Page 35 of Sacred Vow

“You locked me in here, Andrei. What did you think I was going to do?”

“Not destroy my house.” He whips around.

“Who has a lock on the outside of a door anyway!” I wring my hands together in front of me. Ruining his mother’s vase makes me the bad guy here, and I’m not the bad guy. I didn’t kidnap anyone. I didn’t lock anyone in a room and leave them there all alone. I’m the victim here.

“I do.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

“I sure as hell can.”

“No. You can’t.” The arousal from earlier is long gone. Now, without all those hormones blocking my brain, I can make better decisions. I just need to keep him from touching me and sending my brain spiraling again.

“Agree to marriage,” he demands.

“Absolutely not.” I take a small step away from him. It would be the simplest route. Marry him, have his help to fill in the gap that haunts me and be safe from any fallout. Except after that, what happens? I’ll just be stuck in a loveless marriage the rest of my life?

“Let me out of this damn penthouse and let me go home.”

His eyebrow arches so sharply, I’m sure it hurts.

“Home? No.” He swipes a hand through the air. “If I was able to find you, they’ll be able to find you. It took me one phone call, and that’s all it will take for them.”

None of this is fair. I don’t know what they want. I have nothing of value for any of them, but they’ll hunt me down anyway.

“Besides, your building has no security. A petty thief can make their way into that place.”

I want to scream and throw things and scream some more, but I just glare at him.

“You can’t stay in this room by yourself, so you’ll have to stay with me.” He gestures to the open door. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” I pull back a step; this is a huge place. He could have some dirty dungeon to lock me in.

“Downstairs.” He crosses the broken porcelain surrounding my feet and grabs hold of my arm. “You’re going to eat something. Then we’re going to go in my office and have a conversation. If you can’t do it, can’t behave, then I’ll rip those jeans off you, bend you over the couch, and give you plenty of reasons to get talking.”

My throat dries at the implication.

“Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it.” I raise my chin. “See? You hate me almost as much I hate you. Why would you want to marry me?”

He snorts. “Hate you, Isolde?” He shakes his head. “That’s one thing I’ll never do. Now, let’s go before you break something else of mine.”

“I’m sorry about the vase,” Isolde says softly from the couch she’s nestled herself into. She didn’t say a word while eating her lunch, and when I brought her to my office, she found a book to bury her nose in.

The vase had been one of the few things my father hadn’t gotten rid of after my mother died. His second wife, who he galloped with to the altar only six months later, had wanted to purge the house of anything my mother had touched. I’d been able to rescue a few items.

My father’s been gone two years now. I kept nothing of his.

“You are?” I stop at my desk, leaning back against it.

“I am.” She brushes her hair behind her ear. “If I’d known it was your mother’s, I wouldn’t have thrown it at the window.”

“Ah, so you’re not regretting the escape attempt, just the item used?”

The smile pulling on the edges of her lips is so faint, if it wasn’t a direct contrast to the angry frown she’s had since our reunion, I might have missed it.

“You’re keeping me hostage here, Andrei. You can’t expect me not to try and get away from you. Especially since you’ve all but said you’re going to force me to marry you.”

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