“Come here, sweetheart.”

Making one foot move in front of the other felt like breaking out of a block of solid ice.

“No. Come on your knees.”

She might have hesitated, except that crawling was so much less taxing than walking at the moment. She felt lightheaded. It required less force of will to travel across the floor on her hands and knees, no matter how demeaning it might be.

Maybe she could still get out of this. Would he allow her to make the choice to stop everything? If she stopped it, though, she might remain celibate the rest of her life, cloistered away in the glassed-in room with all the sunlight but no real warmth. How would she live, never being touched by this man? But how would she live down here letting him use all those things on her?

When she reached him, he stroked her hair and she leaned against his leg, trying not to cry. The last time she’d been this afraid had been the night he’d brought her home. The difference now was that she knew what he would do, and it wouldn’t be a one-time thing. This was something he needed.

“Why do you want this, Faith?” He continued to stroke her hair while he spoke in a soothing, low tone as if he were hypnotizing her. If only he had that power, everything would be easier.

“I-I want you, I-I want it to be real. I can’t live a lie every year for your family, indefinitely. It would break me.” There was a sad kind of pity on his face. When he caught her studying him, she looked back down. She couldn’t look him in the eyes and still force herself to say the rest. “And you said you couldn’t be vanilla. Y-you said you had to have the whole package.”

“You watched me send Caprice away. Are you sure this isn’t about your fears? I told you that she and I were never going to be an item. She’s not what I want in my life.”

“If not Caprice, it will be someone else. What then?”

“I would never put your life at risk.”

“Can’t you trust me and let me go? Don’t you know me well enough to know I’ll never say anything? I won’t be a loose end.”

“I may believe that, but Angelo won’t.”

She knew she might be digging a hole, but she had to say it. “I don’t believe that’s the reason you’re keeping me.”

He laughed. “What other reason could there be?”

Faith went quiet. There was no way she could put it into words, and if she succeeded she would only feel foolish when he laughed at her. Again. Maybe it was about Angelo and not being able to let an innocent bystander die. But he had to know that keeping her in a cage wasn’t much better than a quick death.

“Go move your things back to your room, Faith. We aren’t doing this.”