The man was an enigma to me, that much was clear. The self-loathing in his eyes fairly tore my heart in two. Why did he hate himself so? He was a handsome, well-to-do, educated man who liked control and power. He had a past that haunted him, but I did not believe what people said about him. His fiercely protective nature did not push me away, but drew me to him.
I finished my lunch in silence, and quite enjoyed it. What I’d told him was the truth. I was embarrassed to eat in front of men. It was so awkward. But it was more awkward finding myself face down over his lap, so I decided I wouldn’t fight him on this one.
As I made my way to my room, I relived the memory of what had happened that afternoon, my hand going to my ass that still burned from the licks of his belt.
The mere memory made my pulse race, my panties dampen, and my breath became labored.
Why did being dominated make me so aroused?
As a virgin, I’d never had a lover. Sure, I’d been kissed and felt up, but I’d never been touched by a man. And there was something about Sawyer Gryffin that laid me bare, that tore my pretenses and fears asunder, leaving nothing but my own desires in its wake. He made my heart twist in my throat. He’d made me climax. He made me so very angry. I wanted to punch him, hurt him, kiss him, and fuck him.
God.
I wanted to fuck him.
If I’d been wearing pearls, I’d have clutched them.
Opening the door to my room, I saw my phone on the bedside table, and beside it, another one with a note.
“Your phone is shit. I replaced it, and the tech guy transferred all your information. But don’t worry, I didn’t snoop around. You do have a password on the new one, though. You’ll have to figure that one out yourself.”
What? The arrogant, controlling jerk!
I picked up the phone, lifted it, and reared back to hurl it across the room, then halted.
I could see it now.
He’d come sauntering in the room. “Where’s the phone I bought you?”
“Oh, I shattered it into a million pieces.”
If anything would earn me a punishment...
But the truth was, my phone was a piece of shit. It was the freebie I’d gotten when I signed up with the service plan I used, and I hadn’t replaced it in years. I picked up the new one and glanced it over. The screen was larger, gleaming new, in a soft pink protective case edged in black. It looked somehow feminine and badass all at once. I wanted to see what this souped-up little number could do. I swiped at the screen, and a keyboard popped up.
Shit.
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”
Of all the nervy things to do to a girl —
I paused, sighed, and decided to attempt the password, hoping he hadn’t set it up to wipe it out or something with too many password entries.
First, I typed my name. A-N-N-A-B-E-L-L-E.
Nothing. Still locked.
Frustrated, I typed in let me in.
Still, nothing. I tried Gryffin, and Whitby, but nothing worked.
As I mulled it over, trying to think of ways I could get revenge that wouldn’t get me in trouble, it dawned on me. I narrowed my eyes, picked up my phone and slowly typed in the letters D-A-D-D-Y.
The screen sprang to life.
Son of a bitch.
I did not dwell long on this, however, because the next thing I knew I was glancing through my screen, swiping away, opening the apps he’d downloaded, checking through to make sure all my favorite contacts where there. Yes, perfect.
I laid down on the bed, dialed Melody, and waited for her to answer. She took her sweet time about it and finally answered around the tenth ring.
“Hey Melody,” I said. “Just checking in.”
“Annabelle!” she replied. “Oh thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”
Fear swept over me and the skin on my arms prickled with goose pimples. “Is everything okay?” I asked her in the bravest voice I could muster. I prepared myself for the worst. Mom had hurt herself. Melody had lost her job. Something awful had happened.
“Well, everything’s okay for the moment,” she said. “But Gavin came by, and things got really ugly.”
I groaned. “Oh, no. What happened?”
“Well, Mom decided she was going to tell everyone that you were taken by the beast of the man up on a hill, and that you weren’t there of your own accord.”
“Oh, God,” I muttered. I’d seen what Gavin could do. He could twist information and facts like no one’s business, making the most innocent appear vindictive or malicious. It was his specialty.
“What did she tell him?” I asked. “Tell me everything, Melody.”
“He came here looking for you, and Mom said you’d been taken by the beast.”
“He did not take me!” I protested, but Melody was bent on making sure I got the right information.
“And then she said that you were being held against your will and threatened with bodily harm.”
Oh my God!
“Melody, that isn’t true,” I said. Oh, for crying out loud.
“You know Mom, Annabelle,” she said. “You know her. You know that she only gets one or two facts straight and then misrepresents the information that she knows.” She paused. “But what exactly is he doing?” she asked.
Just like that, the memory of being stripped and spanked over his knee before he made me climax flashed through my mind. I swallowed hard.
“He’s got me in this beautiful room,” I told her. “He bought me a new cell phone which I’m using now to talk to you. You called me earlier and my shit phone didn’t even pick the call up. This one is amazing. He feeds me well, and gives me free rein over his home here. The gardens are beautiful, and there are books and things.”
“Oooh,” she said. “That doesn’t sound unpleasant at all!”
I smiled. “It’s quite nice in some ways,” I said. “I will tell you, he is quite bossy though.”
She snorted. “Of course he is. He’s Sawyer Gryffin. What else would you expect?”
I thought of staring at the floorboards of his office as I laid belly down over his lap for a spanking.
I sure as hell hadn’t expected this.
“Listen, Melody, don’t tell the reporters anything. I’ll reach out to Gavin myself and tell him to stop. I’m not being held against my will. What an idiot. In fact, I’ll be pretending to be his happily ever after wife and the whole world will see anyway.”
She sighed. “Are you sure about this?”
I twisted my hair around my fingers and stared out the window at the gardens that overlooked the cliff and remembered teetering on the edge, riding the exhilaration of being on the cusp of danger while behind me crashed the strong, powerful waves upon the shore.
“Yeah, Melody,” I said. “I’m sure about this.”
As I ended the call with her, I knew it had been a lie.
I wasn’t sure about this at all.
I played with my new phone for a little while. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. When I touched an app it sprang to life, the colors vivid and beautiful. I wondered what sort of pictures it took? I looked out my window as a breeze rustled the leaves. I’d had lunch and Sawyer wouldn’t be home for a while so I had some time. Just outside the window lay the beautiful, well-kept garden, a stone bench, an ivy-lined trellis, and a pathway that led to the ocean where I’d gone earlier. My heartbeat accelerated at the memory of him, standing up on his balcony and glaring down at me, strong, powerful and savagely beautiful. I’d loved getting close to the edge, knowing it would rouse his protective instincts. I’d gotten in trouble for pushing the envelope, but hell, it was worth it.
What had come over me? I’d always been such a good girl in school, and had always done exactly what I was supposed to. My grades were perfect, and I’d gotten into the accelerated honors program without a problem. When my dad was alive we were best friends, and I never disobeyed the house rules, not even once. I never smoked or drank, and I never even had a boyfriend. I was an introvert, a loner who preferred the company of books and her own thoughts.
Then why was a girl like me attracted to a man the likes of Sawyer Gryffin? A monster, locked away from polite society in a prison of his own making. A huge, hulking, beast of a man a full decade older than I was?
A man who’d taken his belt to my ass?
Someone who’d supposedly murdered the woman he loved…
I swallowed, as I put my phone in my pocket and opened the door to my bedroom. He was dangerous, but being around him was like a drug. As I remembered the way he’d kissed me so hard my lips tingled, a delicious shiver ran through me.
I would never admit it, not to anyone, but there was something about him I craved.
I looked out the door and saw no one, nothing but faint horizontal strips along the carpeted hallway, as if someone had just vacuumed, and I could still hear the faint hum of the vacuum in the distance. Doors upon doors lined the hallway, so many I couldn’t see where they ended. In front of me lay the majestic staircase, the kind that tapered at the top and flared out at the bottom, magnificent enough to display a royal wedding. An enormous crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, dozens of bubs reflecting against the crystals that hung delicately on threads, casting brilliant lights along the walls and ceiling. And to my right were dozens more doors and a thick, plush carpet. I longed to kick off my shoes and walk on the luxurious rug barefoot, to feel it bunch beneath my toes and tickle my feet.
Further down this hall was the area I longed to see, though. It was the one place I’d been warned not to go: the west wing.
And no, I would not go, even though the servants were occupied cleaning and Sawyer himself was gone on business. I was going to the garden to test my new kickass camera, damn it. I would look at the flowers and trees and sit on one of the stone benches. If I were being held here without the ability to leave, I might as well enjoy myself. But as I stepped on the carpet, a little voice in my head whispered to me.
He won’t know.
This might be your only chance.
Just go quickly, and then you can go outside and he’ll never know the difference.
I looked down at the forbidden wing. Why would a good girl like me do the one thing I was forbidden? I swallowed hard, remembering the exhilarating feeling of standing on the cusp of the cliff, his furious eyes burrowing into mine. The sensation of his huge hand around my waist as his hand smacked my ass.
Maybe the good girl thing was so overrated.
I would see what was down that hall, and he’d never be the wiser for it.
I looked quickly behind me again and down the stairs, then to the right. I was completely alone. And surely this place was big enough that even if a chance servant happened to be in the one area I was banned from venturing — and wouldn’t that be a kicker? — I could surely hide behind a big statue or…something.
I looked about me one more time.
Nothing to see here, folks. Then I ducked down the hallway, head down, toward the west wing.
At first, it looked exactly like the other wing: a thick carpet beneath my feet, shut doors, various framed prints and paintings hanging on the walls. If I hadn’t been in such a rush to get to where I was going, I’d have stopped to gaze at the paintings, as even a passing glance was compelling. Ocean scenes, mountain ranges, forests of lush green trees. Each was set in nature without a portrait in the lot, and I longed to lose myself in them. But I had no time to dwell.
Further down the hall, the air felt chillier, but I wasn’t sure why. It was darker, and the lights from behind me no longer illuminated my way. On impulse, I tried a door and found it was unlocked, but when I opened it and peered inside, I found the room vacant, nothing but drapes hanging from wide open windows. I tried three more doors and found one housed a small bed with simple furnishings —a guest room? And a second was very much the same. But the furniture was covered in sheets and though the rooms appeared clean, they did not seem to have seen use in recent years. Back in the hall to the left lay a small table with a vase and silk flowers, but as I looked more closely, it unsettled me. Unlike the rest of the house, kept clean and tidy, this table was covered in a filmy layer, the dust along the edges of the flowers lending it an air of the macabre.
No one came here to clean it.
I shivered, and blamed the cold. I would see what lay down this hall if it killed me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. I had a full two hours to wander before he came home.
I only needed minutes.
A closed door at the very end of the hallway beckoned me, and something inside me whispered, “Here, this is where you want to go.” Like a woman possessed, I marched forward with decided steps, quicker now, my heart racing.
If he had anything to hide, he’d do so in there. I was moving so quickly I nearly ran and there was no one, no servant or Sawyer Gryffin himself who would stop me now.
What would I do if the door were locked? I wondered. Maybe I could pick the lock or something. My thoughts surprised me. I did not know why I was so determined to find what was at the end of this hall, so desperate to see what lay forbidden, that I would actually contemplate picking the lock. But I was now within arm’s reach of the door. I reached for the handle, fully expecting it to be locked, a thrill of victory coursing through me as it easily swung open. I peered in the entrance. What if there were something truly horrifying behind these forbidden doors? My mind wandered to the darkest of places before I stopped it. Damn Edgar Allen Poe and his horror stories that I’d feasted on in high school. Visions of skeletons and bones danced in my memory.
Melody and I played a game when we were younger called ax murderer. We would whisper scary things into each other’s ears. If you don’t reach your room in three minutes, the ax murderer will find you! And then we’d race against the clocks, working ourselves into a near frenzy, screeching in self-induced terror like Girl Scouts telling ghost stories by a campfire at midnight.
It was really no different now as my mind played tricks on me. What if he housed the bodies of his victims in this forbidden area? What if his fiancée, the one he’d supposedly murdered, was walled up in this prison?
Squaring my shoulders and inhaling deeply, I stepped into the room. Bright light streamed through the large windows, another thick carpet lining the floor. As I looked around with wide eyes, my heart skipping a frantic beat in my chest, I began to fear something else entirely.
What if he discovered I’d disobeyed him?
Despite the fact that I told myself I feared him, my nipples hardened and I clenched my thighs together when I thought of being discovered…of being punished.
There was no other explanation than I’d gone crazy. Annabelle Symphony did not break the rules, she did not succumb to a sadist’s wicked pleasure, and she did not climax over the lap of a man a decade her senior. What had come over me?
A large conference table stood in the center of the room, and as I approached it, I noted it was intricately carved. I ran my finger along the edge of the beautiful, elaborate swirls that lent the table a sense of beauty. It looked like a piece of art. On the table lay the biggest book I’d ever seen, easily as big as a table for two at the diner. How did someone even transport a book of this size? I stood looking at it, and realized that it was an almanac. Each two-page layout was a map. I lifted one page, wondering at the heft of the paper, thick between my fingers, matte and richly designed. It was turned to a two-page spread of Paris, and in the columns of the map were fine details, little notes regarding population and customs, and as I turned the page, the vibrant colors amazed me. Green and browns and blues and yellows adorned each page, and there was every kind of map one could imagine, of every major city and country in the world. I could sit and look at this book for hours, and for a brief second, I wondered how long I had been there. Was I enchanted by this room? I shook myself as if waking from a dream, and wandered further near the window. Dusk had begun to settle, the sun now setting low in the horizon, but light still illuminated a small desk in the corner.
I wandered over to the desk, my gut pulling me, my intuition telling me: Here. This is where to go.
And there on the desk lay yellowed newspaper clippings alongside several framed prints.
A younger version of Sawyer, every bit as large but smiling instead of scowling, stood with a woman. One picture showed them holding hands, another showed them arm in arm, looking out over the balcony and toward the ocean. In another picture, he looked like he was high school age, dressed in a fine black tuxedo. A prom portrait? It was so hard to imagine him as younger and carefree. Who was that boy with a tux and a girl on his arm? How did they treat him? One look at the picture, and it was clear he was a child born to opulence, the cut of his tux and the car in the background speaking of privilege.
The next picture looked like it’d been taken a few years later. Sawyer was fuller, his frame larger, and the girl he was with, though the same one from the first picture, looked as if she’d aged a few years as well. They held hands, looking out upon the sea, and he held his other hand at the small of her back.
To my shock, I felt the stirrings of jealousy in my gut. I wanted to push his hand off the back of the young woman in the picture.
He did not belong to her.
Suddenly, my heartbeat revved in my chest as I thought I heard something in the hallway, but as I stood stock still, not another noise sounded. I needed to get out. But as I turned to leave, determined to leave behind whatever nightmare tortured Sawyer, my eyes fell to the yellowed edges of the paper. I knew I should have left it alone. I knew I should have left while I still could, before he found me here, before he hurt me for breaking his rules. But I could no longer look away.
Murdered by her fiancée.
My heart ached at the thought of that beautiful woman being hurt in any way.
Though everything in me said run, I picked up the paper as if my hands were possessed. I needed to read on.
Tragic murder the headline read, sending a chill over me.
Thursday night, authorities received a call from several sources claiming they’d heard screams coming from the cliff at Whitby manor. Upon further investigation, authorities discovered the body of Samantha McGovern, dead upon arrival. She’d suffered a tragic fall, suffered a broken neck and multiple contusions. The authorities did not have to look far, as the man accused of her murder, none other than her fiancé Sawyer Gryffin, held her broken body in his arms when they arrived. Sources say they had to pry her body from his fingers, and though he showed signs of distress upon her death, they had no choice but to bring him in for questioning.
Initial sources say that Mister Sawyer Gryffin claims Miss McGovern threw herself off the cliff. But her closest college friends claim she was happy, had no outward signs of depression, and that Sawyer was known for having a temper. He’s been arrested and is scheduled to stand trial. The family are not commenting at this time.
Tears sprang to my eyes, my throat closed so tightly I could hardly swallow, and without conscious thought I read article after article after article.
Fiance on trial for murder of his beloved.
Not guilty.
One article after another denounced his innocence and one thing became clear: though the courts acquitted him from murder, the townspeople had not.
A large black shoebox stood to the right, tied clumsily in string. With the softest touch of my hand, the tie fell to the table and I lifted the lid, afraid of what I’d find inside. But there were only letters.
Would they be love letters sent from college? Letters he’d written to his lover?
I opened one with shaking fingers.
Burn in hell, murderer. May you live the rest of your life knowing you have the blood of an innocent on your hands.
Oh, God. I dropped the paper and clutched my throat, gathering my wits about me before I picked up another, then another. Every single letter, written by hand, no return addresses, were more of the same— reaming Sawyer out for killing an innocent, telling him that he was going to hell, hoping that he’d suffer as she did. There were even several threats on his life.
Why had he kept this pile of hate mail? Why had he ever opened it? Why didn’t he throw them all away or burn them in a great bonfire?
Though he was an angry man, I knew in my heart that the accusations were false.
They had to be.
He was far too tortured a soul to have been truly guilty of her murder.
The words I’d read echoed in my mind as if I’d heard them with my very own ears.
She plunged herself off the cliff.
I would never hurt her.
She did it herself.
I was so engrossed in reading the sordid, tragic tale, I never heard anyone approach, so when the roar of his voice came to me, I dropped the papers, frantic.
“How dare you?” He stood in the doorway, filling the entire frame with his enormous body, his anger so palpable I could feel the heat of it from where I stood across the room. “I told you not to come here!” he thundered, his fist smacking the door frame, making framed prints fall to the ground, the glass shattering.
The skin at the back of my neck prickled with his fury, my heart stuttering so quickly it was painful.
“Mister Gryffin!” I stammered. “I…”
But I had no excuse.
“Get out!” he bellowed, coming at me then, stepping toward me with such ferocity I quaked, his hands shaking in rage as he smashed everything along his path. Vases crashed to the ground and I screamed as he lifted the edge of one table and upended it. “I said get out!”
I did not need to be told twice. I rushed past him, far enough so that he could not reach me and I did not stop when I got to the hallway. Pulse pounding in my ears, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, down the stairs, through another winding hallway, and to the exit, wrenching the door open with my bare hands. After I opened the door, I paused for one brief second, shocked at how dark it had become before I ran blindly into the night.