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He reached in and flipped on the lights, so bright and white that she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. “Now,” he said, “no more stalling. Take off your clothes yourself, or we’ll do this the hard way.”
Lorna looked around. She was cornered. “Go to hell,” she said, and did what cornered animals always do: she attacked.
For a short while he merely blocked her punches, deflected her kicks, avoided her bites, and the ease with which he did so made her that much angrier. She lost one shoe in the battle, the cheap sandal sailing across the room to clatter into the huge sunken tub. Then she felt a sudden wave of impatience emanating from him, and in three seconds flat he had her bent over the vanity with her hands pinned behind her.
He crowded in close, using his powerful legs to control her kicks, and gripped the neckline of her top. Three hard yanks brought the sound of several threads giving way, but the seams held. He cursed and yanked harder, and the left-side seam surrendered. Ruthlessly he tore at the garment until it was in rags, hanging from her right wrist. Her bra fastened in back, easy prey to the quick pinch of his fingers that released the hooks.
She squirmed like an eel, screaming until she was hoarse. He completely ignored everything she said, every insult and plea she hurled at him, silently and grimly concentrating on stripping her. She alternated between fury and sobs of panic as he opened the fastening of her pants, lowered the zipper, but stopped before pushing her pants and underwear down over her hips.
She went limp, sobbing, her face pressed against the cold stone of the vanity. He stopped pulling at her clothes, and instead the heat of his hand moved over her neck, lifting her matted hair aside for a moment, then tracing over her shoulders. He shifted his grip on her hands, instead pulling them up and over her head before resuming what felt like an inch-by-inch search of her skin. The sides of her breasts, her ribs, the indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips—he examined all of that, even pushing her pants lower to scrutinize the bottom curves of her buttocks. Mortified, she squirmed and sobbed, but he was inexorable.
Then he sighed and said, “I owe you another apology.”
He released his grip on her hands and stepped back, freeing her from the pressure of his body. On his way out he said, “I’ll bring you some clothes. Think about taking a shower, get your breath back and we’ll talk afterward.” He paused, added, “Don’t leave this room,” then quietly closed the door.
Sobbing, she slid from the vanity to the floor and curled in a vanquished heap. At first all she could do was cry and shake. After a while her temper resurrected itself and flashed over in a wordless shriek. She wept some more. Finally she sat up, wiped her face with the shreds of her blouse, yelled, “You bastard!” at the door, and felt marginally better for the invective.
Her eyes were swollen and her nose was clogged, but she felt calm enough to stand, though that wasn’t easy with her pants around her knees. The indignity made her flush with humiliation, but there was no point in pulling them up. Instead she stripped completely naked and stood there in rare indecision.
The suggestion to take a shower, she discovered, had been just that: a suggestion. If she didn’t want to, she didn’t have to. She could take a long soak in the sunken tub, if she wished. She didn’t have to bathe at all, though that was an option she immediately discarded.
Getting in the tub wouldn’t be practical, because she would end up sitting in dirty water. A long—very long—hot shower was the only way to get clean.
The shower didn’t have a door. The entrance was a curved wall of stone that led past a built-in shelf, stacked with thick, copper-colored towels, to three steps down into a five-foot-square stall with multiple showerheads. The controls were within easy reach, and when she turned the handle, water spurted out of three walls and from overhead. She waited until she felt the heat of the steam rising to her face, then stepped into the deluge.
Concentrating on getting clean, and nothing else, gave her nerves a much-needed respite. The hot water streaming over her body was a soothing, pulsating massage. She shampooed and rinsed, then did it again, and yet again, before her hair felt clean and untangled. She lathered and scrubbed with the fragrant bath gel, and found it didn’t remove even half the soot and grime. A second scrubbing produced results that weren’t much better, so she switched back to the shampoo; it had worked on her hair, so it should work on her skin.
Finally she realized that she’d been in the shower so long that her fingertips had wrinkled and the hot water should have long since been used up, though it wasn’t—but enough was enough. She was waterlogged. Regretfully, she turned off the water, and the pulsating streams disappeared so suddenly that it was as if they’d been sucked back into the showerheads. Only the sounds of the vent fan overhead and the draining water came to her ears.
She hadn’t turned on the vent fan. Unless it came on automatically when the humidity level reached a certain point, he’d come back into the bathroom.
Hurriedly, she went up the three steps, grabbed one of the fluffy towels and wrapped it around herself, then got another one and twisted it into a turban over her dripping hair. Following the curving wall, she moved until she could see into the main part of the bathroom. The mirrored wall behind the double sinks threw her reflection back at her, but hers was the only reflection. She was alone—now. The thick terry-cloth robe folded over the vanity stool told her that he had been there.
Lorna stared at the mirror. She looked pale, even to herself. The skin across her cheekbones was drawn tight, giving her a stark, shocked expression.
That was okay. She felt stark and shocked.
He’d said not to leave the bathroom. She was so soul-weary that she didn’t even try, so she didn’t know if that had been another suggestion or one of his weird mental orders that she couldn’t disobey. At this point it didn’t matter whether it was a suggestion or command. She was content to simply stay there, where there was nothing more complicated to do than dry her hair.
Rummaging in the drawers of the vanity, she found scented lotion, as well as a hair dryer and brush, which was all she needed right now. The shampoo had made her skin feel tight, so she rubbed in the lotion everywhere she could reach, then began the task of drying her hair.
Her motions with the brush became slower, then slower still. Exhaustion made her arms tremble. She was lucky that her hair was mostly straight, and had good body, because any attempt at styling it was beyond her. She just wanted her hair to be dry before she collapsed, that was all.
With that chore accomplished, she put on the robe, which was evidently his; the sleeves fell several inches past the tips of her fingers and the hem almost reached the floor. Funny, she thought fuzzily, he didn’t seem like the robe-wearing type.
Then she waited, swaying on her feet, her bare toes clenching on the plush rug. She could have at least opened the door, but she wasn’t in any rush to face him, or to find out that even with the door open, she was imprisoned in this room. Time enough for that. Time enough to engage the enemy again.
They would talk, he’d said. She didn’t want to talk to him. She had nothing to say to him that didn’t involve a lot of fourletter words. All she wanted was to go…well, not home, exactly, because she didn’t have a home in that sense. She wanted to go back to where she was staying, to where her clothes were. That was close enough to home for her. For now, she just wanted to sleep in the bed she was accustomed to.
Without warning, the door opened and he stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, as vital as if the night hadn’t been long and traumatic. He’d showered, too; his longish black hair, still damp, was brushed straight back to reveal every strong, faintly exotic line of his face. He’d shaved, too; his face had that freshly scraped look.
He was wearing a pair of very soft-looking pajama pants…and nothing else. Not even a smile.
His keen eyes searched her face, noting the white look of utter exhaustion. “We’ll talk in the morning. I doubt you could form a coherent sentence right now. Come on, I’ll show you where your room is.”
She shrank back, and he looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Your room,” he emphasized. “Not mine. I didn’t make that a command, but I will if necessary. I don’t think you’d be comfortable sleeping in the bathroom.”
She was awake enough to retort, “You’ll have to make it a command, otherwise I can’t leave the bathroom, anyway.”
She had decided that his command not to leave the bathroom had been meant to short-circuit her own will, and by his flash of irritation, she saw she’d been right.
“Come with me,” he said curtly, a command that released her from the bathroom but sentenced her to follow him like a duckling.
He led her to a spacious bedroom with seven-foot windows that revealed the sparkling neon colors of Reno. “The private bath is through there,” he said, indicating a door. “You’re safe. I won’t bother you. I won’t hurt you. Don’t leave this room.” With that, he closed the door behind him and left her standing in the dimly lit bedroom.
He would remember to tack on that last sentence, damn him—not that she felt capable of making a run for it. Right now her capability was limited to climbing into the king-size bed, still wearing the oversize robe. She curled under the sheet and duvet, but still felt too exposed, so she pulled the sheet over her head and slept.
Chapter Ten
Monday
“Are you okay?”
Lorna woke, as always, to a lingering sense of dread and fear. It wasn’t the words that alarmed her, though, since she immediately recognized the voice. They were, however, far from welcome. Regardless of where she was, the dread was always there, within her, so much a part of her that it was as if it had been beaten into her very bones.
She couldn’t see him, because the sheet was still over her head. She seldom moved in her sleep, so she was still in such a tight curl that the oversize robe hadn’t been dislodged or even come untied.
“Are you okay?” he repeated, more insistently.
“Peachy keen,” she growled, wishing he would just go away again.
“You were making a noise.”
“I was snoring,” she said flatly, keeping a tight grip on the sheet in case he tried to pull it down—like she could stop him if he really wanted to. She had learned the futility of that in the humiliating struggle last night.
He snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “How do you like your coffee?”
“I don’t. I’m a tea drinker.”
Silence greeted that for a moment; then he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. How do you drink your tea?”
“With friends.”
She heard what sounded remarkably like a growl, then the bedroom door closed with more force than necessary. Had she sounded ungrateful? Good! After everything he’d done, if he thought the offer of coffee or tea would make up for it, he was so far off base he wasn’t even in the ballpark.
Truth to tell, she wasn’t much of a tea drinker, either. For most of her life she’d been able to afford only what was free, which meant she drank a lot of water. In the last few years she’d had the occasional cup of coffee or hot tea, to warm up in very cold weather, but she didn’t really care for either of them.
She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to have that talk he seemed bent on, though what he thought they had to talk about, she couldn’t imagine. He’d treated her horribly last night, and though he’d evidently realized he was wrong, he didn’t seem inclined to go out of his way to make amends. He hadn’t, for instance, taken her home last night. He’d imprisoned her in this room. He hadn’t even fed the prisoner!
The empty ache in her stomach told her that she had to get out of bed if she wanted food. Getting out of bed didn’t guarantee she would get fed, of course, but staying in bed certainly guaranteed she wouldn’t. Reluctantly, she flipped the sheet back, and the first thing she saw was Dante Raintree, standing just inside the door. The bully hadn’t left at all; he’d just pretended to.
He lifted one eyebrow in a silent, sardonic question.
Annoyed, she narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s inhuman.”
“What is?”
“Lifting just one eyebrow. Real people can’t do that. Just demons.”
“I can do it.”
“Which proves my point.”
He grinned—which annoyed her even more, because she didn’t want to amuse him. “If you want to get up, this demon has washed your clothes—”
“What you didn’t shred,” she interjected sourly, to hide her alarm. Had he emptied her pockets first? She didn’t ask, because if he hadn’t, maybe her money and license were still there.
“—and loaned you one of his demon shirts. You’ll probably have to throw your pants away, because the stains won’t come out, but at least they’re clean. They’ll do for now. Your choices for breakfast are cereal and fruit, or a bagel and cream cheese. When you get dressed, come to the kitchen. We’ll eat in there.” He left then—really left, because she watched him go.
He was assuming she would share a meal with him. Unfortunately, he was right. She was starving, and if the only way she could get some food was to sit anywhere in his vicinity, then she would sit there. One of the first lessons she’d learned about life was that emotions didn’t carry much weight when survival sat on the other end of the scale.
Slowly she sat up, feeling aches and twinges in every muscle. Her newly washed, stained-beyond-redemption pants lay across the foot of the bed, as well as her underwear and a white shirt made out of some limp, slinky material. She grabbed for the pants and dug her hand into each pocket, and her heart sank. Not only was her money gone, but so was her license. He either had them, or they had fallen out in the wash, which meant she had to find the laundry room in this place and search the washer and dryer. Maybe he had someone working for him who did the laundry; maybe that person had taken her money and ID.
She got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom. After taking care of her most urgent business, she looked in the drawers of the vanity, hoping he was a good host—even if he was a lousy person—and had stocked the bathroom with emergency supplies. She desperately needed a toothbrush.
He was a good host. She found everything she needed: a supply of toothbrushes still in their sealed plastic cases, toothpaste, mouthwash, the same scented lotion she’d used the night before, a small sewing kit, even new hairbrushes and disposable razors.
The toothbrush manufacturer had evidently not intended for anyone without a knife or scissors to be able to use their product. After struggling to tear the plastic case apart, first with her fingers and then with her teeth, she got the tiny pair of scissors from the sewing kit and laboriously stabbed, sawed and hacked until she had freed the incarcerated toothbrush. She regarded the scissors thoughtfully, then laid them on the vanity top. They were too small to be of much use, but…
After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she dragged a brush through her hair. Good enough. Even if she’d had her skimpy supply of makeup with her, she wouldn’t have put any on for Raintree’s benefit.
Going back into the bedroom, she locked the door just in case he decided to waltz in again, then removed the robe and began dressing. The precaution was useless, she thought bitterly, because if he wanted in, all he had to do was order her to unlock the door and she would do what he said, whether she wanted to or not. She hated that, and she hated him.
She didn’t want to put on his shirt. She picked it up and turned it so she could see the tag. She didn’t recognize the brand name, but that wasn’t what she was looking for, anyway. The tag with the care instructions read 100% Silk—Dry-clean Only.
Maybe she could smear some jelly on the shirt. Accidentally, of course.
She started to slip her arms into the sleeves, then paused, remembering how he’d phrased his last statement: When you’re dressed, come to the kitchen. Once she was dressed, she probably wouldn’t have a choice about going to the kitchen, so anything she wanted to do, she should do before putting on that shirt.
She dropped the shirt back on the bed and retrieved the tiny scissors from the bathroom, slipping them into her right pocket. Then she systematically searched both the bathroom and bedroom, looking for anything she might use as a weapon or to help her somehow escape. If she saw any opening, however small, she had to be prepared to take it.
One big obstacle was that she didn’t have any shoes. She doubted the ones she’d been wearing could be saved, but at least they would protect her feet. Raintree hadn’t brought them to the bedroom, but they might still be in the bathroom she’d used last night. She didn’t want to run barefoot through the countryside, though she would if she had to. How far would she have to run before she was free? How far out did Raintree’s sphere of influence reach? There had to be a distance at which his mind tricks wouldn’t work—didn’t there? Did she have to hear him speak the command, or could he just think it at her?
Uneasily, she hoped he had somehow simply hypnotized her, because otherwise she was so deep in The Twilight Zone doo-doo she might never get the weird crap off her shoes.
Other than the scissors, neither the bath nor the bedroom supplied anything usable. There were no pistols in the built-in drawers, no stray hammer she could use to bash him in the head, not even any extra clothes in the huge closet that she could have used to suffocate him. Regretfully, with no other option left, she finally put on the silk shirt. As she was rolling up the too-long sleeves, she wondered when the command stuff would kick in. The slippery material didn’t roll up very well, so she redid the sleeves several times before she gave up and let the rolls droop over her wrists. Even then, she didn’t feel an irresistible urge to go to the kitchen.
She was on her own. He hadn’t put the command mojo on her.
Tremendously annoyed that, under her own free will, she was doing what he’d told her to do anyway, she unlocked the bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway.
Two sets of stairs opened before her, the one on the right going up to the next floor and leading to what appeared to be a balcony. The set on the left went down, widening to a graceful fan at the bottom. She frowned, not remembering any stairs from the night before. Had she been that out of it? She definitely remembered arriving at the house, remembered noticing that it had three separate levels, so of course there were stairs—she just didn’t remember them. Having this kind of hole in her memory was frightening, because what else did she not remember?
She took the down staircase, pausing when she got to the bottom. She was in a spectacular…living room? If so, it wasn’t like any living room she’d ever seen. The arched ceiling soared three stories above her head. At one end was an enormous fireplace, while the wall at the other end was glass. Evidently he was fond of glass, because he had a lot of it. The view was literally breathtaking. But she didn’t remember this, either. Any of it.
A hallway led off to the side, and cautiously she followed it. Something about this seemed familiar, at least, and she opened one door to discover the bathroom in which she’d showered last night—and in which he’d ripped off her clothes. Setting her jaw, she went in and looked around for her shoes. They weren’t there. Resigned to being barefoot, she walked through the den, past the powder room she’d used and into the kitchen.
He was sitting at the bar, long legs hooked around a stool, a cup of coffee in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other. He looked up when she entered. “I found some tea, and the water is boiling.”
“I’ll drink water.”
“Because tea is what you share with friends, right?” He put down the newspaper and got up, opening a cabinet door and taking down a water glass, which he filled from the faucet. “I hope you don’t expect designer water, because I think it’s a huge waste of money.”
She shrugged. “Water’s water.”
He gave her the glass, then lifted his brows—both of them. “Cereal or bagel?”
“Bagel.”
“Good choice.”
Only then did she notice a small plate with his own bagel on it, revealed when he’d put down the paper. Maybe it was petty of her, but she wished they weren’t eating the same thing. She didn’t wish it enough to eat cereal, though.
He put a plain bagel in the toaster and got the cream cheese from the refrigerator. While the bagel was toasting, she looked around. “What time is it? I haven’t seen a clock anywhere.”
“It’s ten fifty-seven,” he said, without turning around. “And I don’t own a clock—well, except for the one on the oven behind you. And maybe one on the microwave. Yeah, I guess a microwave has to have a clock nowadays.”
She looked behind her. The oven clock was digital, showing ten fifty-seven in blue numbers. The only thing was, she’d been blocking the oven from his view—and he hadn’t turned around, anyway. He must have looked while he was getting the cream cheese.
“My cell phone has the time, too,” he continued. “And my computers and cars have clocks. So I guess I do own clocks, but I don’t have just a clock. All of them are attached to something else.”
“If small talk is supposed to make me relax and forget I hate you, it isn’t working.”
“I didn’t think it would.” He glanced up, the green in his eyes so intense she almost fell back a step. “I needed to know if you were Ansara, and to get the answer I was rough in the way I handled you. I apologize.”
Frustration boiled in her. Half of what he said made no sense to her at all, and she was tired of it. “Just who the hell are these Aunt Sarah people, and where the hell are my shoes?”
Chapter Eleven
“The answer to the second part of your question is easy. I threw them away.”
“Great,” she muttered, looking down at her bare feet, toes curling on the cold stone tiles.
“I ordered a pair for you from Macy’s. One of my employees is on the way with them.”
Lorna frowned. She didn’t like accepting anything from anyone, and she especially didn’t like accepting anything from him—but it seemed she was having to do a lot of it no matter how she felt. On the other hand, he had thrown away her shoes and destroyed her blouse, so replacing them was the least he could do.
“And the Aunt Sarah people?” She knew he’d said “Ansara”—not that that made any more sense to her—but she hoped mangling the word would annoy him.
