She exhales audibly. "Well, then. What the hell is this all about then?"
Her fierce gaze penetrates me almost to the point where it hurts. I want to evade the powerful blue-gray depth of her eyes, but I can't turn away. It would be weak of me to do so, and I can't give her that satisfaction.
But I do have to apologize. She deserves that much.
"I'm sorry," I bring myself to say. "I shouldn't have done that. It was wrong of me."
She's taken aback for a moment, and she obviously didn't expect me to apologize just like that. But she's not ready to let it go.
"Why did you do it then?" she probes. "What happened back there? If I didn't do anything wrong..."
She furrows her eyebrows again, pondering for a moment before adding, "Was it the other guy? Did he do something wrong? Did he break some kind of rule that I don't know about?"
I shake my head. "Don't waste another thought on it. Just rest assured that it won't happen again."
She scuffs with indignation. "I'm sorry, but... no!"
"No?"
"No, you can't brush it off just like that, as if it never happened," she elaborates. "I can't do this with someone who I can't trust."
Now I'm the one frowning at her. Out of all the things she could talk about, why is she talking about trust? And why wouldn't she trust me? After all, I'm the one who has to be careful in this whole endeavor. She's the one who's the threat in all of this, and not only because of her profession. She's no longer working as a journalist, just as I instructed her, and as far as I can tell, she doesn't snoop like most reporters are known to do.
But she's a witch. She has a way of getting to me without me seeing it coming. And - as today has shown - I may already be in deeper trouble than I feared.
The thought of another man laying his grubby hands on her, of her submitting to his wishes, serving his needs, looking at him the way she looks at me, the thought of someone else’s cock inside of her...
Fuck!
The images still drive me mad, and I'm afraid they'll haunt me for some time to come.
"You can fucking trust me," I hiss through gritted teeth. "I don't know why you'd say that."
"Can I?" she asks, but it's just a rhetorical question. "Because I sure as hell am having trouble with this if you keep having unpredictable outbursts like that. You were so mad, so aggressive. And it came out of nowhere!"
It wasn't fucking out of nowhere, little Button. It was building up the entire time, even before that clown stepped into our home.
My home. God damn it.
"You... scared me," she continues. "You fucking scared me. What if you lose your temper again? If I don't know what triggered it, how can I be sure that it won't happen again? What if you don't just yell the next time it happens?"
She pauses, most likely for emphasis, before she finds the courage to continue.
"What if you hurt me?" she asks. "What if you actually hurt me?"
Her question makes my heart shatter into a thousand pieces. That is what she's worried about? That I would hurt her? That I could actually hurt her?
I step away from her, my face turning into a grimace of pain as I shake my head. "How could you even think that...?”
She looks at me through watery eyes, her lower lip trembling as she tries to fight it. Her tears surprise me. I didn't see that coming at all.
"Let's just say you wouldn't be the first wayward brute to cross my path," she says, trying to keep her voice steady while the first two tears roll down her cheeks starting a steady stream. "I thought you were different. Calculating, maybe, but controlled and unwavering. That you wouldn't do anything to me that I'm not willing to take."
"I wouldn't!" I hurry to say. "You have to trust me, Button. I never would harm you. I never could..."
"I need to know that I have nothing to fear from you, Sir."
She's sobbing now, quickly bringing her hand up to her face as if she could stop the tears from pouring down her saddened face.
I don't think.
I do.
She's wrapped in my embrace within a moment, burying her face into my chest while I keep her close.
"Why then?" she sobs, her voice muffled. "What happened?"
My face hardens and I can feel myself tensing up. I shouldn't tell her. This is dangerous territory, and we're already too close, too familiar. Every personal detail I share with her makes me even more vulnerable to a potential attack later on. I can't let myself be weakened by her like this.
But what if there's nothing to worry about? What if my caution is overly excessive?
She's not Elsa, after all...
"I couldn't do it," I say. "I couldn't go through with it. You're mine. It didn't feel right."
She frees herself from my tight embrace to look up to me. "But you have done it before, haven't you? You said you like to share."
"I don't like sharing you."
"Why not?"
There it is again. That intense gaze. Those smart eyes, piercing right through me, already in the know about everything she pretends not to understand. I don't have to say the words for her to know that I've fallen for her. The tables have turned on me. I'm no longer the strong one in this, the one who has a lock on everything, no longer the one in control.
I've become the weak link in this arrangement.
"You know why, Button," I tell her, fixating on her gleaming eyes. "Why do you insist on showing me up like this?"
She shakes her head. "You overestimate me, Sir. I'm not following an agenda as cunning as yours."
I'm left startled as she peels herself out of my arms, sniffing and fixing her face. She looks lost, a hint of sorrow casting a visible shadow over her face when she looks at me. Her smile is somber.
"If you don't mind, I'll take a shower, and then I’ll be out of your way for tonight."
I don't know what to say. It torments me to see her like this, hurt and disappointed. But I can't bring myself to give in to that feeling. To become weak once again.
"Sure."
My agreement hits her like a slap in the face, I can tell. She wanted me to stop her, for me to keep her with me and say the words she needs to hear.
She spins around on her heels and makes a move to leave the room. Just before she walks out the door, she turns around to me one more time, throwing me a bleak look.
"You know, there's nothing wrong with you liking me," she whispers. "Because I like you."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ann
Because I like you.
What the hell was that? I sound like a fucking teenager!
I hurried out of his office as quickly as possible after my embarrassing statement, fleeing to my room. I've never been in his office before, and never thought it would be under circumstances like these. Me, crying, because he's so damn stubborn and unwilling to be frank about the most obvious thing.
He likes me more than he wants to admit. More than he thought he would.
He cares for me.
And that was never part of the plan.