Beautifully Cruel

Chapter 19

JENNIE

I stare in disbelief at his handsome, serious face. "You...you're not saying...you're not telling me you think you're going to keep me here."

"Aye. That's exactly what I'm telling you."

I try to pull away from him, to jerk out of his arms, but he's too strong. He simply tightens his arms around me.

"Taehyung! No!"

"Yes, my beautiful queen bee. You're all mine for the next month, whether you like it or not."

"You can't keep me here against my will. That's kidnapping!"

"Kidnapping is the least of my sins. And I can keep you here with your agreement or without it. There's no one who can stop me."

Watching me closely with his dark eyes, he lets that last part sink in.

I resist the urge to poke my fingers into his eyeballs and glare at him instead. "I want you to take me back to my apartment now."

"No."

My heart is a racehorse galloping inside my chest. "Taehyung. I'm not kidding."

He traces the rise of my cheekbone with his thumb and says gently, "I know, lass. But it's not up to you."

Desperate to get through to him, I try a different tactic. Maybe logic will work. "I don't have any of my things here."

"What makes you think they're not here?"

From one second to the next, it becomes impossible to breathe.

Seeing the expression of horror on my face, Taehyung says calmly, "Two things you should know about me: one, I always get what I want. And two, I always plan ten steps ahead to get it."

My mind is the vortex of a tornado, with shrieking winds and flying debris, spinning wildly out of control.

Teetering on the edge of hysteria, I whisper, "Let me go. Let me go right now."

"Of course."

He opens his arms and puts his hands behind his head, propping it up to gaze at me as I scramble off him and back away from the bed.

I look wildly around the room for something to cover myself with. I can't run out into the street naked.

"Closet." Taehyung casually points toward a closed door on the other side of the room.

I whirl and run to it, bursting inside an enormous walk-in closet. The automatic lights flicker on, but I wish they hadn't.

Because my clothes—all of them—are hanging in rows on one side of the huge room, along with all my shoes arranged neatly on the floor beneath.

On the other side of the room hangs row after row of identical black suits and white dress shirts.

When I scream in frustration, I hear a low chuckle from the bedroom.

I stand in the middle of the closet nude and shaking, incandescent with fury.

That bastard is laughing at me.

Laughing.

I go the row of my shoes, pick up a pair, and stride out of the closet and into the bedroom. Taehyung is still lying on the bed where I left him, naked and serene.

I chuck a shoe across the room at him.

It flies through the air, landing with an impotent thud on the carpet three feet away from the foot of the bed.