Page 53 of Sweet Rule
“But-”
“This isn’t the place for this conversation. Nowmove it.” The last two words are uttered through gritted teeth and I move. I follow him out of the elevator, feeling tongue-tied and unsure of what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing or thinking now that I’m Law’s wife. We’re married. I look down at my left hand where a wedding ring should be, but there’s nothing there.
Fucking married. I dreamed about being with Law. I’d wanted to be his wife. Wanted to make him my home and for a brief shining moment I’d believed he was. I clench my hand into a fist.
“I have a ring.”
Shock hits me. I don’t know what to say. Again. “What?”
“A ring,” he says and gestures for me to keep walking but I don’t go more than a step before I stop.
“What do you mean you have a ring for me? Why would you have a ring?”
He shifts the bags he’s still carrying. The bags that are so meaningless to me. I don’t even know why I grabbed them other than to just not leave empty-handed. There’s nothing in them but dresses too expensive for me to wear anywhere. At least, not as Honey Martinez. I don’t know if they’re the sort of thing the woman I am now would wear.
Honey Sokolov.
I stare at Law and try to think why he would have a ring. “Why would you have a ring for me?”
He sighs and for the first time since I’ve seen him, he looks tired. He rolls his shoulders and drops them. “Because I was going to ask you.” That’s all he says before he turns and strides off into his penthouse. I don’t move for a second. Law’s words hang in the air but then I shake off my shock, because I know what he means when he said “ask me.” I know what the question is, but I need to hear Law say it.
I have to hear the question that he didn’t get to ask me. We’re not married because he asked me but because he was forced. Because I fucked up and struck a bargain that I couldn’t pay on my own.
“What do you mean? Ask me what?” I ask, stumbling as I take off after him. I haven’t set foot in the penthouse in over a week but it feels like I just left. It feels like coming home too, even though… even though it’s not my home. I’ve never had a home though, so what do I know? I hear Law up ahead of me, he must be in the bedroom. There’s a safe there, in the closets he’s started filling with my things.
“Ask me what?” I ask, hurrying into the bedroom. I don’t see him, but the door to the closet is open so I keep walking. That’s when I notice something. Everything in the bedroom is exactly the way I left it. The book I was reading is still on the bedside table, face down and open to my spot. My water bottle is there. A copper one that I got because the lady that sold it to me in the market swore it would be good for hypertension. I don't know if it is actually beneficial, but I’d dropped it a hundred times since I’d bought it and I recognize the dented side of it. The sweatshirt I’d been wearing the night before I’d left is still draped over the couch in one corner of the room.
I walk into the closet and freeze. Everything in here is exactly the same, too. My clothes, the shoes I’d brought, they’re all hanging exactly the way I left them. I don’t know why the sight of it surprises me. I was only gone a week, but I didn’t expect Law to keep it the same. Even the shoes I’d kicked off before getting dressed the evening we went to the club are still thrown haphazardly on the floor where I’d left them. It’s such a small thing. Not having my things removed. But I think after the people and circumstances of my life have shown me over and over again just how replaceable I am, that I didn’t expectthis.
Thethisbeing Law not touching anything since I was last here. Of all the people in the world to keep space for me, I didn’t think it would be the man that my fucked up parents hired to watch me.
Law’s got his back to me. He’s in front of the safe and I hear the telltale double beep signaling he’s opened it.
“Law, what-”
“You know what question.” His voice is sharp, words clipped. He puts a hand up on the wall beside the safe and sighs. “The plan was always to ask you to be my wife. Your father meddled with the timeline, but this was alwaysmy plan.” He turns to me and gives me a smile. It’s not a warm one, his eyes aren’t soft on me. They’re heated. Focused. I swallow hard and every instinct in my body is screaming at me to run. He’s looking at me the way he was before he…before we…did what we did at the club.
Law’s eyes are hard on me. Hungry. There’s a possessive light in his gaze as he looks me over. A shiver runs through me and my knees are practically shaking. My fight or flight instinct is going off like the Fourth of July. I really should fucking run. At least wait in the bedroom for him. But I don’t move to get away from him. Probably because I never make smart decisions when it comes to Law. I don’t know how, I guess. It’s been that way since we first met. I come forward another step and then another until I’m only a step away from him.
I swallow hard. “I didn’t know you would want that.”
He frowns. “How could you not? You’re my life.”
I shake my head. “Don’t lie to me, Law.”
“You think I went in there for a fucking party or because Zeus called for me like some fucking dog? I went down there for you.” His voice rises on the last word and he points a finger at me, the other fingers of his hand are wrapped around a pale pink box. The blush color of it clashes with his inked fingers and I stare at that box. I’m helpless to look away from it.
“You are everything to me.” His voice drops and there’s a ragged edge to it. “The things I am going to do to keep you are more than you can handle.”
“W-what are you talking about?”
“Do you think what happened in that club is the end of it?” Law comes forward, he’s in my space and I give into my urge to run now. I stumble and Law catches me around the waist. He holds me to him. “Do you?” he asks me through clenched teeth.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything!” The words erupt out of me and I push at his chest, I try to break his hold but it’s no use and I end up beating on his chest with my fists as I scream at him. “I’m nobody! Don’t you get that? How does no one see that by now? There’s no reason any of this should be happening because ofme!” I’m screaming so loud now that if Law didn’t have the entire floor there would definitely be people coming to investigate.
“Let me go!” I twist and kick. Somehow I manage to get free of Law and I run. I make it out of the bedroom and halfway into the kitchen when Law crashes into me. He pulls me to him.
“Stop running from me,little girl.” The words are growled against my ear and hearing them makes me fight harder. Little girl. It makes me want to call him Daddy. I can’t want that. Ishouldn’twant that.
