The Reunited (9 page)

“I’ll do better, I promise. I’m actually quite ravenous,” she assured Seth. She doubted she could eat much of anything around Patrick, but she’d just start eating when he wasn’t around.

She’d do it, too. Whatever was necessary. Resolved, she smiled at the designer, refusing to look at the man who was staring at her with iced fury.

*   *   *

“W
HY
have you been dieting?”

It was the first time he’d spoken to her since the fitting more than an hour ago.

But then again, this was the first time they’d been assured of privacy since then. Earlier, his assistant had been around.

Lydia—Dru didn’t care for Lydia, tried to avoid her at all costs. That woman was a piece of work. She suspected Lydia had some pretty deep insights into Patrick’s character, but there was no way Dru was going to try for
that
connection.

No until she had to.

But now she had to deal with this . . . and the icy cold anger she could still feel coming from him. She took her cues from it, just as she’d always done. “It’s not exactly that I’ve been dieting,” she hedged, giving him a vague smile. “I just have a habit of eating when I’m nervous and I’ve been careful not to do that. I guess I’ve been too careful.”

He studied her.

Even though she saw it coming, Dru didn’t move.

The blow was a light, stinging slap—not hard enough to bruise, not even hard enough to leave a mark. Still, the shock of it knocked the breath out of her and she stumbled back against the wall, her head falling forward until her chin rested against her chest.

If she looked at him, he’d see the hatred she felt for him. If she looked at him, he’d see how much she wanted to kill him. So she didn’t dare look at him. Keeping her head low, hair shielding her face, she stood there, shuddering. Shaking.

It wasn’t the first time he’d hit her.

It wouldn’t be the last.

Tears blinded her and she had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming as he came closer. Not in terror . . . but in rage.

When he reached out to cup her chin, she closed her hands into fists, made herself blank her features. She wanted to beat him bloody. She wanted to spit in his face.

Instead, she stared at him as he critically turned her face this way, then that. “You need to stop pushing me, Ella. We’ve discussed this. You’re a good girl, a good match for me, but sometimes, it’s like you enjoy testing me. Like you enjoy pushing me.”

While the blood roared in her ears, a strange, swimming sensation came over her—voices rising up to clamor in her brain.

“I could kill you. As easy as that and not a soul would say a word . . .”

Water . . . cold and black . . . closing around her—

Not now
, she thought desperately. She couldn’t do this around him. Shoring up her shields, she swallowed back the bile, swallowed back all the angry, furious words that rose to her lips, begging to be free.

Go fuck yourself—

That was what she wanted to tell him. What she wanted to say to him. So badly.

One thing silenced her, and it wasn’t her fear of him. It was the death that followed him like a shroud and the knowledge that it wouldn’t stop until
he
was stopped.

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I’ll be more aware of things in the future.”

It wasn’t a lie. She’d be far more aware of things.

NINE

T
HE
adjustment period sucked. Usually, though, by the end of the first twenty-four hours, he could cope. Thirty-six max.

Joss was moving on seventy-two hours now, and he still felt like he was in a tailspin.

Somewhere near late dawn the third day, though, he finally reached the point he’d been shooting for—that point of control, where he could walk around and not feel like the voices were going to crush him. Where the ghosts weren’t going to drive him mad.

Of course, he’d gone nearly twenty hours without sleep. It was weird how sometimes that genius hit right when one was about ready to die or drop. Then, right when he was certain he couldn’t fumble and shift those two brain-frying gifts around inside his skull anymore, he found a way to make them fit.

It wasn’t comfortable, damn it, but they fit.

Finally able to sleep without hearing the wailing of the dead or the whispers of the living, he collapsed on his bed in the hotel room and slept.

As though they’d been waiting for him to collapse, the dreams attacked. Sucking him under and grabbing on tight, they pulled him down and he was trapped. Locked in a maze of horror where the screams were an endless melody in his mind and the blood colored the air and hung in the back of his mouth, choking him.

He heard their cries. He smelled the blood. He tasted their horror. They were trapped, someplace dark and stinking with their own waste. Hopelessness, helplessness flooded their very souls, and Joss had to fight to keep himself separated from it.

If he didn’t, it would overwhelm him and he needed answers.

Dark. Windowless. He ticked off the measurements as best as he could, thinking he was in a room about twenty by twenty. A basement, maybe? He didn’t know if houses typically had them around here—something for Jones to check out—

Focus
, he told himself as the dream tried to splinter, shattering his train of thought and making him nothing but a creature of fear and pain, drawing him back into that web of terror.

No. He wasn’t getting trapped in there.

Mildew. Mold. The place smelled old, and the stink of human excrement was everywhere. Dark, a black void that made him search for windows, doors . . . he saw nothing.

Saw
nothing. But he felt them, heard them. They surrounded him. As a girl sobbed, he knelt down, tried to touch her, but his hand passed right through. The same basic response when he tried to speak to her . . . she didn’t hear a word. Okay, so Jillian’s gifts weren’t that mind-numbingly powerful, although damn, it sure as hell would have made this easier.

He’d have to rely on good old investigative shit for now. He searched for details, clues, committing everything he could find to memory. There wasn’t much, though. As he swam through the morass of Jillian’s memories and visions, he searched for the one thing he
really
needed.

The man Jillian had seen. He needed to see him again—without Jillian’s fear to color what he saw.

He searched, he waited, he trolled through all the images and thoughts and dreams she’d pushed into his mind . . . but never did he catch another glimpse of that man.

Her thoughts grew vague, indistinct, and he knew he wouldn’t find the answers he needed there. So he gave up. Stopped trying to control the dreams, and even as he let them slide away, the dream shifted, re-formed.

And he was elsewhere.

The stink of body waste and filth melted away, replaced by the soft, delicate scent of woman. He saw her back, narrow and slim. Standing at a balcony, rigid, her shoulders a taut line while her hands rested on the railing. He scowled as he looked around, trying to process what he was seeing.

A hotel. Okay. The woman . . . okay. His gaze lowered and he found himself eyeing her ass for a moment before he forced himself back to the matter at hand—although he couldn’t help noticing it was a very, very nice ass. Fancy room. Lights off. Plenty of sun shining in.

And the woman was standing outside, hands on the railing as she stared toward . . . what the hell . . . was that . . .
Focus, Joss.

“Hello?”

But just as before, she didn’t hear him.

Great. Unsure just what he’d dreamed himself into, Joss moved forward, looking around and trying to connect this place to the nightmares he’d picked up from Jillian. Trying to understand who the woman was. Why he was here.

Rich. That’s what this was. The place practically bled money. Even the smells were pricey.

The woman lifted a hand—her left hand—tucked her hair back behind her ear, and then paused, lowered it to stare at the ring sparkling there.

Something about her called to him . . . He wanted her to turn around. Look at him. Talk to him.

But she remained blissfully unaware of him, even when he said, “Nice rock.”

Of course, he hadn’t really
expected
her to hear him . . . nobody else had.

He scowled when she abruptly started to claw at her hand, tearing the ring off with something too close to desperation. Once she had it off, she whirled around and hurled it. He flinched, but it passed right through him.

And then he staggered, went to his knees.

Her face . . .

Her
eyes
 . . . so grim, so sad.

And her face . . .

Like a knife, the sight of her ripped something open inside him and he felt himself falling. Desperately, trying to get himself back on balance, he reached for the strands of the dream and tried to weave them back together.

But it was too late.

The dream was gone.

He jackknifed upright in bed, staring around in the dim room.

Scrubbing his hand over his face, he groaned.

“What the fuck . . .” he muttered. “What the fuck . . .”

*   *   *

F
OR
three days, Patrick ignored her.

If he thought that would bother her, then he didn’t know her very well. Well, actually, he
didn’t
know her, and that was a good thing.

A tray of food had been sent to her three times a day, and Dru was okay with that. The food was decent, and as long as Patrick wasn’t there, she could actually manage to eat. She’d kind of been dreading Friday. Fridays and Saturdays usually entailed elaborate, fancy dinner dates where she had to dress up and pretend to be his little Barbie doll. This Friday, though, there was a tray delivered at dinnertime.

Along with a note:

Ella

You should stay in and eat, rest for a few more days. Relax.

Patr
i
ck

Simple. To the point. Anybody who didn’t know him would think he was just concerned for her welfare.

After all, there was nothing overly threatening about the note. Or even obliquely threatening about it.

When she touched it, though, her belly cramped with fear.

She could all but taste the need to hurt on him—it was imprinted on the note. It carried his cool fury and his disgust. He might as well have marked her with it.
I’m a sadist and I love to hurt things. Cross me and you’ll be next
.

Except he wouldn’t go after her . . . not directly at first.

He’d find other ways to undermine her. Ways that would involve seeing those around her suffer. Like the wedding designer . . . Dru had initially wanted to work with a new girl who’d been practically just out of school. It was the one thing she’d tried to do. Not that it mattered so much about the stupid
dress
—she wasn’t looking at this as a damned wedding, but if the dickwad was going to shell out the money, it might as well go to somebody who’d need it more than a some bloke who already had clients coming out of his ears, she figured.

But that one thing that she’d wanted to do, he’d smashed it. Right in front of her, the day after she’d refused to have sex with him for the first time.

He’d fired the girl right in front of Dru, told her the work was inept, barely suited to the travesty of a Vegas wedding, much less
his
standards. And as he was paying the bill, he figured he should be pleased with the work, naturally.

That hadn’t been the only thing he’d done, though.

Dru shuddered as a memory flash rolled through her mind. When he’d come to her the following night, she’d seen something else in his mind—the events of the night. He’d left her . . . and gone to his little slave shop. He’d been in the mood to hurt somebody. He was still taking care with her, though. Hurting
her
would have to wait. Couldn’t leave bruises or anything until after the wedding. So he’d taken his anger out on somebody else.

He hurt her, without even knowing it, by taking his rage out on another.

Sick monster.

Twisted, sick monster, and she was trapped. For now. But damned if she wouldn’t try to find a way to get out.

Staring at the note, she read it one more time . . .

Stay in and eat
, she thought.
Rest
.

Absently, she reached up and touched her cheek. It hadn’t even bruised—she’d watched it for the first two days, wondering if a mark would show, but it hadn’t happened. Patrick had a lot of practice in striking women. It sickened her to the very core, knowing that.

“Stay in.” She stared off at nothing. “I quite think I’ve had enough of staying in, actually.”

She ignored the food. She wasn’t in the mood to eat any damned thing he’d sent to her. Three days were enough of acting like a kicked puppy. Outside on the balcony, she stared toward the park, her gut in knots, her head pounding. And all the while, rage burned inside her.

Stay in.

She was letting her fear cow her. The one thing she’d told herself she couldn’t do and what was she doing?

The rage burned inside, and to her disgust, she realized she was just a step away from crying. She was furious, she was scared, she was angry . . . and trapped. But damned if she’d cry about it.

The headache behind her eyes raged and she went to rub her brow but the ring flashed, caught her attention. Unaware that she was snarling, she stared at the ring for a long, long moment and then, desperately, she grabbed the ring, tore it off her hand. For a second, she was tempted to hurl it off the balcony, but at the last moment, self-preservation stopped her and she whirled around.

As she hurled it across the room, something hazy danced in front of her eyes.

She froze, staring at the spot just a few feet in front of her door.

A man—

But she blinked and when she looked again, whatever she’d seen was gone.

“I’m going crazy,” she whispered. And it was entirely possible.

Across the room, her ring lay by the door, glinting. Mocking her. She ignored it. Unable to stay inside another moment, she grabbed her purse. She’d be damned if she remained locked away in this sodding prison. He thought he had her cowed, damn him. And when he realized she’d left, he damn well might make her suffer for it.

But screw it. She couldn’t let her fear of him control her. The day she started letting him stop her in
any
way, she was done. She was so utterly filled with fury, she was tempted to flash her middle finger in the direction of the nearest camera.

But she wasn’t that far gone. Yet.

She’d come here with a purpose, and she’d see it through. It couldn’t happen if she lost her nerve, though, and she had to remember that.

*   *   *

I
T
was hot and humid, typical for Orlando, even though it was close to nine.

She didn’t care. Just getting out of the hotel
alone
felt wonderful. She’d swung by one of the gift shops, buying a slouchy little cap and stuffing it in her purse. In a bit, she’d don the cap, a pair of sunglasses. She also had a different shirt tucked inside her bag and she’d put that on as well.

It wasn’t a real disguise, but it would be enough, she thought, to help her evade being seen by Patrick’s men. They were used to seeing her in all the lovely
“Ella”
clothes, not just regular old T-shirts, jeans, and shit.

It would be enough to do the job.

She didn’t dare use the charge cards Patrick had given her—she had to give him credit, he didn’t slouch on the expenses once they’d gotten engaged. He didn’t want a wife, she knew. He just wanted a high-class whore, but he was willing to pay well.

But if he was suspicious enough to check—and he likely was—all it would take was a text from an account watch and plenty of credit cards were equipped with those. Fortunately for her, Dru had resources Patrick couldn’t even begin to guess at, and she used cash to pay her way into the park.

Once inside, she hit the restroom, braiding her long hair, pulling on that slouchy cap, and trading her elegant blouse for a close-fitting T-shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves. It clung like a second skin and was thin enough that she could see the outline of her bra. After slipping on the sunglasses, she studied her reflection and decided it would work. It was enough of a one-eighty from her normal appearance that unless somebody was actually
looking
for her, they likely wouldn’t notice her.

It wasn’t like she actually spent any time in here with her fiancé anyway. Curling her lip, she shoved her belongings into her bag and headed back out into the park, breathing in the scents of sunscreen, food . . . life. It smelled like summer. It smelled like . . . happiness, she decided.

Something about it tugged at memories deep inside.

It was a sad thing, actually, coming in here. She remembered this place, vaguely, from fleeting memories of her childhood, before everything with her parents had gone to hell—first, Mum had died, then her father.

Before that, she’d traveled to the States with them several times as a child and she’d been to Disney World a few times . . . it held happy memories. It shouldn’t make her sad.

Maybe it was because back then she’d still had hope. Still believed in magic, and lately, she was trapped in a hell where there was no hope. And he hid himself
here
 . . .

It made her ill.

It made her hurt.

Longing to lose herself for just a while, she watched the children, the little girls dressed in their princess finery, listened to the music drifting from carefully hidden speakers.