#EXPOSED

CHAPTER - 27

Cruelty is a lot like charity. 

Aagnay

2020

As I rounded the back of my car, our gazes met over the roof of the vehicle and I read the emotions in her pupils, loud and clear—hate. She had no idea how hard it was for me to show as much restraint as I was managing. I could feel the blood throbbing in my temple when my strides quickened to near her.

"What are you doing here?"

I wanted to leash her, choke her—dominate her. I wanted her at my mercy, pinned down helplessly while I nailed her. She was a tigress, wild and uncontrollable. I loved her wilderness but she was loose cannon and I had to find a way out, fast. "I'm assuming you are being well taken care of."

Her hands were slender and delicate when she clasped them and heaved a breath. "Courtesy of your bastard of a father," she hissed under her breath when she glanced at the bungalow. "Very."

I could feel my temptation spurring me further. I needed her under me, hard, fast and furious. "Good," I murmured as I held her waist. "I don't want you to be feeling pressured into this."

She backed away from me as though I'd burned her. "You want me to believe that you have best interests at your heart for me?" She jutted her sharp chin and looked away. "It's a little late for that."

I couldn't catch my breath because she was subduing the air around me. I needed her to submit but before that, I had to iron out the details. "I don't see how any of this is so bad for you." I stepped on the gravel grounds and tugged my jacket, wishing I could set my thoughts or life just as easily. She was a handful. "There's staff assigned to meet your needs. You have access to my credit cards—" She stared at me. I turned my head to face her and my breath escaped me in an agonizing rush. "Look, I know it's a rough transition but it's what's best for you."

"You mean for you," she bit out as she paced to the bungalow and I followed after her. "How could you act like you didn't ruin my whole life? How dare you put me through hell and show up later with your riches as you own me?"

The situation made me mad. I had barely visited and it couldn't end soon enough for me. "Look, I can't change the past—"

"Because it's not yours to change."

The look on her face ignited a soul-deep agony inside me. It ached me to witness her aversion towards me. "Why can't you forget the past and move on?"

"Because it was me who was put through the ringer. I didn't sign up for this when I sought your company, Aagnay. You—" She bowed her head into her hands and sighed. "I don't want you visiting me. I'm doing everything your father wants me to and that's as far as it will get."

"We have been managing the last few months just fine," I told her evenly and we stepped into the foyer. I felt cornered between her reality and mine, almost dizzy.

"I have been managing," she retorted venomously and I shoved my hands in the pockets of my dress pants. "You have been out and about with your life and what am I left with? This place that you call some fairy tale castle to cage me; to keep me away from the world so I can be the doll you can play with—ruin me whenever you want, is that all? To be a puppet at your mercy?"

The mention of her past and mine had me rounding her. "Just to be clear, do you want pity? Damn it, is that all you want? Guilt?"

"I want you dead, plain and simple." Her words ripped through me, reached me, and seared through me. "Since this property is supposed to be in my possession, I want you to get the hell out of here now."