Demand (Careless Whispers #2)(66)

I give a choppy nod. “Let’s go on.”

He studies me a moment, seeming to weigh my state of mind based on “just bad” or “too bad,” and “just bad” must win, because he slips another photo in front of me. I inhale with the image of a man’s wrist and a watch that looks just like Kayden’s. “Neuville’s watch,” I murmur.

“That I made the unfortunate decision to buy for myself, and will be donating mine to charity.”

I set all of the photos aside. “Just show me his photo, Kayden. Stop softening the blow. It’s going to suck, and that isn’t going to change by leading up to it.”

“I have more than his photo, Ella. Matteo hacked a few security cameras in areas he frequents.”

My hand goes to my throat. “You have photos of me with him.”

“I do, and I can show you one of just him, or I can show you all of them. Or we can just get naked, make love, and forget this until tomorrow.”

I grab the folder from him and open it, sucking in air as I stare down at a man who is devastatingly handsome, with thick, slicked-back dark hair. “Neuville,” I whisper, and my stupid hand starts to tremble. I grab it and will it to stop, forcing myself to look at the photo again. Images flit through my mind: Him kissing me. Him touching me. Him staring at me with brutally sexy eyes.

“Bastard,” I hiss, flipping to the next photo, my spine stiffening at the sight of me sitting across from him at a table in a café. Laughing. God, I was laughing. “What a fool I was,” I whisper.

Kayden’s hands slide around my calves. “Ella.”

I look up at him, into eyes that are a hundred times sexier than Neuville’s, but just as brutal. Kayden can kill. Kayden can be cold. But there’s a kindness and fairness in him that made me fall in love with him. “Just so you know, I never loved him. I had this hero complex when he rescued me.”

“How did he rescue you?”

“David disappeared, I think. I’m not sure yet. I know he’s dead, but at the time, he’d just disappeared. All I know is that he was gone and I had no money or passport. Neuville rescued me. Only . . . I think I found out that he had arranged for me to end up with no money or passport. Yes. I don’t know how I know this, but he arranged it all.”

Eager for more to come to me, I refocus on the photos, flipping to yet another image, this one of me getting into the Mercedes, with Neuville’s hand intimately placed at my back. I flip to the next and I’m trembling, inside and out. It’s me and Neuville sitting at a table in a highly exclusive restaurant, with a woman standing at the table talking to us. And that woman is the woman. My trembling becomes shaking, and suddenly I’m back in time, reliving a memory, but with far more detail than before.

He is angry. He is always angry. He is also at my back, stalking me as we walk down a hallway in a club he says I’ll soon enjoy as he does. There was a time when he would have said such a thing to me and I’d have believed him. That time has passed. The hallway ends and he punches a code into the door panel. An odd thing in a club, but of course he wouldn’t frequent anyplace that isn’t exclusive in every possible way. The door buzzes open and I enter what looks like a small, round coliseum, stepping past two huge pillars to find a naked woman with long, dark hair resting on her knees, her arms tied to some sort of posts. I gasp and turn to leave, but he steps in front of me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“You need to see what happens if you disobey me again.”

“I already promised I’d listen from now on.”

He caresses my cheek and I cringe. He notices and is not pleased, his fingers digging into my arm as he turns me to face forward. “You watch. You learn. If you move right now, you will become her.” He shoves me to my knees, his legs at my spine, and my gaze meets the woman waiting for whatever punishment is soon to be hers. But she isn’t afraid, as I am. She welcomes it. She wants it. A door opens to the left, and a beautiful blond woman in leather holding a whip enters the room.

“No!” I stand and face him. “No. No. No.”

He grabs my hair and drags me toward the two women, glancing over my shoulder to say, “She goes first.”

I inhale and try to pull myself out of the memory right here, where it normally stops, but I can’t.

“Ella,” I hear Kayden say, and on some level I am aware of being in his arms, but I still can’t get back to him. I am back in the past.

Both of my arms are tied to the posts, stretched wide, and my back burns with the punishment it has taken. “Please stop.” And it does stop. There is silence. So much silence, and then Neuville is in front of me, cupping my face, his thumb stroking over my lips. “You are so f*cking perfect.”

He kisses me and rage rises inside me, and every part of me that has faked it with him disappears. I bite his tongue, hard and fast, and he yelps, pulling back to glare at me. “You little bitch!” he says, fury filling his eyes before he slaps me. The pain radiates in my temples, and everything goes black.

The next thing I remember, I’m in a bed, lying on my stomach, and that woman is stroking my hair. I moan and she kneels on the edge of the bed beside me. “You cannot ever cross him again. He’s going to come in here. He’s going to want an apology. You must give it to him. Give it to him.”