He releases me with a ragged breath and glares down at me. “Little brats don’t get to come.”

“Little brats make themselves come.” I thrust my fingers between my thighs resentfully, and he turns away, stalking toward the door.

There’s no pleasure in my actions, not with his abrupt dismissal, and I refuse to let him walk away from this so easily.

“So how does this work exactly?” I call after him. “How much was my time worth to you just now? Will you leave some cash on the floor beside me before you go?”

He freezes, his back going rigid, but he doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t say a goddamned word.

“Or do you consider this a bonus?” I ask. “On top of what Santiago’s already paying you.”

His head dips, the only sign he even heard me, but again, I get no response. The silence goes on too long. It’s too painful. And despite my best efforts to restore myself to factory defaults, wipe away all my emotions, I revert to the mess he’s made of me.

“Clifton asked me out on a date, and I want to go. Next week.”

“No.” The word squeezes through what I don’t doubt are clenched teeth.

“It’s not up to you.” I force myself to remain calm. “I need to find a husband, and I’m tired of waiting. There’s nothing to be accomplished by you keeping me locked up here—”

“I said no!” he roars.

The thunder in his voice silences me, but if that wasn’t effective enough, he takes it a step further, snatching a decorative vase from the nearest table. When he hurls it at the wall, shattering it with a deafening blow, I can’t help but flinch.

Slowly, he turns his sharp gaze to me, and at that moment, I hardly recognize the man I know burning beneath the hatred in his eyes. But for a moment, only a fleeting moment, I see something else there too. Something that looks like the same agony I feel splitting my ribs apart.

“Over my dead body,” he grits out. “Will you ever go out with him.”

With that final blow, he prowls from the room entirely, slamming the door behind him.

I smear my fingers through the come on my chest while my empty reflection stares back at me from the mirror. For three minutes, my thoughts have swung wildly on a pendulum, trying to decide if this is the evidence of his hatred or his possession. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. One is the short road to heartbreak, and the other is the long. The result, inevitably, will always be the same.