The Bound Bride (14 page)

Oliver fell on top of her. It would happen now. She would play dead if that’s what it took or punch all of his back that she could find. But she wouldn’t enjoy it. Never again. That
was impossible.

He grabbed her shoulders and ran his hands down her arms. As his face drew nearer, Cassandra turned her head away and wished for the moments to come when she would have something resembling solitude. That was all she could hope for now.

Oliver kissed her check and forced her gaze back to his. His eyes were brimming with tears as he spoke.

“I would never hurt you. I couldn’t.”

He kissed her hair and moved to his feet. He lingered against the door as Cassandra managed to sit up.

“Then what—?”

And he turned back to her.

“Just stay here. I won’t force you to do anything that you don’t
want. If I know you’re here, it’s… it’s enough.”

Cassandra found herself almost believing him and the idea that she simply had to dwell in this house while he lurked in doorframes. She could do that. But it meant scores and scores of confused and lonely days on her horizon.

She almost uttered his name as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He turned back one last time and looked into her eyes.

“Just stay.”

He gently closed the door, and Cassandra fell within the sheets with sobs she barely understood.

Chapter Twenty

Oliver procured help. He had Faye interview a service that would come in three times a week. They would look after the house. Meals would be prepared each Sunday. There would be enough food until they returned. Cassandra stayed in the master bedroom. She slept and washed and barely
touched the platters that Oliver carried to her bedside. The door was unlocked. But Cassandra was still trapped.

“Cassie, please.”

She pressed her lips tight and shook her head. He moved to touch her hair, and she swatted him off with all the strength she had left.

Oliver smoothed his hands across his slacks and moved to the window. Where were his business meetings now?

“You need to eat, Cassandra.”

There it was again. Her full name in the form of a scold. Cassandra ignored it for three days when her stomach finally won out over her pride.

She sat up and stuffed pieces of toast and parts of fruit salad and eggs scrambled into her mouth. She ate so quickly that she gagged against the savory tastes and started to cough. Oliver was at her side in an instant, and he gently slapped her back.

“Easy. There’s
more
where that came from.”

Cassandra found a napkin and wiped her lips clean. More could mean him turning inside her until she was totally powerless. Cassandra slept with one eye open at the fear that he would grow tired of the game that she was now playing and satisfy his urges. And while she remembered how good he had felt, everything had changed. She would have no power when grew tired of her strike.

“Okay?”

Cassandra swallowed her breakfast and left the bed. She pressed her arms around her body as her phone buzzed. She wondered it there might be help on the other end of the line, and she nearly moved to answer the call and scream for as long as she could that she had been ensnared in a madman’s trap. But what was the point? She let the call go to voicemail and sank down the length of the wall. When she finally cried, Oliver was at her side.

“Please don’t, Cassie. It’s all for you. You can be happy. You can be safe. You—”

She gathered the strength to slap him.

“I don’t want to be here. I want to get as far
away
from you as I can.”

Cassandra was ready for Oliver to hit back, and she braced herself for the impact. She only felt him rise and slip way, and Cassandra looked hard at him standing in the doorway. Oliver bounced the door back and forth under his hand and finally turned back to her.

“Far away
is
not
an option. But I won’t touch you. If that’s what you really want.”

It had to be.

She was on her feet and pressed her hands to her hips.

“Go away, Oliver. I’ll serve out the sentence. God knows I can’t pay you back if I don’t. But if you touch me…”

He started forward, and once again she readied herself for the embrace that had once felt so sweet. But Oliver simply lifted his hand in an unspoken promise and exited with a soft close of the door behind him. When he was gone, Cassandra tried the knob. Still unlocked. The possibility of leaving mocked her.

She stayed in the room, on the bed. The help that Oliver had selected without her aid brought her meal after meal after meal. And Cassandra ate. It was a way to pass the time. In between the entrees, she bathed and stared out the window to the fine lawns that were being manicured by more help and ignored her phone because there was no way out. She shouldn’t have hit him. That had probably just added another month or ten to her term.

In the light of a dawn, she watched Oliver exit the house as Jeff held the door open to his car. She peered intently. Oliver seemed tense but secure in something. Her captivity no doubt. He slipped into the car and drove away without another glimpse into the darkest parts of her mind.

The bedroom door started to open, and Cassandra folded her robe tighter around her body. She was prepared to choke down orange juice or croissants or French toast in order to sustain her strength.

She was not prepared for Faye.

She looked out of place balancing the tray against her designer suit.

“Top of the morning,” she said.

Faye set the tray down and sat on the edge of the bed. Cassandra stayed by the window.

“What do you
want?” Cassandra demanded.

Faye lit a cigarette and took a slow drag. Next to freedom, it was the one thing that she missed most.

“Take a puff, sweetie.”

Cassandra’s steps forward were slow, but she took the stick between her fingers and inhaled all that she could before exhaling in a grateful gasp.

“Better?” Faye asked.

Cassandra answered with a nod.

“Good. Sit.”

Faye patted the empty space of the bed at her side. Cassandra was woozy enough from the smoke to obey without protest. Faye lifted another cigarette from her pack and lit up. They smoked in silence. Cassandra had questions. Faye likely had the answers. She just had to find the courage to—

“You don’t know where he’s coming from,” Faye said.

Cassandra’s ashes fell to the floor. She watched Faye ash into the juice that Cassandra would have swallowed were it not for the damage. The drink became inconsequential in the wake of Faye’s statement.

“Really? Just where is he—”

Faye took her hand.

“It’s not my story to tell. But let’s just say it’s pretty bad.”

She took another drag.

“He’s really a good guy.”

Cassandra snorted.

“He just locks girls up for sport?”

Faye laughed at the question,

“I didn’t say he wasn’t
weird. I mean
I
wouldn’t…”

Cassandra grabbed her arm and wanted Faye’s answer. What did she
know?

“Faye?”

She dropped what was left of her cigarette into the juice glass and started for the door.

“Faye!”

She turned back with a slight smile.

“I wouldn’t try to recreate
it. But that’s me. He’s trying to right his wrongs. Even if they weren’t really his.”

“Faye?”

She didn’t speak another word as she closed the door. Cassandra was back at the window. She wanted
him to return.

Chapter Twenty-One

The light passing through the window morphed from misty to bright and then started to turn dim. Cassandra paced the room, tried to read a book, thought of checking her phone to see what was new in Iris’s corner of the universe. She didn’t press the phone to life. If she heard of Iris living a life that was free and on her own terms, she felt certain that she would burst into another stream of tears.

This wasn’t what she bargained for. It was still a fairytale, but Cassandra was beauty ensnared by a beast. And she saw no happy ending in sight.

Yet…

Faye had alluded to the fact that the entire setup had nothing to do with the possibility that he was a sex criminal in designer suits who trapped unwitting girls in veritable palaces in an effort to bind them closer with threats bathed in kisses. This was something else. He was dipping into repressed memories in an effort to repay a debt which he might not even owe. Did that make it okay? Did it make her different? Special? And couldn’t she just play along to ease his wounded mind?

Cassandra fell to the bed and hugged one of the pillows close. She wanted to hold him. But if Faye was speaking the truth, it could be more dangerous than she had even imagined.

The thoughts for and against wrestled like mad in her mind. She slipped to her back and stared at the ceiling without having reached any decision, and she gave in to the exhaustion of her dilemma and drifted off to sleep.

When her eyes opened again, the room was bathed only in moonlight. For a second, Cassandra forgot when she was and reached for what she hoped would be Oliver
at her side. When she couldn’t feel him, and when her mind caught up to the present moment, she remembered his ultimatums and the trap in which she now dwelled. Cassandra sat up and pushed a stray strand of hair from her face. As she wiped what was left of the sleep from her eyes, her gaze focused on the bedside table. She saw small bouquet of daisies wrapped in an emerald ribbon. She grasped the stems and held the petals to her nose. They smelled clean and of the sun as she inhaled them, deeply. Cassandra glanced back at the table and saw a small folded sheet of paper just below where the flowers had sat. The daisies were at her side as she slowly unfolded the page with shaking hands.

I saw these and thought of you. I can think of nothing else.

She read the words again and pressed the page to her breast as she fell against the pillows. Cassandra felt herself smile at the thought that his day, whatever else it had contained, was monopolized in a way so similar to her own time between doors that it might as well have been locked. What else had Cassandra really thought of but him? How had he known? That was almost obvious. Oliver had his finger on the pulse of everything. Or maybe it just seemed that way. Maybe his powers only extended to her. She read the note again and felt flattered.

More than that, she was curious to know just
where he was.

Cassandra was on her feet and slowly opened the door of the master bedroom.

She looked over the landing and hoped to see him sitting in the great room with a glass already in hand. Had she seen him there, she would have made her way down the steps and slowly sat at his side. She pictured Oliver slowly looking up over his glass. His eyes would fill with desire and hope. But Cassandra would still have to be careful. So much of him remained a mystery.

But she would
take his hand.

She would take his hand if he waiting just beyond the foot of the stairs. Oliver was nowhere to be found, and Cassandra turned her attention back to the long hallway and the endless rooms. He could be anywhere. She steeled herself to turn every knob when a low cry rang out. Cassandra followed the sound and found the right knob to try.

Oliver lay upon a chaise lounge before a burning fireplace. His tie was loose about his neck, and a glass had fallen from his hand to the floor. But it hadn’t shattered.

She stood in the doorway and watched him twist as he batted back something she could not see. Oliver’s eyes moved under his lids, and Cassandra wanted to know what he was seeing. She approached him slowly and knelt at his side.

“No, no.”

He murmured the protest while still lost in a dream. Or a nightmare. Cassandra gently took hold of his shoulder.

“Oliver?”

He turned from her touch. Oliver’s face left her eyes, but she could see all of his back tense with too much anxiety to name as he reached for something that wasn’t there.
Cassandra
reached to pull him closer, and he thrashed about. Cassandra was startled to the point of falling back on her hands as Oliver cried in his sleep. Whatever he was remembering cut into her soul. Were they actually connected in some way she had yet to understand? Cassandra forgot all of fear and collected him in her arms.

“Oliver.”

She shook him gently.

“Oliver, wake up. Wake up.”

When he failed to obey, Cassandra grabbed his face and forced his eyes to open to hers.

“Oliver!”

He finally woke up with a gasp, his breath hard as he blinked at her. She saw him needing a second to comprehend where he was and who she was. Cassandra eased her arms around him as he returned to her.

“Oliver, it’s okay.”

With a few blinks he knew her again and seemed to forget all the bitterness that lingered between them. Oliver pulled Cassandra into a desperate embrace and pressed his head to her shoulder.

“Cassie? Cassie. Don’t you go, too. Please.”

She shushed him with loving hands down his back. She was still his prisoner, but he was a jailer in need of someone’s aid. Cassandra wanted to be his angel of mercy.

“I’m here, Oliver.”

He clung to her as she stroked him. Oliver felt different, broken, as she ran her fingers through his hair. She felt him relax in her arms and kissed the top of his head. She knew that if he had his choice, he would never let her go.

And now Cassandra suddenly had a choice.

She slightly pushed away from him but kept her hand pressed to his face. His eyes were in her lap as she rubbed his cheek under her palm.

“Oliver?”

He slowly looked up her, weary and yet hopeful.

“Did… did you get the daisies?” he asked.

Cassandra nodded and rested her brow to his.

“Yes. They were lovely.”

He seemed glad at her confession and folded her to him again. Oliver felt
so
warm against her, and for a moment Cassandra forgot the darker aspects of their arrangement and returned his embrace. He clutched her closer as Cassandra stared at the fire over his shoulder.

She wouldn’t go. She’d promised as much. But this was a chance to solve a part of the riddle that was Oliver.

Cassandra decided to take it.

She held her face in his hands and smiled into his eyes.

“They were lovely. Thank you.”

He kissed her hands and drew her to the chaise at his side. Her ear was at his chest as his breathing gradually slowed to the point where she felt sure that she could continue.

“Cassie.”

He kissed her cheeks and finally found her mouth. She had almost forgotten the sharp warmth of his tongue, and Cassandra let his taste send her to a point where she almost abandoned all that she wanted to know. But if surrendered to him, she’d stay trapped.

Cassandra left his lips but still held him in her eyes.

This was the
chance.

“Oliver, what were you dreaming about?”

He tried to force a smile and turn it into an answer. Cassandra wanted more, and she touched his neck with every intention of knowing it.

He stayed quiet. She still wanted the answer.

“Oliver, just talk to me. I’m right here.”

She watched his face twist into what was almost rage, but he stopped and left her side. He lifted his unbroken glass from the floor and found the bottle until the glass swelled again. Oliver drank quickly and slammed he glass to the table as he wiped his face with the back of his hand. She moved to touch his back and turn him back to her. Oliver’s arms were rigid as she faced him with her question.

“Just be straight with me. Tell
me what’s going on. I’ll listen.”

He had to believe her. Cassandra watched him struggling with the possibility. Oliver seemed on the verge of pushing her back to the floor when he sighed and returned to the chaise. He ran his hand across his head. Cassandra was confident enough to sit at his side.

She took his hand.

“I will listen.”

He looked to her with anguished hope.

“I… I don’t know where to start.”

Cassandra clutched his hand tighter.

“At the beginning. Oliver, what
happened?”

He was starting to protest when she kissed him quickly. He melted under her mouth and fell to her breast. Cassandra held his head close and found his ear.

“Talk to me, Oliver.”

He sighed and unspooled the story he had been
waiting
to tell.