Hero

10

My hand spreads over my stomach and clutches my dress. I try to inhale, but air comes in short, impossible wisps. “Mr. Parish?”

“Have a seat,” Calvin says, his voice dripping with heart-stabbing indifference.

I take a step backward and make jolting contact with the doorjamb. “Where’s Guy?” I ask, my head shaking out of my control. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my home.”

“How?” I whisper.

“I’m not sure I understand your question. Have a seat, Cataline.” He removes his glasses with a heavy sigh. “I’m certain you’ve been warned about my patience?”

With tentative steps, I inch my way to sit at the opposite end of the table. As I do, his eyes drop from my face.

“Norman?” he calls, and instantly Norman appears. “What is this? She looks ridiculous.”

“It’s customary for dinner guests to dress as such in your presence, Master.”

“No need for formalities that will only confuse the girl. We’re not playing house here.” His attention returns to me. “Going forward, come to dinner as you are. And on that note, don’t call me Mr. Parish. Calvin will do.”

I swallow, running my hands over my silk-sheathed thighs. It wasn’t long ago that my mouth stretched from his throbbing dick. I shake my head quickly. “This can’t be real,” I say softly to the table. “This whole time—these last two months, I thought . . .” My head overflows with questions faster than I can keep up. I look up again. “Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?”

For rarely having ever made eye contact, his gaze is unnervingly fixed on me. It’s almost more shocking to have him stare at me so directly than what I’ve just learned.

“Norman,” he says without looking away, “excuse yourself.”

And again we are alone. He leans forward with agonizing slowness to set his elbows on the table. “I won’t answer those questions.”

“Why not?” I pause, awaiting a response. “Are you working with Guy Fowler? Is this because of what happened at the restaurant?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “No.”

“No what?” I cry. “No, you’re not working with him, or no, it’s not my fault?”

“Please, don’t get hysterical. Remember your place.”

“My place?” I repeat. “I don’t know my place.”

“The fewer questions you ask, the better. They’ll only lead to disappointment, as anyone you come in contact with has been instructed not to answer them.”

“For how long?”

He shakes his head, an admonishment.

My nails dig painfully into my palms, but I can’t seem to unfurl them. “You’re going to jail for this, and then to hell.” I falter delivering the words, but my need for information is quickly eating away at any fear. “Who do you think you are?”

“That’s a question I will answer. You know me as the founder of the company where you work, your boss . . . but I’m more than that to you now. I hold your fate. As such, you should do as I say if I care enough to say at all.”

“How long have you been planning this?” I ask quietly.

His eyebrows rise lazily.

“You’re psychotic,” I say. “How many other girls have you done this to? And what does this have to do with Parish Media?”

He sighs. “Nothing, I can assure you.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re still in New Rhone.”

Something in my chest breaks loose and relief manifests with a jagged sigh. I am triumphant, clutching to this nugget of reassurance. I lean forward in my chair and open my mouth.

“You’re a glutton for disappointment it seems,” Calvin says. “Go on, ask it.” Slowly he rises from his chair and stalks toward me. My eyelids beat rapidly, and my head tilts further and further until I’m looking up at him. He inclines over the arm of the chair so he’s hovering above me. His nearness is something I’ve furtively wished for in the past, and now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it. “Why you?” he asks. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

I nod breathlessly.

His head slants to the side. “I often ask myself the same thing. Why you?”

Time slows. My lips split apart to breathe him in. I’m swimming in green, unfamiliar green, fighting a war I’ll never win. I reach up and feel his jaw, put my finger in his mouth. My arms are too heavy to move, though, and I’m drowning. My hands remain lifeless in my lap, where they always were. We are a mirage, but separately, he and I are real.

I’ve been silent too long. “Were you the one who came to my room?”

His Adam’s apple springs up as he swallows, but his gaze never wavers.

“Am I here for . . . for—”

“Sex?” he finishes. He reaches out but pauses midair when I flinch. “You aren’t afraid, are you?”

My heart is thudding against my ribcage, eager to escape and leave me to the dogs. I break our stare and shift my eyes to his extended hand.

“You’re blushing,” he murmurs as his fingertips graze my cheekbone. “You’ve gotten away with this behavior because of the circumstances, but after tonight, I’ll have no more questions. I’ll only tell you one more thing. All right?”

I agree with a fractional nod.

“This is in your best interest.”

“My best interest?” I say. “I don’t believe you.”

“So be it.”

“When you came to my room—that was in my best interest?”

I’m frozen while he fingers a piece of my hair and moves it behind my ear. “No. That was for me.” He backs away, returns to his end of the table, and sits. “We’re ready to eat,” he says levelly. He slides his glasses back into place, but he continues to watch me. Norman appears within moments, dishes in hand.

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

“I don’t care. You’ll eat.”

“I’ll eat if you answer my questions.”

He chuckles. “It doesn’t work that way. You’re not in charge here.” He takes a bite of food, his head down as he chews.

When I blink, there’s wetness on my lashes. After weeks of waiting for this conversation, I’m left with no real answers and many more questions. It’s a minute or so before I speak again, and I hardly recognize my voice through the grit. “Hero will come for me.”

His head snaps up as suddenly as his eyebrows draw together. The stare he pins me with is so piercing that I sink into my seat. I always knew I’d find something grave in his depths. But my imagination never scratched the surface of how it feels to have him actually look back. It’s as if he’s trying to see harder, to dive inside me through my pupils.

“Hero will come, and when he does,” I pause to deliver my next words with a snarl, “you’ll regret your existence. I hope he shows you no mercy.”

There’s a marked passivity in his face that knots a hard and guttural pit in my stomach. Just when I’m sure he’ll fly into a rage, he bursts into loud, bellowing laughter. There’s nothing joyful about it, though; it’s taunting, echoing through the massive dining hall. He shakes his head and gives me a look a parent might give an amusing child. He forks a bite of his steak and points it at me, a drop of blood leaking from the meat. “You’re funny.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he says, shoving the food in his mouth.