Beautifully Cruel (Beautifully Cruel #1)(50)

“No.”

My heart is a racehorse galloping inside my chest. “Liam. I’m not kidding.”

He traces the rise of my cheekbone with his thumb and says gently, “I know, lass. But it’s not up to you.”

I can’t recall ever feeling as angry or as helpless in my life.

Desperate to get through to him, I try a different tactic. Maybe logic will work. “I don’t have any of my things here.”

His gaze drifts lazily over my face. “Things?”

“Clothes. Toiletries. All the books and study materials I need to prepare for the bar.”

“What makes you think they’re not here?”

From one second to the next, it becomes impossible to breathe.

Seeing the expression of horror on my face, Liam says calmly, “Two things you should know about me: one, I always get what I want. And two, I always plan ten steps ahead to get it.”

My mind is the vortex of a tornado, with shrieking winds and flying debris, spinning wildly out of control.

He moved my things here. My clothes…my books…

When? While I was at dinner?

It doesn’t matter when, idiot! What matters is that he kidnapped you!

Oh god—I just had sex with my kidnapper.

My kidnapper just made me come.

Teetering on the edge of hysteria, I whisper, “Let me go. Let me go right now.”

“Of course.”

He opens his arms and puts his hands behind his head, propping it up to gaze at me as I scramble off him and back away from the bed.

I look wildly around the room for something to cover myself with. I can’t run out into the street naked.

“Closet.” Liam casually points toward a closed door on the other side of the room.

I whirl and run to it, bursting inside an enormous walk-in closet. The automatic lights flicker on, but I wish they hadn’t.

Because my clothes—all of them—are hanging in rows on one side of the huge room, along with all my shoes arranged neatly on the floor beneath.

On the other side of the room hangs row after row of identical black suits and white dress shirts.

When I scream in frustration, I hear a low chuckle from the bedroom.

I stand in the middle of the closet nude and shaking, incandescent with fury.

That bastard is laughing at me.

Laughing.

I stride over to his side of the closet, tear one of his white dress shirts from its hanger, and wipe my stomach with it, tossing it into a corner with grim satisfaction when I’m through. Then I go the row of my shoes, pick up a pair, and stride out of the closet and into the bedroom. Liam is still lying on the bed where I left him, naked and serene.

I chuck a shoe across the room at him.

It flies through the air, landing with an impotent thud on the carpet three feet away from the foot of the bed.

Liam is unmoving, except for a lifted eyebrow. “Not much of a throw, lass. You’ll never make it in the big leagues.”

Blood scorches my cheeks. Fire billows from my nostrils. I stalk a few feet closer to the bed, then take aim again and throw.

This time, my aim is more accurate. Liam has to roll aside to miss being impaled with the heel of my favorite pair of pumps.

“Better,” he says, unfazed, rolling back to his original position. “But if you really want to draw blood, there’s a gun in the drawer of that nightstand.”

He glances at the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed from him, then looks back at me.

“You said you hated guns.”

“I do. Doesn’t mean I don’t own them.”

Watching as I wrestle with myself, debating whether or not to head over to that nightstand, he smiles.

“You smug son of a bitch,” I say, seething. “Don’t think I won’t shoot you, because I might.”

“Maybe you could let me give you a few more orgasms first, though. Just a thought.”

I want to scream again, but suspect that would only amuse him. So I clench my hands to fists and transmit a terrorist threat to him with my eyes. “This isn’t funny, Liam. This isn’t a joke.”

He shrugs. “Who’s joking? Not me.”

I send a longing gaze to the nightstand, picturing his skull exploding when my bullet hits his forehead.

He mutters hotly, “Jesus, fuck, you’re gorgeous when you’re mad.”

“Yeah? Well, by the time tonight’s over, you’re gonna think I’m a friggin’ supermodel.”

I whirl around and head back into the closet. I pull a shirt off a hanger and put it on, then drag on a pair of my jeans, not bothering with underwear. Then I shove my feet into a pair of sneakers, grab a jacket, and head out, heart thudding.

As I’m storming out of the bedroom, Liam calls after me, “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Your head on a platter!”

I jog through the vast, echoing apartment, trying to keep my rising panic under control. When I get to the living room, I head to the elevator doors discreetly tucked into an alcove behind a stand of potted palms. I stab my finger onto the call button, then impatiently do it again.

The button lights up. I wait, pacing, until the elevator doors open, then I run inside, expecting Liam to follow me.

He doesn’t. I hit the L button, which I assume stands for “Lobby,” and chew my thumbnail while enjoying a mental breakdown during the ride.