Page 40 of Bloody Vows
“I don’t want complications,” I say firmly, backing up and putting space between us. “Thiswasan arrangement. My father’s empire for my life. It’s business, Tristan. So let’s keep it business-like.”
“Complications,” he repeats, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Like the way you were so fucking tight around my fingers this morning when you came for me? Like the wayyou drenched my hand, you were so fucking wet when you orgasmed?”
The clink of china makes me freeze before I can retort, and I squeeze my eyes shut, my face burning as I realize that the second course was being brought in. I can’t bring myself to turn around and look at the staff member behind me.
I reach forward, grabbing my wine glass and tossing back the red liquid. Tristan didn’t need to put me on my knees under the table tonight to thoroughly humiliate me, and it’s clear that he realizes it from the insufferable smirk on his face. “I’m not hungry,” I say flatly, and turn on my heel to stride out of the room. I half-expect him to shout at me to stop as I flee—pointedly refusing to look the woman carrying two plates of salmon into the dining room in the eye—but he doesn’t. He lets me go, and I can only imagine it’s because for tonight, at least, he’s won.
—
The more startlingthing is that he doesn’t come to my bedroom that night, either. I lock the door just in case, and I’m tense all the way until I fall asleep and probably after as well, waiting for him to bang on the door and demand entry. Especially since he didn’t fuck me this morning, claiming he didn’t want me, which was a bold-faced lie. I feltandsaw how hard he was.
But Tristan doesn’t appear. Not after dinner, and not in the morning either, to my surprise. I don’t see a sign of him as I go down to breakfast, opting to eat in the kitchen again, and he doesn’t appear to taunt me during my workout. I have a feeling I know what he’s doing—deliberately putting me on edge, likewaiting for a jumpscare in a horror film—but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I go about my day as usual.
Which comes to a screeching halt after I shower and change, intending to go downtown and do some shopping to take my mind off of all of this.
I go to find the head of security, who turns out to now be a man named Vitto that I don’t know—another of Tristan’s replacements. “Where’s Luca?” I demand as soon as I’m introduced to Vitto. “I’m heading downtown. I need my usual security team to come with me.”
Luca has always led my security team—three men who go with me everywhere I go when I leave the estate—and has for years. But when I say his name, Vitto just frowns.
“Luca’s gone.”
My jaw clenches tight. “What do you mean,gone?” I hiss through my teeth, but I could answer my own question. I just want to hear Vitto say it out loud. Tristan has replaced my security team, like he’s slowly replaced everyone else.
“Mr. O’Malley has designated a security team for you,” Vitto continues. “I’ll radio them and let them know they’re needed if…”
“Don’t bother,” I spit out, turning sharply on my heel as I stalk toward where I know Tristan has set up his office, my heels clicking on the marble floors as I go.
I know from Nora that Tristan opted to choose a different room in the house to be set up as his office, rather than taking over my father’s. It’s a pattern that I’m seeing—he doesn’t want to slip into my father’s old shoes, he wants to trample all over his legacy with his own, replacing everything with his choices, his signature. The last-minute remodel of the master suite, the changing of the guard—literally—the new office. All of it speaks to Tristan wanting to make all of this his own, rather than taking over what already existed.
And the worst part of it is that deep down, in the most logical center of me, it all makes sense. It might even be whatI’ddo, if I were in his shoes. I think that’s what makes me the most angry—that despite how much I hate it all, if I think of it from his perspective, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same.
I don’t want it all to make sense. I just want to be pissed off, and I want Tristan gone.
I don’t bother to knock. His door isn’t locked, and unlike the days when my father was alive—when I wouldn’t have dared to walk into his office without being invited, much less unannounced—I storm directly inside, slamming the door behind me as I enter.
Tristan looks up from behind his long mahogany desk, not all that different from the one in my father’s office, I think dryly. He doesn’t flinch, only lets his gaze glide over me, a look of heated appreciation for my appearance gleaming in his eyes. I immediately wish I’d chosen something different for my planned shopping trip. I picked out a black eyelet lace sundress with a red ribbon threaded through the low bodice, my dark hair loose and wavy, and I can see Tristan’s eyes resting on my breasts with unhurried desire.
He finally looks up again, meeting my eyes, and tilts his head slowly. “What did I do to deserve such a pleasant surprise,célie?”
“Knock it off,” I snap. “Why the fuck did you replace my security team?”
His smile drops. “What did I say about your mouth?”
“I’m not in the mood for games.” I glare at him. “My security team has been with me for years, Tristan. I trust them. I didn’t want them fired.”
He looks at me coolly. “It’s not about what you want, Simone.Ididn’t know them.Ididn’t trust them. And certainly not with my wife.”
My teeth grind together. “That should have been my decision.”
“No.” He says the word flatly. “I trust my own men with my wife. Men my father knows, men I’ve trained with, men I’ve known for years. Not strangers.”
“They weren’t strangers to me! Now I have strangers guarding me?—”
“Men who are loyal to me,” Tristan corrects, and it’s all I can do not to stalk up to the desk and spit in his face.
“That’s what this is about. Controlling me. Making sure that the men following me around are loyal to you, and not to me. So that they’ll spy on me, tattle on me, tell you anything you ask, and do anything you say, regardless of how I feel about the matter!”
“Exactly.” Tristan’s gaze is impassive, which only makes me angrier. “Youcan’t be trusted, Simone. You married me out of fear for your life, and you’ve made it very clear every step of the way that you resent being put in that position. You treat me like an imposition and you want nothing more than to place boundaries on our marriage that I never agreed to.” He pauses, taking a slow inhale. “You need to be reminded of your place,célie, and of what it is that you agreed to.”
