason to be
.

He’d said it out
loud, right to my face. What part of it had I not understood? Had I
really believed that a little time apart and a quick trip would turn
him back into the person I’d fallen in love with?

The new Marc wouldn’t
even share a room. And now I was stuck, committed to another article
for Katherine. I had no choice but to stay and get it done. I could
not –
would
not –
let my career be affected by a man I couldn’t begin to understand.

I’d just finished
unpacking when I heard a text come in. I ignored it until I’d
splashed my face with icy water in a useless attempt to wash away my
humiliation. When I finally looked at my phone, a slow chill crept
over me. The message was from Julia.

I
heard
NYPD went to
talk to Trevor today. He said it had something to do with his week in
Paris. Do you know anything about this?

Without a second thought, I deleted
her words and didn’t write back.

“Everything all
right?” Marc asked after we’d ordered lunch.

I’d just brutalized a
few lines of French at his urging, mortifying myself in front of a
waitress who couldn’t tear her big blue eyes from Marc’s face.
That she was pretty and confident in that effortless, skinny French
way made it even worse.

“I’m a little
tired, that’s all,” I said, squinting off toward some
arid-looking hills. I’d forgotten my sunglasses in my room and the
sun was so strong I could hardly see.

“Are you still up for
looking at properties this afternoon?” Marc asked. “I’m
supposed to see four while we’re here.”

The French country
table setting was so charmingly perfect, I found it annoying. “Up
for it or not, I have an article to write.”

“I’ll take that as
a yes?” He smiled as if I were a child whose tantrums were getting
really old, really fast.

Baffled at his casual
beauty, I watched him text his real estate agent. He’d changed into
blue linen pants and a well-worn white button-down rolled up to his
tanned forearms. His legs were crossed and he lightly shook one
loafered foot. As he tapped, his sensual lips moved slightly, making
it impossible not to imagine them on my mouth, my nipples, between my
legs.

Just the thought filled
me with despair. Now I understood how hate was the flip side of love,
how I might never want anyone else to have him.

I had the urge to ask
why he’d invited me here if he was only going to imprison me in a
separate room, but couldn’t think of a way to say it that didn’t
sound bratty and desperate. I ate my salad in silence and resigned
myself to three days of hell, followed quite possibly by a lifetime
of the same.

After lunch we drove to
the countryside near an ancient Roman town. Marc chatted about the
scenery as if we’d just met this morning. It was no wonder he’d
been able to repress his desires for so long. He was an expert at
burying what was inconvenient, covering it up with small talk and an
upbeat attitude.

At that moment, sitting
in the car beside him, I didn’t believe I’d ever shattered his
self-control. I no longer thought such a thing was possible.

We pulled down a dirt
driveway flanked by tall cypress trees and got out. In front of us
was an old villa, still grand despite its decaying walls and crooked
green shutters. In the distance I could see the red clay roofs of a
tiny village, and beyond that, a shimmering range of mountains.

“Good view,” Marc
said.

The real estate agent,
a balding Englishman named Matthew, stood at the front door waiting
for us. We followed him through the house, ducking under low doorways
into rooms with soiled stone floors and birds nests in the rafters.
Dirty sunlight streamed through windows of cracked leaded glass.

I listened to the
questions Marc asked – about plumbing, reliable contractors,
putting in an infinity pool – and despised myself for wishing that
we were looking for a vacation home together. How differently I would
feel picturing our bed in one of the rooms, saying things like, “It
might be okay if we knocked down this wall.”

I looked at Marc,
hoping to read the same sorts of thoughts in his expression, but for
half an hour he hadn’t even glanced in my direction.

iPad in hand, I trailed
him up steps and down narrow passages. We almost ran into each other
in the attic, our eyes meeting, hands grazing as we passed.
Immediately I was hot for him, and blood flooded the surface of my
skin. But I could tell by his distracted look that he hadn’t felt
the same magnetic pull that twisted my insides into knots.