Chapter 158Katie's POVIf you’re teaching you know it’s not true, for a start, but then it just really bothers me to think that you’ve been watching me. So it’s not getting you anything you want.”“Getting you in a little temper is exactly what I want.” Cephus scooped up my tossed shoe. I froze as he knelt at my feet. I wanted to back the hell out of there, but of course that was probably exactly what he wanted too. He didn’t have to use all of his threatening force to keep me in line, and he was happy for me to realize it.I tried not to wiggle my toes in nervousness as he took my bare foot in his hands, running one smooth fingertip along the edge of a scratch I’d picked up in the fuss the night before. I i never would have thought that socks would seem like a necessity to keep me feeling safe.“It’s nothing,” I spoke up as his examination grew uncomfortably long. “It doesn’t hurt.”“We will have to be more careful with you in the future,” said Cephus. “Perhaps if I treat you like
Chapter 159Katie's POVThe fucker put his hands up again. “I suppose I can’t deny that one.”“Please! Hands on the fucking wheel!”“You know, I’m glad we took this trip together,” Cephus said. “I’m getting a vivid picture of what it will be like to be married to you. I can’t say I’m against the challenge of it.”That seemed to be the end of the conversation, which was just fine by me at that point. I almost wanted to cry with frustration, but I reminded myself that was just a consequence of my fright and exhaustion catching up with me, something I didn’t want to show Cephus, and it would pass.I stared out the window at fields I would never have seen on my way out there, and had probably never passed by before. It was strange, thinking about my parents on the other side of the world right now while I had never even seen a bunch of cow hotels a few hours’ journey from my usual location. Somehow I’d never thought about how strange it was that they never invited me to come along with
Chapter 160Katie's POVI couldn’t even manage to get out of Cephus’s car in those stupid heels, not without potentially exposing myself to the wider audience of the area in which we had parked. Cephus had to step in front of me and draw me out holding onto both of my hands. Then I took one step and teetered until he tucked my arm around his and led me off like a walking doll. I felt ridiculous, and seeing other suited men, sometimes also maneuvering women, glancing at us as we drew close to the entrance and trying to meet Cephus’s eye with their knowing smirks made me feel horrendously conspicuous.I fell over in the elevator on the way up to the restaurant. One elderly woman was riding up with us, who clutched her handbag closer to her chest and squinted down at me with this look of I know you’re drunk right now.I would have let her know I was currently kidnapped so the disapproval could be redirected to where it rightfully belonged, but a woman like that seemed liable to blame m
Chapter 161Katie's POVIt was lucky for me that my hands were already occupied with holding up his jacket, or I might have made some embarrassing concession to my sudden desire to get closer to the action.And what did it matter if he knew? He probably did know that women fell over themselves the instant he took his clothes off. And the whole point of our encounter was that he intended to convince me to marry him… or to play along with intending to marry him, which was more or less the same thing these days, at least physically. On some level, he was making an offer of intimacy. Surely he’d be happy to hear that I wanted to be intimate with him, considering how offended he got about any notions of sexual assault.Well maybe it wouldn’t matter to him, but it mattered to me. I didn’t want to end up overwhelmed by sexual feelings for a man, it was much more comfortable when it worked in the other direction. I just didn’t know if I had any way to escape it.Cephus slid the shirt off, f
Chapter 162Cephus’ POV“I…” Cephus stepped away immediately to follow him so I was left completely alone at the desk and had to stagger after the two of them until I was back in earshot. “Um, did you not hear what I just said? I’ve been kidnapped, I need you to call the police for me.”The guy’s laugh was nervous. “Now, we are well-known here for our seafood experiences, serving locally caught produce…”He was too scared to go against Cephus… no, that didn’t make sense, because he seemed perfectly relaxed telling Cephus about the new cheese menu they’d just launched. He was too scared to talk to me.I’d had this sort of interaction with men before too, though usually I’d been engineering it. He thought I was joking, and he didn’t understand the joke.It was because I was too calm about the whole situation, wasn’t it? I didn’t fit the bill of a woman who looked kidnapped. Was I going to have to turn into a blubbering mess just to get someone to take me seriously? Because that sounde
Chapter 163Cephus’ POVThey had no idea that I kept seeing Steven on and off after the order was in place, but the order itself was something spearheaded by me, on the public record.”Cephus was nodding. “They would have had a lot of pride in you after that.”“Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far. I think it amused them while they were thinking about it, that’s it.”I shifted my feet under the table to ease the strain on my knees, bunched up in an awkward position thanks to those stupid shoes. I was about to change the subject, because my parents’ utter disinterest in me was not something I ever wanted to discuss with anyone, but Cephus was already moving forward with his next question. “You handled the situation well yourself, but it still must have been a frightening experience for you. Were you more wary about leaving the house after that?”Oh, I saw exactly what he was trying to do there. “I’m still not talking to you about—”“Cephus!”We both turned as someone stopped by our tab
Chapter 164Cephus’ POVWhen we stopped trying to dig into one another’s heads and spent our time commenting on the quality of the food and wine, we got along quite well. That was a trick I’d learned with my parents, actually: you didn’t have to have any fondness for a person so long as you could lean on your shared interest in food. Eating good food produces endorphins, and if incidental conversation makes any polite response impossible, it is completely appropriate to just make noises.I also had a little more wine than I intended, which put me in a pretty good mood.“I’d like to go back to my house to sleep tonight,” I told Cephus as we reached his car. He’d been holding my arm since we got up to leave our seats at the restaurant and when I wobbled so severely I nearly made myself dizzy enough to throw up, I felt his fingers tighten on me. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “Even if that means you’re going to come in and creepily watch me when I sleep. I just want to
Chapter 165Katie's POVI needed to get it together before he saw me like this. I put in a tremendous effort and got myself to a more appropriate level of uprightness, but I could tell when I turned to face him coming in that he had a pretty clear idea of my mental state. It figured he would have some experience with fractured women.He steered me into the kitchen, sat me down on one of the stools at the island bench, and prepared another tea for me, selecting something herbal from my mother’s wooden tea bag box. It was unsettling watching him move with such ease around our kitchen at first like he’d been there enough times to know where everything was, but after I’d seen enough I was certain that wasn’t the case. Cephus was just very good at feeling his way around a situation, working out where everything was quickly enough that it just seemed natural.I shouldn’t… but there I was again wondering how he would be working his hands around a woman. If it would feel different to the ki
Chapter 183Katie's POVAll I see is a blur of him as I try to get my mind and body to function so I can answer him. My legs hit the floor as he pushed me down, releasing me to walk away. His hand grips his hair as he stares at the gun in his other hand and back down to me.“No. No, it’s not true,” I whimper, tears still falling. “Don’t listen to him,” I plead, looking him straight in the eyes.“Silence,” he orders, walking over to me with his hand raised. Will he hit me? Will he hurt me?“That isn’t true!” I shoot back. “Nothing he is saying is true…”Silence ensues for a long second before Cephus speaks. “Get the ropes and tape!” he yells to Mack. I’m lying on the ground on my side when his face comes into my vision.“Was it all a lie, Katie? Was it all some fucked up lie so that you could get into my head? So you could get the inside job done and walk away unscathed?” His voice is so loud in my ears, I push away from him.“Was it?” he shouts, demanding a response, his fingers gripp
Chapter 182Katie's POV“I see it as more of a protective arrangement for both of us. There are legal protections for each of us… incentives to keep one another’s secrets.”I fixed him with what I hoped was the most vicious look I had in me. “I never went to the cops after you kidnapped me, didn’t go running to my parents begging them to find someone to break your kneecaps, and you thought you needed some other way of getting me to keep your secrets?”“It matters…” I can hear the anxiety in Mack’s voice. Something is very, very wrong.“Why does it matter? She was nothing before this whole incident and will be nothing after everything takes place. She’s clean. I know it.” Cephus sounds confident, and though I know I have done nothing wrong, if Mack convinces him I did something, I know I am as good as dead.“It matters because I know she’s not clean. After Jared called me and told me what Luccio said, I did a little digging on her and found some shit out.”Horror fills my mind. What i
Chapter 181Katie's POV“I was seven or eight, in a regular primary school not far from here.” His right hand moved, grasping for his phone, then he left it alone and pulled my hand he was still holding onto his knee, placing both of his hands over it. If the ring I was wearing was digging in, he didn’t give any sign. “It might surprise you to hear this, Katie, but I was not the best of children.”“Shocking revelation.”“I was always targeting kids a bit younger, a bit smaller. The ones I knew wouldn’t be able to give me any shit in return. Except this one time, there was this kid—Billy Burke, I remember his name vividly—and he did give me shit. He told me he wanted me to stop pushing him around and trying to scare him, and no he wasn’t going to give me his lunch money, by the way. I’d never run into this situation before when I was running this scam, so I panicked a bit. I hit him in the face. Told me to his parents.”I didn’t know what to say to this. It took me all too quickly b
Chapter 180Katie's POVEven when it gets worked out in the end, it sucks for long-term relationships.”It had to be even harder to find someone you could enter into the sort of long-term relationship most people were especially keen on with. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised Cephus had jumped at the chance to get me on board as a future wife.And speaking of my future husband, I had half-expected he wouldn’t be there when I returned. Then when I saw him sitting on the couch in front of the TV where he’d been when I ran out to get in Caroline’s car—where he’d probably slept for all I knew, he’d gone out the night before and hadn’t been back before I admitted defeat and crawled to bed—I half-expected to spot Angel somewhere in the room in the next moment. She didn’t have anything further to add to her roster of manipulations for the moment: we were alone.“What was your day like?” asked Cephus without looking at me. I let my bag slip by degrees from my fingers, frozen in place by the p
Chapter 179Katie's POV“Cephus isn’t supposed to be a part of this side of things, he can’t do it… and I doubt you’re in a position to ask your mother for assistance. Caroline is an ideal choice.”I didn’t like it, but she was right. I couldn’t go about this the wrong way if I ever wanted to be on Cephus’s good side. I didn’t want to go about it the wrong way. And while I was surrounded by Cephus’s family I needed to make connections unless I wanted to be treated the same way I was on my own. Caroline seemed like the safest option there so far.“If you’re sure I won’t be inconveniencing you,” I told Caroline. “I could use the help. I don’t have much experience with the whole wedding business, that much is for sure.”Caroline broke out in a little golf clap of delight. There might actually be some benefit in spending trying to absorb as much as I could of her elegance. “I’m so pleased to help. Now, I was thinking, I have the whole of tomorrow afternoon off work, so that would be a g
Chapter 178Katie's POVI sat up with a gasp.It was just like the morning before when I had woken to unexpected voices. But this time I was in a strange bed again, and at least one of those voices didn’t seem familiar at all.I’d learned my lesson from the day before. I couldn’t get myself into the single bathroom in the apartment, but I pulled on a proper outfit, brushed out my hair, and cleaned my face thoroughly with some wipes. I didn’t dare put on makeup without a full mirror, but I was young and fresh enough that I could probably get away without it.Once I was decent, I made a quick and quiet tidy of my room and then stepped up to the door for a bit of strategic eavesdropping before I joined the action.A childish female voice was doing most of the talking. “She’ll need someone to guide her through the process.”Cephus’s voice sounded both amused and exasperated. “Someone who has never been even close to getting married before?”“You know exactly what Caroline means.” The thi
Chapter 177Katie's POVI kept trying to convince myself that what I was craving was the worst craving anyone had ever had, including anything that had been thought up by a brain on pregnancy. But it was ridiculous to be so worried about whether I did or didn’t sleep with him when I was already making myself vulnerable to him, right? Or was this just how I was convincing myself to go along with wherever my lust took me?I don’t think about looking at my plate. Then when Cephus abruptly slid his chair backwards and stood, I startled like a tiny animal that could run away if provoked further. I knew damn well I couldn’t run.Cephus came to my side and put his hand out for mine, drawing me to my feet when I complied.“You have sauce on you,” he said and pointed it out on my shirt—his fingertip pressing slightly into my breast in a way that was, I’m sure, entirely necessary.I looked down at his hand there. Well, I’d managed to at least try to eat something.I thrust my chest forward in
Chapter 176Katie's POV“Madonna and child.” Cephus folded his arms and leaned back; it felt like an acknowledgment that I’d landed a hit, but I didn’t have any idea how. I’d just been trying to give a voice to my frustrations. “So you know a little bit about art, then.”“I think that’s kind of something I picked up through pop culture actually,” I said. I was hoping to screw with him while I seemed to have an advantage, and he did appear to deflate a little in response. “You’d be more eager to get a leg over if I was the kind of girl who t art and how to engage with you because I have any desire to ‘get a leg over’. And I have no intention of scorning you because you lack cultural polish. I assure you that I will be able to provide for you sexually in every way you might require.”“What kind of statement is that? Trust me, I’m a sexy beast, even though from the way I behave you would expect pretty much any Arctic land to be less frigid than I am?”“Do you want me to provide referen
Chapter 175Katie's POV“Am I supposed to believe you are shy?”I was so startled by Cephus's Voice that here I dropped the capsicum I’d been fidgeting with. It rolled across the bench, and Cephus caught it with one hand while he continued dicing its unlucky sibling with the other.“I guess you wouldn’t,” I admitted, “but if any situation was going to make me feel that way… I mean, we’ve gone from you having me dragged out If bed to trying to cook with me?”“You’ve got to roll with the challenges life presents you sometimes, Katie,” said Cephus, rolling the second capsicum into the path of his knife.“Are you talking about me here or you?”“Both of us, for once.” His expression visibly dulled. It struck me then just how much more animated he had become since we had first met. It was just a handful of hours but there was someone behind the mafia man front he was slowly letting me see, whether by choice or unconsciously I did not know.It bothered disappearing again. It was messing wi