Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“What?” My eyes move over his face, trying to get a read on the situation. Has he been drinking again?
“Who the fuck are you?” he bellows. “Tell me the truth!”
“You know me,” I whisper.
“I don’t fucking know you.” He releases me as though I burned him and stares at me with such hatred, it cuts me to the bone. But I’m determined to get to the bottom of this. Something happened. I just need to figure out what it is so we can tackle it together.
“Please tell me what’s going on,” I beg.
He grabs my phone from the nightstand, flipping through apps like he’s searching for my dirty little secret. I’m paralyzed with uncertainty, and I imagine this is how it must feel for a mouse to watch a cat. I’ve never seen him like this. So angry. So scorned. His eyes flash like he’s found something, but I know that isn’t possible. I have nothing to hide.
He drops the phone back onto the nightstand and walks into his bathroom, pulling open drawers and tossing the contents out onto the floor. When he appears in the doorway again, his neck is throbbing like I’ve never seen it before.
“Where is it?” he asks.
“Where is what?”
“The oleander!”
I suck in a breath and shake my head. “I’m not telling you.”
“This isn’t a game,” he snarls. “What part of that don’t you understand?”
When he comes for me again, I scramble across the bed, but I’m not quick enough. He gets me by the ankle and hauls me back, pinning me with his body weight as he squeezes my face between his fingers.
“Where is it?”
“I threw it in the bay,” I lie.
His throat works from the force of his fury, and I don’t know how to fix this.
“Did something happen to your mother?” I whisper. “Is that what this is?”
“Don’t talk about my mother.”
He yanks me up from the bed, and I thrash in his arms as he carries me down the hall to my room. The room I haven’t stayed in since he allowed me into his.
“Thor, please.” Tears streak my cheeks as he throws me onto the bed and grabs some restraints from the wall. “Punish me if you need to, but don’t shut me out. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
He forces my ankle into a restraint and attaches it to the bedpost.
“Did you enjoy it?” he asks, repeating the process on the other ankle. “Did you enjoy it when I fucked you, or was that all a lie too?”
“Nothing was a lie.” I reach for him when he leans across me, and he shoves my hand away.
“I’m not yours to touch.”
His words feel like a punch in the gut, and I’m still trying to recover when he deals his next blow.
“Tomorrow, you can go back to your pathetic little farm and live in the barn for all I care.”
“Thorsen, please—”
“I’m not Thorsen anymore.” He secures the last of my restraints, leaving me bound across the bed. “I’m the King of Norway, and you were only ever a fuck toy.”
I’m the King of Norway. The King of Norway. The King of Norway.
All night, those words have plagued my mind. I keep thinking I must be wrong, but there’s only one conclusion that makes sense. Thorsen’s father is dead, and he has ascended to the throne.
Grief. That’s what this is. There’s no other explanation.
The clock on the mantel ticks away, one minute bleeding into the next until the hours seem like an endless abyss I’ll never escape. He hasn’t come for me. Even the next morning, when light floods in from the windows, he still doesn’t come for me.
At some point, Lisbet opens the door, and when she finds me bound to the bed, her face pales, and she scurries away, muttering something in Norwegian. I call after her, but she doesn’t come back. More minutes pass. And then hours. Until I can no longer hold my bladder.
I told myself I could endure anything he threw at me, but the longer he leaves me here, the more I question it. Everything seems hopeless as the sun outside rises high in the sky. Where is he? When will he come for me so we can talk this through? Because that’s what we do. We fight, and he works out his issues, and then everything is okay. It’s always okay. But today it’s not. Because when the door opens, and I finally breathe a sigh of relief, it’s only to be replaced by dread when I see the face staring back at me.
“Lavinia?” I jerk against my restraints on instinct, but it does me little good.
“Oh my fucking God.” Her mouth falls open, her evil eyes raking over me with a hatred so profound, it sears my flesh all over again. “So, this is what he’s been hiding all this time?” She laughs as if it’s totally implausible. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”