Page 4 of Keeping Ruby

He scoops me against him with an arm around my waist, and all the air leaves my lungs as my chest connects with his. His suit jacket muffles my ‘oomph’ of surprise, before I shove my hands between us and push. Hard.

He doesn’t budge. The man may as well be a mountain, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a will of water. Eventually, with enough time, my waves will wear him down.

They have to.

A sound of frustration erupts from me as I struggle in his hold, against the firm, solid mass of him.

When I slump in defeat, he waits a beat. “Are you done?”

“What do you want with me?” I haven’t asked in a while. Maybe he’ll finally answer me.

“Right now, I want you to come with me.” He dips his chin to pin me with those terrifyingly dark eyes. “As I’ve already stated.”

My chin wobbles. I’m so damn tired. I’m so damn angry.

And I’m so impossibly sad.

“Will you let me go?”

He arches a brow. “Best elaborate. We wouldn’t want to begin things on a misunderstanding, now, would we?”

I scowl up at him. I have a feeling he’s toying with me. I don’t understand, and I don’t like it.

“I think we’re beyond the beginning of anything.”

His grin stretches, like he knows something I don’t know. Which is silly, because the man knows everything I, apparently, don’t know.

Like why I’m even here.

“Come. Let’s talk upstairs.”

Three

Ruby

He leads me to his office, where, from the darkness that spills in through the thrown drapes covering his windows, I can see it is night. The dog lays, alert, on a massive dog bed beside the lit fireplace. I’m not sure the breed, but the hair is short and mostly black. He possesses a regalness that is terrifying. There are patches of brown in the sleek black, and his eyes seem to see everything.

I force my gaze back to the windows. To the darkness that yawns over a rolling land of white.

I miss the sun.

I haven’t seen the sun in what feels like a lifetime. I haven’t felt the warmth of the rays against my pale, freckle-speckled skin. In fact, it’s been so long since I’ve felt the soothing warmth, even my freckles look paler. Faded. Lifeless.

Like my eyes.

I hate him.

Mama always said it was wrong to hate. But I hate him for doing this to me.

He guides me to the chair that sits on the other side of his desk before he rounds the gleaming beast to lower his body into his own chair. It’s an ostentatious chair, really: wingback, black leather.

He leans back, those dark eyes studying me. Appraising me.

I wonder, could I seduce him into loosening the binds of my prison enough that I might escape him?

As soon as the thought enters my mind, I deflate. He’s so pretty, so darkly magnetic, I’m confident he is no innocent to the wiles of women as they try their hand at seduction. And I’m no wily woman. My cunning extends to the hidden corners of the library in my small town, where I’ve worked since I was a teen, and intended to work until the day I died. My craft was exclusive to sitting alone, hunched over the pages of a treasured book, my only charm the nimble work of my slender fingers as I rebound old works.

I’ve mostly kept to myself, but I liked it that way.

---