She sat for another minute trying to determine if he meant the threat. The look in his eyes said he did. Was refusing to eat when she was hungry really worth dying over? Veronica took a bite. It was the best burger she’d ever eaten, and not just because she’d been eating cheap food for a week and had only had chips and a coke for the last ten hours.
“Now, you will call me Sir.”
“Excuse me?”
He sighed. “Ronnie, you’re making me tired. I’ve had a long day. If you interrupt me every time I speak, we’ll be up until the roosters start. And they’ll be starting in about two hours.”
“That’s before dawn.”
“Welcome to the ranch.”
She went back to her burger, trying to ignore the company and the fact that the way he was treating her, though offensive, was having a fucked-up effect. She was sure if—no when—he hurt her, it would snap her back to reality, but for now, his low voice, good looks, and semi-barbaric ways were sending her spiraling back into fantasy world.
“You’ll have chores here. You’ll also be cooking for me and the guys. You’ll keep the house tidy, and you’ll tend to the garden in the backyard. We don’t sell the produce; it’s just for us. We don’t eat a lot from the grocery store, some snack foods here and there and soft drinks. Most of our meat, eggs, and dairy comes from here or our neighbors and our produce comes from the garden. The growing season is short so we also have a pretty big greenhouse. Any questions?”
“I’m not going to be your happy domestic slave. I don’t live to serve men.” In real life she had barely been able to stand Joe as her boss at the ad agency. And she’d never called Joe sir. Her first two years at the agency it had been a woman, but then she’d run off to Australia with her boyfriend. The fact that Veronica would be the only woman here, waiting on them all hand and foot, caused an indignant rebellion to rise up in her. She didn’t know how long she could play nice with this psycho.
“All right, get in the truck. I’ll take you back to the city and you can die in a ditch or turn to prostitution and drugs to dull the horror of it all.”
Would he really take her back to the city? If he meant it, she wanted to take the offer and get away, but his forecast of prostitution and drugs felt too true and close to the mark to take the bait. It might not be any better out there.
“Don’t you intend to use me like that?”
“When the time is right, and I feel you’re ready to be a good slut, absolutely.”
She cringed at the way he spoke to her, rough and calloused like his hands. “What you’ve done and what you obviously plan to do is wrong.”
“It’s wrong to feed you and give you shelter and productive work?”
“That’s not what you’re doing.”
“Isn’t it?” He took his plate to the sink. “See you in the morning, princess.”
Veronica was left alone in the kitchen with only the grandfather clock in the other room for company. She couldn’t believe he’d left her unattended. Of course she wasn’t going to run away without her shoes, but there had to be shoes somewhere in this house. Or a phone.
She scanned the kitchen, but all she found was a place where a phone used to hang on the wall. Searching the lower level didn’t produce a phone either. She winced every time she stepped on the wrong wooden board, causing a loud creak to sound throughout the house. Luke leaned over the upstairs railing.
“If you’re looking for a phone, I only have a cell, and it’s locked in my safe in the bedroom.”
So much for that, but she still had the other plan. She’d have to wait until he fell asleep. Even as she thought it, the prospect of actually making it back to New York sounded awful. So far he hadn’t harmed her. What would be her fate in the city with such limited resources? Though by this point she could stand the humiliation of going back to Joe and begging for her job back, if the job still existed. She could see a credit counselor and get her life back on track.
If the slow downward spiral from her penthouse to the apartment with the ugly brick view hadn’t changed her thinking, the past week of genuine fear for her ability to survive much longer the way she was going had. Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and all the other frivolity seemed like just that.
She turned the knob of the door for the bedroom he’d assigned her. She was still confused that he hadn’t thrown her down and raped her.
A silver, antique full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. The wallpaper was a light blue-and-white stripe. The furniture was painted white: a chest of drawers, a vanity, a night stand, and a full-sized bed. The carpet was light blue to match the wallpaper.
Veronica guessed there was hardwood underneath. For a crazy second she wondered if the carpet covered evidence of something gruesome. The closet, also white, was filled with sundresses for the summer, both long and short, as well as jeans and sweaters for the winter. But no shoes. Not a single pair of shoes was in the closet or under the bed. A chill went down her spine. If she’d had any doubts before, now she knew—Trish had been a prisoner as well.
Chapter Three
Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.
The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.
She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.
After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past history of killing the unborn, he’d decided it would be best if she didn’t get pregnant again. Smart doctor. Following that episode, she’d switched to women doctors for everything. Fuck the patronizing bastards who would give a man a vasectomy at nineteen but felt a woman couldn’t know her own mind until she’d already had children or turned thirty-five.
For a fleeting moment, Veronica wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen, take a knife, and lop off the dangerous part of Luke Granger. While he hadn’t hurt her... yet... she’d seen the perverted wheels in his head turning, and he’d admitted as much. She wasn’t going to think about the brief inappropriate wetness she’d felt between her legs as the word slut had tumbled out of his gorgeous mouth.
Perhaps worse than that, he’d decided she’d be free labor around the house. He didn’t seem intent on paying her. And even if he would, he hadn’t given her the choice to refuse the job.
His boots weren’t on the floor, so she went to check the closet. Behind the dark wooden doors, were his clothes and a large safe, but no shoes. Could he have put his boots in the safe? He’d put his cell in there. To be that meticulous... How many times had he done this? No matter what he said, Veronica didn’t believe he hadn’t killed Trish and whoever else had been before her. This behavior was too pathological.
Somehow on the trip, she’d convinced herself that he was attracted to her and wanted to help her, and maybe the way things w
ere out on the ranch didn’t translate to more enlightened relationships between men and women. Perhaps he thought he was helping her, but since she was too stubborn to accept help, he’d had to take drastic measures—like an intervention with a drug addict.
She slipped past his bed to go back to her room when his hand shot out and grabbed her, pulling her back onto the bed with him. Her bathrobe bunched up around her thighs as he flipped them so he loomed over her. His hand slid up her thigh and between her legs, his fingers teasing just over her clit for a moment. It was enough to confuse her—to make her unsure if she wanted him or not. Even if her body did, she didn’t. She hated him. He was the embodiment of why she didn’t trust men. Weren’t they all savages under the civilized exterior? Wouldn’t they all do whatever they could get away with and rationalize it?
Luke Granger had decided he could keep a slave on his ranch and save some money. And past experience without getting caught proved his point. He sat up then and put her over his knee. It happened so fast she couldn’t find the words to protest before her robe was up around her waist and his hand was coming down hard across her bare bottom.
She squirmed and struggled against him, screaming at him to stop. Indignant. Pissed-off. Humiliated. Scared. The threat of him was a reality now. He grabbed her wrists in one hand, the non-spanking hand. She would have bitten him, no matter the cost, if she could have reached him.
“Let me go you fucking bastard. I hate you. You are a sick motherfucking psycho who should be locked up!”
He ignored her screaming and kept spanking her until she’d reached her pain threshold. Her cursing and yelling turned to begging.
“Luke, please. I’m sorry, please.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. She’d say anything to make him stop. It hurt too much for pride to get in the way. In her mind, she reasoned she could just let go of it for one second to make him stop this, then she could reclaim her identity in the light of day when the pain had faded.
“You don’t come into my room unless I send for you. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
“Yes what?”
She recoiled and resumed struggling, not yet ready to give in to the next step in her degradation.
“My hand isn’t even tired. I can keep going.”
Just the threat was enough at this point. “Y-yes, sir.” If he didn’t kill her, she’d jump off the balcony. “This is why I hate men. No one hurt me. But any one of you could have done what you’re doing now. Isn’t that enough reason to hate and not trust? How do I know when a man looks at me like you did in the diner that he isn’t planning to act on his fantasies? I don’t. None of you can be trusted.”
He’d gone to stroking over her skin where he’d struck her. She tried to pull away when his finger dipped between her legs.
“You’re wet. Dripping.” He practically growled when he said it.
“Stop it.”
“No. Say ‘Sir, please stop groping me,’ and I’ll think about it.”
“Never.”
Another sharp slap landed on her ass.
“Sir, please stop groping me,” she whispered through her tears. She was glad they were in the dark, because her face must be the color of a maraschino cherry.
He gathered her in his arms and held her, stroking her hair... comforting her.
“Please just kill me if that’s what you’re going to do. Don’t do this on top of it.”
“Shhhhh. The first week or so will be the hardest, after that you’ll be happy with me.”
He was insane. Completely certifiable if he thought she could ever be happy obeying him, being demeaned and degraded by him, reduced to a thing—not even a real person anymore.
“Was Trish happy?” she asked, her tone accusatory, but the answer he gave wasn’t defensive or the one she expected.
“Very.”
“Were you?”
His voice changed. Veronica was surprised when it came out choked. “Yes. You look a lot like her.”
And did both of them look like his mother? Because that was in the serial killer handbook. Mommy issues. But she was far too wise to say that thought out loud.
“Go back to bed now. I’ll let you sleep in since we were out so late.” He kissed the top of her head and she went back to her room, thankful at least that she had a room away from him. The memory of his lips pressed against her forehead seared into her brain, keeping her from sleep for a long time.
***
Sunlight came in through the windows and balcony door, but Veronica rolled onto her stomach, taking the pillow with her to cover her head and block out the light. She wasn’t yet awake enough to remember where she was.
Luke smacked her across the ass, not hard, but still degrading. “Get up, and make breakfast.”
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, as if she’d woken into another dream layer and if she concentrated hard enough she’d wake back up in the crappy apartment she’d been evicted from, or better yet, her penthouse. Being so tired, it was still possible to imagine that everything from losing the penthouse, onward, had been nothing but an ugly nightmare. After all, there was sun shining in her room. That had to mean penthouse.
What was the more likely scenario? That a Big Deal ad executive had gotten into such bad credit card debt she’d become nearly homeless and had been kidnapped by a rancher, or that all of that was a nightmare that mixed in a few inappropriate sexual fantasies? When she took the pillow away from her face and opened her eyes, it would be her penthouse with the spectacular view of the park.
The pillow was ripped away. She heard it hit the carpeted floor.
“Now, Veronica. It’s nine a.m. That’s practically sunset around here.”
Oh God. She hoped he was kidding. The sound of his voice made her think that was unlikely.
She rolled back over and pulled the covers over her head. A second later, he’d ripped the blankets off her. Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a belt zipping through belt loops. Before she could react, he slammed the strip of leather against the mattress, so close to her leg she felt the air whoosh. She scrambled out of the bed, still wearing the bath robe from the previous night and crouched next to the night stand.
“I-I’m not making you and your sweaty pigs breakfast.”
Somehow the sound of boots on carpet was as intimidating as they would have been on hardwood. He snapped the belt. “Oh really? I will use this on you. I’ll strap those legs and then make you wear a short dress so the guys can see you’ve been a bad girl.”
She held her hands over her head in a defensive gesture. “Okay, okay!”
Luke went to the closet and pulled out a short sun dress. “It only gets chilly at night right now, so you’ll wear this today.”
She balked at being told what to wear, but with the belt still in his hand, it was a battle she was willing to let go. He sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
“Get dressed.”
“Leave.”
He snapped the belt again, and she struggled with the knot on the robe.
“There are underthings in the drawers. I prefer no panties, but I’ll let you make that call today.”
“Please don’t do this.”
He rolled his eyes. “Princess, you’re in my castle now. You’ll do what I say when I say. Pleading and begging isn’t going to save you. All I want to do is look at you. Is that so bad?”
Veronica opened the drawers to find bras and panties. The panties were her size, but the bra was a size too small. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was wearing some dead woman’s underthings and that most likely another unfortunate woman would wear these after her.
She slipped the panties on underneath the robe and heard Luke’s tsk tsk behind her.
“I take it back. It’ll be two rough weeks for you. It was optimistic to say one.”
She shot him a dirty look, and kept her back to him when she slipped the robe off her shoulders and squeezed her breasts into the
bra.
“Come here.”
She paused, considering her options. She could say no or stay where she was and get hit with the belt, or she could walk over there to him. Either way he’d get what he wanted. She gritted her teeth and walked over to where he sat smugly in the rocking chair, his legs spread as wide as possible in such a chair.
He pulled her close so that she was standing between them, then he ran his hands over her, over the lines of the panties and over and around the bra, cupping each breast. She looked away as his rough fingers slipped under the lace.
“It’s a little snug. What size are you?”
“36C.”
She shuddered against him as he leaned in and trailed his tongue over the tops of her breasts. He pulled the cups of the bra back and rubbed the newly exposed flesh.
“You’ve got lovely nipples.”
“Can I get dressed now? Please?” she said, trying to block out the feelings of arousal.
“Please sir can I get dressed now,” he corrected.
She parroted back the phrase he wanted to hear only because it was the quickest route to getting clothes on. She wouldn’t let him control her body like this.
He took his hands off her and nodded, and she scurried back to the bed and slipped the dress over her head. It was a better fit. She took a step back as he stood and moved toward her. He pointed at the door.
“Now go. Make breakfast. We’re starving.”
She turned toward the door and jumped when he landed a playful swat against her bottom.
***
The kitchen’s long counter was lined with brown eggs that weren’t quite the pristine quality of the grocery store and sliced bacon that stayed cold in a bowl of ice.
“There’s biscuit dough in the fridge. I’ll teach you how to make it, but what’s chilling right now is ready to go. Just roll it into balls and put it on baking sheets,” Luke said as he came up behind her. “Come.” He took her hand and led her to the back patio, which was covered with trellis work and grapes. On the patio was a long wooden table with six chairs. “Right before the eggs are done, you can ring this bell for us. We like them scrambled.” He pointed to indicate a sturdy wooden beam in the ground with a large bell with a rope attached.