Page 57 of Bastard
“You can ask anything from me. I want to help stop him.”
“Think you could love me?”
I stumble, but his hand on my back steadies me. “What?”
“You used to love me.”
I swallow back years of pain. “Are you asking me if I still do?” My words come out in a low, husky tone. Raw. Pure emotion. “I ... um ... well ...” I pause, and swallow hard before managing, “I don’t know you anymore.”
“You believe I’ve changed that much?”
“Um ... yes.” I search his face. His handsome, unreadable face. “What do you want from me?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Hard to say if he’s messing with me or weighing my reaction. Or perhaps he’s doing both. After a while, he seems to make up his mind. “Our relationship is about to change.”
I gasp as he dips his hand into the top of my dress, hooks the tip of a finger inside my ring and then, with a firm tug that breaks the chain of my necklace, holds the ring up for me to see.
He captures my left hand is his, and before I can guess his intention, slips the wedding band back into place.
“You said anything, remember that. It’s time we behave like we’re married.”
18
Ifell asleep in my hammock, with my heart in my throat and his ring on my finger.
We’ll be pretending to be a married couple. This must be Hayden’s way of getting us into character, nothing more. It’d be foolish to hope otherwise.
A small plane picked us up at dawn. My fake esposo is up front with the pilot while I’m back with the team. It’s best this way. The plane might be up in the clouds but my thoughts need to be grounded if I’m to play my part well.
A world-class view spreads out below us. Elephants gathered by a watering hole. Giraffes racing across the open savannah. Birds in flight, large and small. Buffalo and bison. Raw beauty such as this makes you forget the ugliness in the world.
It’s a four-hour flight, but everything happens quickly after we land. His men load into several different military-style vehicles and are whisked away without so much as an adios. Hayden and I, in sharp contrast, climb into a long, white limousine.
“Okay?” he asks the second the door closes. Okay to begin? is what I think he’s really asking.
“Yes, Lorenzo,” I address him by his pseudonym.
He leans in and “whispers” in a loud, demanding voice. “I can’t wait to get inside you.”
I blink.
He grins.
I nervously glance at the rearview mirror and find the limousine driver watching us.
Dios mío. This is howLorenzo’s playing this? A married couple still hot for each other?
I roll my bottom lip between my teeth. “Sometimes I think you married me just so you could fuck me, baby.”
Hayden’s eyes shimmer, and I offer him a wicked smile.
We fall silent for the duration of the ride. Our destination turns out to be an enormous, whitewashed mansion, set high in the cliffs overlooking the Indian Ocean to one side and Table Mountain to the other.
Hayden clasps my hand as we enter. A few guests linger about and we introduce ourselves before a butler shows us our room. Moments later, our luggage arrives.
“Take off your dress.”
The two men arranging our bags freeze.
