Masterpiece (The Masters of The Order Book 1) (38 page)

Somehow she knew Xavier wanted to feed her from his hand, but the hunger overwhelmed her and she reached for the food. He placed his fingers on her wrist, silently stopping her. Her empty stomach burned as he plucked a single grape and held it to her lips.

Her mind spun with conflict.
How far down this road does he plan to take me? How much of my own degradation will he make me accept? How many times can I surrender a piece of my soul before he has it all?

Xavier didn’t move or speak, only waited. When she opened her lips to accept the small mercy, he leaned over and inhaled deeply in her hair. Despair settled in her gut as she swallowed. When he leaned back, she saw it. It was only a flash, a fleeting revelation, but it definitely crossed that guarded stare.

Xavier is lonely.

Realization flashed so brightly in her mind that she expected a light bulb to appear over her head. He was driven to this extreme because he needed a connection to the woman he lost. The only woman, who he himself admitted, he’d ever loved. He’d never been able to replace her and he was alone. Utterly alone.

His weakness. And my power.

She schooled a doe-eyed expression before she spoke. “Thank you, baby,” she crooned in a sweet voice, smiling at him.

She wasn’t smiling because of the food or because she cared. She was smiling because she saw her path forward. If Xavier wanted her to become Lianne, she would. Lianne controlled him, even from the grave, and if her daughter took her place, maybe she could control him too.

Xavier’s eyes flared at her words. “What did you say?”

“I said thank you, baby. You are still my baby, aren’t you, Xavier? God, I’ve missed you so much, baby. I waited so long for you to come for me. I love you, baby. I never stopped.”

She was using the first of many weapons revealed in Lianne’s journal: her pet name for Xavier. He looked shocked, pained and more vulnerable each time she used it. Even when Lianne knew him, he was a very powerful man. Calling him “baby” was their little inside joke, an intimacy and informality he shared with no one but her.

She leaned over and kissed his hand. Another weapon. Xavier may have allowed Lianne certain indulgences, but he demanded her respect. This was the way her mother showed it, by kissing his hand.

At the kiss, Xavier deflated.

Julianne didn’t give his rational mind a chance to come back on line. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“For what, Lee-lee?”

Ah ha. His pet name for Lianne.

“I want to be pretty for you, but I’m all grimy and smelly.” She crinkled her nose. “I know I’m disappointing you and it hurts. It hurts so bad, baby.” The childlike words sounded foolish, but she knew from the journal that this was the way Lianne talked to him. Like a little girl.

“No. No. You aren’t disappointing me, Lee-lee.” He lifted her up as he spoke. “I have everything you need. Come, I’ll show you.”

Xavier carried her out of her basement prison. It was a good thing too because she probably couldn’t walk. A surge of disgust ran through her gut when they entered a bedroom. Bile rose in her throat just thinking about him touching her sexually, but she had to swallow that fear. She would deal with it when, and if, it happened. Mercifully, he bypassed the bed and entered a bathroom, setting her onto her feet.

She swayed, dizzy from dehydration and hunger. Xavier didn’t notice as he hurried away and started to draw a bath. The smell of the bath salts he added to the water brought tears to her eyes. She hadn’t smelled that smell for over ten years, but she recognized it instantly. It was the smell of her mother.

Xavier turned back with a wide smile. “Here you go, Lee-lee. You take a hot, soaky bath and I’ll go see about our dinner.” The baby talk was nauseating. “Your dress is in the closet. Knock on the door when you’re ready and I will let you out.”

Okay. Xavier may be participating in the charade, but he isn’t completely ignoring the fact that I'm his prisoner.

As soon as the lock clicked, Julianne raced to the sink and shoved her mouth under the faucet, swallowing huge gulps of water until she gagged.

*****

Darion sat in the back of the van, searching for the right words.

He was a proud man and apologies didn’t come easily to him, but he owed one to the man seated next to him. He’d been arrogant, downright foolish, in lying to Nicolai. At the time, it seemed like the right thing, but he now knew otherwise. And he wasn’t above admitting when he was wrong. He would offer the words, but words would never be enough.

“I’m sorry, Nicolai. I was wrong. I will give my life to fix this and get her back for you.”

Nicolai didn’t meet his eyes. “I know, Darion. I appreciate it.”

The voice was disinterested. Nicolai looked edgy, pissed off, empty. Like the sullen art student Darion met all those years ago. Seeing Nicolai like this was his greatest regret. Charmed existence aside, Nicolai suffered so much. Too much. Money, talent and any women he chose, but until he met Julianne, he hadn’t truly lived. She inspired the spiritually starved artist. She nourished the sensitive soul buried by years of disillusionment. She brought out the caring nature hidden behind the cynical façade. Without her, Nicolai reverted to the cynical, closed-off person Darion had fought so hard to heal.

The driver’s voice interrupted the heavy thoughts. “We arrive at the chateau in fifteen minutes. Everything remains quiet. No changes to report, sir.”

The plan was simple: Gain entry long enough to tell Xavier the truth about Julianne in the hope that knowledge would alter his disastrous course. Darion knew it wouldn’t work, but he played along.

Xavier was too arrogant to relent. Even for his own blood. His idea about how this scenario would end may change once he knew the truth, but he would never allow Julianne to go back to Nicolai. He would never accept that type of defeat.

Darion had his own idea of how this scenario would end, but let silence fill the time until they arrived at the chateau. Actions speak louder than words. When they met Xavier face to face, he would gain Nicolai's forgiveness and right the wrong he'd caused.

One way or another.

*****

Julianne’s body felt numb as she slipped into the frilly frock.

It was a dress she never would have chosen for herself. Her fingers worked the tiny pearl buttons at the bodice, arranged the lace sash and pulled down the sleeves to cover the bruises on her wrists. She spritzed herself with a sweet perfume that smelled nothing like her usual fragrance. She worked her hair up into a loose bun, tucking a rose into the knot, to create a style that didn’t suit her. Primping, arranging, changing herself into the woman in the photograph left on the vanity. When she was finished, she assessed herself with hard eyes. Dressed like her mother. With her hair styled like her mother’s. Smelling of her mother’s perfume. Prepared exactly to the specifications of her mother’s lover.

Why did I put myself in this horrid predicament?

Oh, she could peel off the reasons. Because inside, there was still a little girl who missed her mommy. Because the adult daughter somehow thought that understanding her dead mother would help her understand herself.

Blah, blah, blah
. It wasn’t the truth. Seeing herself transformed into someone she wasn’t snapped the truth into focus.

Life with Nicolai was a challenge.

Her career was a challenge.

Expanding her sexual horizons within the Order was a challenge.

Somehow, someway, she convinced herself that knowing the woman who nurtured and cared for her little daughter was necessary to meet those challenges. It wasn’t. And it took living a nightmare to show her that.

The life she’d chosen, the life she’d been lucky enough to achieve, required one thing and one thing only. The woman who lived it had to stand on her own two feet and face each challenge by herself. She had to be a strong, self-determined woman who accepted that there aren’t always answers, that emotions are scary, that relationships can be hard and that sexuality is damn confusing.

Her regret mounted with each passing second. She risked the life she adored with the man she adored. For what? For nothing. A big, fat nothing.

Well the time has come for me to grow the hell up.

Lianne was her mother, and like her, she enjoyed a submissive sexuality. But her daughter was not “just like her.” Lianne wasn’t a professional artist. Lianne didn’t work for hours on end to advance her education or career. Lianne didn’t donate time and effort to help people less fortunate than she was. Lianne wasn’t adventurous. She didn’t like to tease or listen to loud music or wear chic clothes or worship shoes.

But more than anything else, Lianne could never satisfy a man like Nicolai Stavros. A man who pushed and challenged at every turn. A man who expected discipline and dedication in everything equal to his own. A man who had a talent, so incredible, that the world sat in awe of it, but who needed a woman whom he could sit in awe of.

Lianne was passive. The Colonel rescued her, sheltered her, kept her a child and ultimately kept her from another man whom she loved. The man who waited outside that locked door at this very moment. Lianne didn’t have the strength to fight.

But her daughter does.

Julianne drew a determined breath, her fear making her senses diamond bright, and knocked.

The door snapped open. “Oh, Lee-lee. You look so pretty.”

In full character, she dropped to her knees and kissed Xavier’s hand. “Thank you, baby. Pretty for you, baby, only for you.”

As he guided her down the hallway, she studied her surroundings. Details were crucial to her escape. The architecture told her they were in a chateau and the scent of lavender blowing in through an open window told her they were in France. That was good. She’d been inside homes like this and could almost predict where the dining room would be.

Voilà
. There it is.

Xavier led her into the candlelit room and seated himself at the head of a long table with her at his left. She cooed and smiled as he fed her tiny bits of food. Not shoving handfuls of it into her mouth was the hardest thing about her performance. Had she not been starved, she would have been sick at being fed by this maniac with his dead hands caressing her face throughout the entire meal. They retired to another room with a blazing fire.

Odd that the fire would be lit in July, but no more odd that the whole scene I'm in.

She stepped in front of the fireplace and stared into the flames. The warmth reminded her of Nicolai and how she had fallen into loving him before she even knew herself. It occurred to her now that she might never know herself and found peace in the idea that perhaps no one ever does. Whispers in the corners of her mind suggested that she was missing something important.

Xavier stepped behind her and began to run his cold hands up and down her arms.

Just play along, Julianne.
She leaned back against him.

Instead of moving forward with her seduction, he scolded her. “You’ve made me very unhappy, Lee-lee.” The disapproving tone was one a parent might use with a very small child.

She whimpered as if his words hurt her and turned in his arms to peck little supplicating kisses over his jawline. “I’m sorry, baby. Tell me how to make you happy again.”

He looked at her with eyes filled with regret, as if he actually had sympathy for her. “I didn’t want our first night to be like this, but I have no choice.” He went to his knees on the rug in front of the fire and held out a hand to her.

A lover accepts limits. An abuser does not.

Julianne looked at the flames with new eyes as images of hideous scars on her mother’s body made her understand what Xavier intended to deal out on that carpet. Lianne hadn’t filled in the details, only written about the context. And the pain.

Option one: lie down
.

If she let this happen, it would happen and be done. All she had to do was survive it. But she knew she would never be the same. No one survived that kind of abuse and she would be damned before she'd let Xavier break her.

Julianne glared as the mounting horror was replaced with palpable rage. “That’s why Gilles took her away. You put those scars on Lianne's body. Didn’t you, you sadistic bastard?”

Option two: break Xavier
.

She lunged for the iron poker next to the fireplace and swung with all her might.

*****

Darion fingered the gun hidden at his side.

“The second guard has finished his rotation. If you’re ready, sir, I will open the door.”

The van was parked in the shadows at the end of the lane behind Xavier’s chateau. There was no point in trying to access the property from the front. The guard at the gate would only stop them, giving the advantage of time to Xavier. To maintain the element of surprise, Darion was supposed to slip through a small garden at the side of the house, circle around to the front and knock. If he could speak to Xavier, everything else would be aborted until they were sure Julianne was inside. If not, Sabin’s men would use the distraction to storm the house and they would all pray that Julianne was there.