Wishing Well(58)

His voice a honed blade beneath the softest of satin, he said, “You didn’t bring me dinner.”

“No,” I admitted, “I didn’t. I was angry and I left the hotel.”

His fingers eased their grip on my shirt, a tremor in his body obvious against mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Closing my eyes, I counted in my head, gathering whatever strength I could find in an overwhelming crush of emotion. “I wasn’t angry at you.”

Letting me go entirely, he backed away, his eyes meeting mine. Confusion muddied the beautiful green, sorrow, and regret. “I hurt you,” he said simply, accusing himself of being a monster.

Unable to bear adding to the self-hatred that was so obvious inside him, I shook my head, careful for the movement not to be too fast or too sudden. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t force me.”

“I would have. I’m a -“ His jaw ticked as he cut the sentence off.



A monster...

A beast...

A man too dangerous for the world...



I could clearly see all those labels rush behind his pained gaze. It only made me angrier. I didn’t know Maurice’s problems, but I knew trapping any person in a basement by themselves wouldn’t help them. You make animals of people when keeping them caged, much like this man was. But I couldn’t show that anger, not when he’d assume it was meant toward him. The eggshells beneath my feet cracked with every thought, every decision, every step I took to discover why Vincent treated his own brother so poorly.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

Without answering, he stormed off in the direction of the room where I’d left his food. I didn’t follow him immediately, not with my legs feeling like rubber. Sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, I held my face in my hands. We were going to have to come up with a new way of greeting one another. The sneak attack would stop my heart eventually. Once my vitals felt like they could sustain life again, I pushed to my feet and crept down the hall to the oddly cheerful room hidden within a dreary, dark basement.

I’d expected to find Maurice eating, but instead he was sitting at his computer busily typing. Not knowing whether he wanted me there or not, I stepped in, wringing my hands as I approached his desk.

“Should I leave?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

There was no reason for me to stay. I’d done my job of delivering his meal and I didn’t have to do another thing until noon when I brought him lunch.

His eyes tipped up to meet mine. “The counselor will be here in an hour. If I don’t talk to her, Vincent won’t take me outside.”

Fuck Vincent , I thought. Maurice wasn’t so bad that he had to be trapped. Remembering back to the night I first met Maurice, I realized that Vincent had spoken of him like he was out of control, but I wasn’t seeing it. To me, Maurice wasn’t definitely odd, he was unsettling, but it was more that he lacked social skills than being a monster.

“I could take you outside,” I suggested. “We wouldn’t have to tell Vincent.”

He was out of his seat and practically on top of me before I could take a breath, my heart screeching to a stop for just a second. “We need to set rules, Maurice. The first one being that you need to stop sneaking up on me or rushing toward me. I don’t like it.”

He must have taken my words as a type of rejection. Between one second and the next, he was calm and he was violent. By the time he’d broken several objects in the room, he backed me against a wall again, his chest beating with furious breath. Vincent had warned me of this this, but I hadn’t listened, and despite being terrified, I wouldn’t listen now.

“I still like you,” I whispered, his face so close to mine that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my skin. “I just don’t like being scared by you.”

Trying and failing to break through the wall around his thoughts, I flinched when he palmed my breast, a possessive hold over my shirt, his grip painful. Snatching my wrist with his other hand, he pulled me away from the wall and used my arm to force me over his desk. Bent over me, he breathed against my ear. My first instinct was to fight, to thrash, to scream, but I knew it was the wrong way to handle this man.

His excitement was a hard ridge against my ass. Ignoring the shiver that coursed over my body, I kept my voice calm. “Maurice, please. You’re hurting me.”

It surprised me again when he released me as suddenly as he’d pinned me down. Behind me a race of words - all in French - were spoken, and as I slowly straightened my body, I turned to see a very agitated, confused man.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Get out!” he roared.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. Slowly, and with absolutely zero sudden movements, I crept past him, knowing his head turned so that his eyes could follow me, hearing his heavy steps behind me as I forced myself to walk calmly down the hall. And with the feeling of a stalking tiger at my back, I extracted the elevator key from my pocket, waited for the doors to open, and stepped inside.

Maurice stood staring at me as the doors closed, self-loathing and sorrow obvious in his eyes.

Like last time, Vincent stood waiting for me when I reached the lobby floor, but before he could speak, I barked, “I’m not hurt,” as I turned left and stormed down the hall.