“Really? Considering I just hit my head? You’re so fucking kind. Fuck. You.”
He grits his teeth and I know I should stop while I’m ahead.
“Why did you do that? What was that last night?” I ask.
The bottoms of my feet hurt. My shin. I remember losing my shoes and falling. My whole body aches. And I realize I don’t recognize the sweater I’m wearing. And I know instantly whose it is when I sniff the sleeve.
When I look up at him, he’s watching me, amused.
“Did you undress me?”
“I did. Nothing I hadn’t seen before.” He winks.
Fucking bastard.
I look past him for my clothes. Well, clothes. T-shirt and panties because I am pretty sure he took those off too.
“Where’s my T-shirt?”
“That ratty thing? What’s the matter? Don’t tell me things are so dire at the Bishop house you can’t afford to buy a proper—”
“Where is it?” I push the blankets off to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand but it’s too soon. Pain and dizziness throw me off balance and I stumble forward right into Jericho St. James’s very wide, very muscular chest. He catches me and I want to pull my hands off him, to tear myself out of his grasp but I do neither.
“Relax, Isabelle. Get back in bed.” He puts me back into his bed and I see the scrapes on my legs, see where some are bandaged.
“Where’s my shirt?” I ask again.
“I’m having it laundered.”
“You’re washing it? Why?”
“It was filthy from our game.”
“It wasn’t a game. Not to me.” My voice breaks, the fear of last night and the energy of it all, this whole thing, catching up with me. I wipe the backs of my hands over my eyes. I will not cry. I will not fucking cry. Not in front of him. “I want my shirt back.”
“You’ll get it back once it’s cleaned. It’s a fucking T-shirt.”
“It’s not just any T-shirt.” I start to tell him it’s Christian’s. That I have been wearing it since he died. That it took me months to even wash it. But I don’t. He doesn’t deserve to know that. To know anything about me. I touch the bruise on my shin around the bandage. “Did you do this? Bandage me up?”
He nods solemnly, expression all seriousness.
“Why? Isn’t it what you wanted? To spill Bishop blood?”
“That wasn’t the blood I would have spilled. My plans were of a more intimate nature.”
At first, I don’t follow but after a moment, I understand. My virginity. He would have taken it last night if I hadn’t knocked myself out. I feel my face grow warm and I’m sure my skin has flushed red.
“Well, I’m not sorry I spoiled your little game of bloodletting, you sick prick. I could have been seriously hurt.”
“You weren’t.”
“I was.”
“And now I know to take better care with you considering your…fragility.”
“I’m not fragile. I’m just not used to being told horrible stories about my family and yours and then being made to run for my life.”
“You were never in danger of losing your life.”
“Only my virginity?” I don’t know why I ask it and the instant I do that warmth of embarrassment I’d felt moments ago turns into bright red heat.
Jericho St. James watches me. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t defend himself.
I look away from him because I can’t hold his gaze. It’s too much. He’s too much. Last night in the graveyard, I felt like he blamed me. Hated me. But now, it’s not that. It’s not hate.
I take a deep breath in, steel myself and stand slowly.
He watches, ready to catch me, I guess.
I sway for a moment but steady myself. He’s close, inches away. And he doesn’t move back. I square my shoulders and meet his gaze.
“Why didn’t you take it then? While I was knocked out? While I couldn’t fight.”
His gaze intensifies, searches.
“It was my blood you wanted. Why didn’t you take it? You could have. I was in your bed. Naked. Incapacitated.” I shrug a shoulder gaining some backbone from his silence. “Yours.”
He snorts, gaze moving over me as he shakes his head before meeting my eyes again.
“Why didn’t I rape you?” he asks and when he says it like that, uses that word, it makes me blanch and I can’t hold his gaze.
But he doesn’t let me off the hook. That’d be too easy. He brings one finger to my chin and turns my face up to his. He gives me that cold grin I’m getting used to. The one I hate. The one that shows how much he hates me.
“I didn’t rape you because I’m not a Bishop.”
19
Jericho
Her mouth hangs open. She clearly wasn’t expecting that response.
“Go to your room and get showered,” I tell her. “After breakfast you’ll be watching Angelique along with my mother.”
“Wait. What?”
“She was upset yesterday after the swimming pool incident.”
“Shocker.”
“Careful.”
“You’re giving me whiplash here. One minute you accuse me of almost drowning your daughter—”
“I never accused you of trying to drown her.”
“Now you want me to babysit?”
I feel my eyebrows rise. “Babysit? No, my mother will take care of her. I wouldn’t leave her in your hands.”
“Because I’m a Bishop.”
“And somehow regardless of that, she seems to have taken a liking to you and with my mother present, perhaps you can play your little game in the pool. What was it called?”
“You mean before you dove in fully clothed and created a tidal wave?”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Starfish,” she says, studying me suspiciously.
“It’s probably not a bad idea since we’re home that she learns to be comfortable in the water. But I do not want her left alone—”
“I wouldn’t leave any five-year-old alone in or near a pool.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Shouldn’t she be going to school anyway? Kindergarten? She’s five. I think that’s when they start.”
“Thanks for your expert opinion which means nothing to me. She will be educated at home. If you’re above spending time—”
“That’s not why I said it. She’s a sweet girl. And a very nervous little girl. It might help her—”
“Don’t dictate to me how I raise my daughter,” I tell her in no uncertain terms.
“I just think it would be good for her to be around other kids her age,” she says, tone and expression serious and possibly a little concerned.
“Don’t think.” My gaze doesn’t waver from hers and a few moments later, she blinks away.
“Your mom’s sick,” she says. It’s not phrased as a question.
“She was. She’s better now, although not as strong as she likes to let on.”
“Chemo?”