Page 71 of Beautiful Rush
My breath hitched. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. “What are you talking about?”
Anthony reached into his suit jacket and came out with a stack of photos that he forced into my hand. My hands shook, giving me away, as I sifted through the photos. They were grainy like they’d been taken from a distance and maximized on a computer before printing them, but it was unmistakable who was in these photos. I kept my head down, a curtain of hair obscuring the expression on my face as I flipped through the photos, my heart squeezing.
They were taken the night Deacon and I were in Chinatown.Two weeks ago. What struck me most about the photos was that we looked like we belonged together. I stopped at one where he was saying something in my ear, my face lit up with a smile. Deacon made me happy.
But I couldn’t let Anthony see how much the photos affected me, or how sick it made me feel inside that he had them in his possession. So I handed back the photos like they meant nothing to me, even though I wanted to keep them for myself and tuck them in a drawer, safe from his prying eyes.
“Were you tailing me? Just like the good old days?” I asked, keeping my tone light and joking.
“Did you let him fuck you?”
My stomach churned. This was sick. Why was he asking me that?
Maybe he didn’t know who Deacon was. Maybe these were the only photos he had. He had no way of knowing if I was lying about this. My self-preservation instincts kicked in. “Seriously? You know I’m not that kind of girl.” I laughed like the very notion was ridiculous.
Anthony knew I had sex with Sasha, but he also knew that I didn’t sleep around and had kept guys at arm’s-length.
“I guess we’ll see what kind of girl you are tonight. I have a special surprise for you.”
His smile told me I wouldn’t like this surprise. “What’s the surprise?” I forced a smile like I was excited by the prospect.
“You have ten minutes to get ready. If you choose to disobey me, I’ll dress you myself.”
Disobey me?
* * *
I staredout the window as we crossed the bridge and decided that I hated Anthony’s cologne. Absolutely detested it. I was choking on it. When I’d opened the window earlier, he had closed it. I wasn’t even allowed to open the fucking window. We were Manhattan-bound in the backseat of a black Mercedes G-Class driven by a thug in a dark suit who supposedly didn’t speak English. After Anthony had decreed that I get ready, I had locked myself in the bathroom and I had done as he asked. Some battles were worth losing to win the war. I just needed to figure out which war we were fighting.
Information was power. I needed more of it. I angled my body toward Anthony, determined to figure out what this psychopath was planning.
Before I had a chance to process what was happening, he took my left hand in his and slid a ring on my finger. It fit perfectly. I stared at the rock on my ring finger. A princess cut diamond that had to be at least three carats. I hated diamonds. I didn’t understand why women wanted them for their engagement rings. They were so cold. And he’d just jammed it on my finger with no sweet words or explanation.
Had he popped the question? Had I agreed to this? No. And no.
“What is this?” I asked, too shocked to even pry it off my finger and throw it in his face.
“You’re going to be my wife. It’s traditional to give your fiancée an engagement ring.”
My laughter bordered on manic. Oh, my God. If Anthony thought for one minute that I was going to marry him, he was delusional. This was all so crazy I felt like I’d been dropped into an alternate universe.
Anthony scowled at me. That made me laugh harder. This was too ludicrous to even take seriously. For some reason, that calmed me down. I would just play along and ride this crazy train until I figured out where it was headed. Then I would…I didn’t know what I’d do. I would just have to play it by ear and then I’d figure something out.
“Do you love me, Anthony?”
“Since when is love a pre-requisite for marriage?” He sounded amused, like my question was too naïve to be taken seriously.
“You’re not marrying me for love?”
“Why do you insist on talking about love?” He sounded exasperated, put out by my questions as if I was harping on something that was unreasonable to ask your future husband. Over my dead body, although let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. “This has nothing to do with love.”
Keep talking, Anthony. Spill your secrets and I’ll crucify you.“What does it have to do with?”
“Do you know what it’s like to clean up another man’s messes and get nothing in return but a bottle of whiskey?”
Sorry, dude, but you chose that job of your own free will and now you’re whining about it?
“So, I’m the prize for all your hard work that went unnoticed?”
