by Sam Mariano
“Why are we stopping?” she asks, hope creeping into her voice as I put the car in park. We’re at a hotel—why the fuck does she think we’re stopping? But I don’t say that. Because I can tell by her inflection that she’s hoping like hell I’ve been marinating in her words over here, that I’m reliving my own childhood, that I’m feeling guilty. She’s hoping I’ll turn around. She’s hoping I’ll stop and take her back to him with my tail between my fucking legs.
Fuck that.
Isabella isn’t my responsibility. I don’t like the idea that Mia’s planted in my head about her losing a second mother, but I have a hard time picturing Mia mothering her anyway. Not that Mia isn’t maternal—she is. She wanted a baby, and I wouldn’t give her one. I should’ve. None of this ever would’ve happened if I’d have stopped being so goddamn stubborn. If I would’ve been smart and trapped her ass the one way that would’ve worked.
I didn’t want to be that guy though. I didn’t want to be a Morelli.
Oh well. Better late than never, I guess.
Honestly, I can’t believe Mateo hasn’t impregnated her in all this time. It makes me wonder if Mia’s even able to have kids. I was floored when I first found out he’d only had a baby with Meg; I thought maybe that meant he and Mia weren’t together anymore.
No one told me she wore his fucking ring. That pissed me off. It’s a fucking mockery on top of an insult. Mia made it clear she didn’t want to marry me, and a man who’s already engaged can’t get engaged to a second fucking person. He can’t marry them both.
“Where are you going?” she asks, trying to sit up, to look around. I don’t know if she’s just taking in her surroundings, or looking for a person to call out to for help. It pisses me off to think she actually would, but she looks like a caged animal, just waiting for a chance to bite me.
“I’m getting a room,” I tell her. “Sit your ass there and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Too late,” she mutters.
I slam the car door shut, hitting the locks. It’s not like she can go anywhere, but she could still be a pain in my ass. If she called out for help and got someone’s attention, I would be in hot water. It wouldn’t be over. She’d feel worse in the long run, because I’d get out of it, but it sure would be a fucking disaster for anyone she got involved.
I should’ve told her that. Mia’s a lot less likely to fight if she knows I’m not a one-man show over here, that I have muscle behind me, just like the bastard she betrayed me for. She won’t try to save herself at the cost of innocent bystanders. Mia’s not made that way.
I’m already inside now. I can see her out the lobby windows. I just want to get a room and get some sleep so we can get back on the road. I just want to get back home.
The desk attendant can see that I’m impatient. I intentionally picked a little hole in the wall hotel so this would be easy. Once I get the room key, I hustle back out to the car, tense until I see Mia still inside the car.
Good girl.
I love it when she’s easy.
Maybe this won’t be as taxing as I expect it to be.
“We’re going to sleep for a few hours,” I tell her. “Then we’re getting back on the road.”
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“My house.”
I drive over to park in front of the room I booked. I’m glad there’s no one around, that makes it easier. I didn’t pick a common check-in or check-out time, just to lessen those odds, but there are still people inside a few of the rooms. I don’t know if they’d hear her, or if they’d even care if they did, but I want to avoid as many annoyances as possible.
“Listen,” I begin, before I open the car door. “I know you’re desperate to get away from me right now, and you might have stupid fucking ideas flying through your head to try to get away. Let me save us both some time. They won’t work, and if you get anyone else involved, they’re going to get hurt.” Pointing out the window at the minivan parked a few doors down, I say, “See the car seat in there? Someone’s here with their kids. Some nice little family. Maybe you could sneak out, maybe you could scream, maybe you could get their attention, but you know what’s going to happen if you do?”
She doesn’t speak, but I can see the dread in her eyes. I can practically see her remembering how she met me.
“Some other little girl’s gonna lose a parent,” I tell her, simply. “So behave yourself, okay?”
Her blue eyes narrow and she glares at me. “Fuck you, Vince.”
I shrug, like it doesn’t matter to me. “It’s your call. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Just giving you a heads-up.”
She may curse at me, but when I unlock her cuffs, she follows me into the hotel room without making a sound, so it works. I figured it would. Mia would’ve had to change a whole hell of a lot to take me by surprise in this regard. She’s always been easy to threaten. It annoyed me when Mateo was the one exploiting her, but it works to my advantage when I’m the threat. Now Mateo’s gone. Now it’s only me. Now it’ll be an advantage.
Just one of the many things I love about this beautiful pain in my ass.
As long as I can keep from killing her during this adjustment period, we’ll be all set.
I’m feeling a little warm toward her now. I haven’t since she woke up today—she’s been doing nothing but pissing me off, but I’m starting to come down. I’m starting to remember why I’m doing all this, how much I missed her, how many of her bizarre qualities I can’t find in anyone else.
It doesn’t hurt that she’s cute as hell when she’s pissed off.
I close the hotel room door and lock it behind me. Mia is lingering nearby, still pissed at me. She casts a longing glance out the window and her hair falls over her shoulder, drawing my attention as it settles over her breasts. She’s wearing jeans and a thin striped sweater—so thin, I can see the outline of her bra underneath. A little pulse of arousal goes straight to my crotch, and she tempts me to do something impulsive, something I didn’t plan on doing yet. I wanted to give her more time than this, but she’s just standing there pouting and glaring at me, and she’s as harmless as a pissed off kitten. It’s so goddamn adorable.
“Why are you smiling?” she demands, all grumpy and fucking cute.
I smile wider, grabbing her arm and pulling her close. She gasps, caught off-guard. I plant her against the door, trapping her with my arms, and I kiss her. She doesn’t kiss me back, but that doesn’t infuriate me the way it does Mateo. Beth used to do that shit to him, made him sensitive. She withdrew like it was a fucking sport.
Mia responds like it’s a sport. Even now, even half-hating me, even wanting to scratch my face off, she goes soft as I kiss her. She’s so sexual. I doubt she thinks of herself that way, but she is. She’s a little scared right now, and Mia fucking loves to be scared. I smile against her mouth, then bite lightly on her lower lip. A little gasp slips out of her and I bring a hand up to cup her face. I can feel her irregular breaths, feel her struggling. She doesn’t want to give anything back. She doesn’t want to respond. She doesn’t want to cheat, but she will anyway. She’s Mia. She fucking will.
I’m just going to have to lock her up and not let her out. That’s the only way I can trust her. There are dangerous men where we’re going, too—I don’t need to finally get rid of Mateo and win her back over, and then she comes across some new dark asshole with danger in his eyes.
Nope. Mateo has the right idea. Lock her ass up in a pretty cage with presents and keep her away from other men. She’s never leaving my house once I get her there. Not ever.
When I pull back, she swallows, looking at me like I’ve betrayed her. It doesn’t matter and I damn sure don’t care—she’s betrayed me so many times, she deserves it. But she tries anyway.
I walk away, heading for the bathroom, but then I stop and glance back at her. Door’s locked, of course, and I only need to take a piss, but I don’t want her to try anything stupid. I pat my pants pockets, double che
cking I have my keys and my phone.
Lifting an eyebrow, I gesture for her to come over here.
Still faintly glaring at me, she walks over to stand in front of me.
“Sit,” I tell her, pointing to the bed.
She scowls at me, but I’m already walking past her. There’s a standard hotel phone and I don’t want her to get any funny ideas, so I unplug the handset and take the phone with me, cord dangling.
“Are you serious?” she demands. “You’re taking that to the bathroom with you?”
“I can’t do anything about the door, but you’re going to sit your ass right there on the bed. If you’ve moved so much as an inch when I come back out, you’ll wish you hadn’t. I’m only going to be a minute, so you won’t make it far, and believe me when I tell you I meant what I said. You bring anyone else into this, Mia, and you’re gonna be sorry.”
I probably shouldn’t have even drawn her attention to the phone. Now I’m gonna be worried about it all night. I open the cabinet under the sink and chuck the handset inside. Won’t be needing that while we’re here.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Mia’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at it. There’s only one bed. One king bed in the middle of this boxy little room. The walls and ceiling are blinding white, the ground covered with cheap mauve carpeting. The bed is neatly made up and clean-looking. There’s a red bedspread with a generic motel blanket folded up and draped across the foot. Three fluffy white pillows are lined up along the headboard. I can’t wait to get into that bed and close my eyes. I didn’t plan to drive that long, but every time I told myself I could stop, I just wanted to keep going. I thought maybe I could push through and get there. Who cares if I have to sleep for two days once I get there to catch up?
I couldn’t though. My back aches from sitting in the seat for so long already. My legs are stiff. My shoulders are tense from Mia’s shit and watching my rearview mirror for signs of trouble.
“You can go to the bathroom if you need to,” I tell her. “We’re going to bed, so I would.”
“I’m thirsty,” she mutters, pushing off the bed and heading for the bathroom.
Aw, shit, I forgot the cupcakes in the car. I wait for her to close the bathroom door so she won’t notice, then I run out to the car real fast and grab them. At least she brought a snack. I think it’s funny they were for Meg. I wonder how she’d feel if she knew Meg told me where to find her. I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll tell her that. Not until we get home, at least. Just in case Mateo is a step ahead of me and he catches up to me on the road, I don’t want to get Meg in trouble. I like Meg. She’s a beast, but I like her.
And hey, I respect what she did. If I needed to get some asshole out of my way so I could be with Mia, I’d tell a crazy ex where to find him, too.
Now Mateo only has one loyal, attractive, loving woman to fuck instead of two—boo-fucking-hoo.
Mia comes out of the bathroom and frowns at the cupcakes. There’s a little chair and desk beside the bed, so I put the cupcakes down there.
“Breakfast,” I say simply.
She stares at the box for a minute, then tears well up in her eyes again.
Jesus Christ, she’s crying over cupcakes now?
“Can I please have my ring back?” she asks.
Fuck her bullshit ring.
“No,” I answer, coldly. I kick my shoes off by the door. She takes hers off, too, but she leaves them by the bed. She looks sad. I hate making her look sad.
My back still aches, and I’m fucking exhausted. I know I’m going to have to handcuff Mia to my own wrist to go to sleep. There’s nothing on the bed to cuff her to, nothing even next to it that’ll work, and I can’t have her trying to escape while I’m sleeping.
I open my mouth to ask, then I stop. She responds to orders, not requests. Especially from me. I was too fucking nice to her. Mia doesn’t respect nice.
“Get on the bed,” I say coolly.
I watch her swallow, her cautious gaze moving from me to the bed. Mia used to look at me with trust in her eyes a long time ago. I fucking miss that. Now it’s all mistrust and caution. Now where I once saw trust and acceptance, I see dread and fear—not just traces, but healthy doses. It fucking sucks. Maybe Mateo gets off on that, but I don’t like it one bit. I can guess what’s going through her mind as she shuffles closer to the bed. She doesn’t want to obey me, but she does anyway. Of course she does. I could probably fuck her right now if I wanted to.
I don’t though. I’m tired and sick of her shit; I just want to sleep. I lie face-down on the bed and tell her, “Rub my back.”
She scowls at me like she can’t believe I even imagine she’d do that. “Give me my ring,” she shoots back.
I glance back at her. “I’ll consider giving your ring back eventually, unless you piss me off. Then I’m going to flush it down a fucking toilet.”
Her scowl drifts to an outright glare, but she climbs up on her knees and starts half-heartedly rubbing my back.
“Nope, do better,” I tell her.
Sighing like I’m the most exasperating person in the whole world, she moves, straddling my lower back, and starts really working my muscles.
That’s better.
“You’re being an asshole,” she informs me, using her palm to knead.
“You like assholes,” I remind her.
“I don’t like you as an asshole.”
“Don’t care,” I tell her.
Since her little burst of aggression isn’t getting her where she wants to go, she switches tacks. Still kneading my back, her voice softens. There’s almost tenderness in her touch, like she’s trying to remind me of a time when I was nice to her. Thing is, I remember when I was nice to her perfectly; she wasn’t nice to me.
Her gentle hands work my shoulders, then move down my back. “We can still turn around and go back, you know. I can get us out of this right now. It’s not too late yet, Vince. I can fix this if you take me home now. I promise.”
“Mia, stop trying to convince me to go back. It is too late, we both know that. You’re never going to convince me. Maybe you remember fucking manipulating me when we were together before, but that’s not how it’s going to be this time.”
Her hands abruptly stop working my back. “We are not together,” she states.
I shrug, twisting so she knows she can climb off me now. I snatch the handcuffs off the desk and sit up, grabbing her wrist and closing one around it.
“What are you doing?” she demands, watching with dismay as I close the other one around my wrist.
“Making sure you don’t do anything stupid,” I tell her. “I need to get some sleep so I can drive the rest of the way when I wake up. Just close your eyes and try to get some rest. It’s going to be a long-ass day.”
She stares at me like her anger can move me, but it doesn’t. Finally she scoots down and settles into the spot beside me, her arm shackled to mine at our sides.
“You’ve changed,” she finally says, quietly, like I’ve disappointed her.
“No shit,” I shoot back.
“I don’t like it,” she tells me.
“I don’t care.”
Chapter Eight
Mia
I can’t sleep. Vince has no problem falling asleep, but I remain shackled to his side, thinking and crying and getting not a single wink of sleep.
I’m so used to sleeping beside Mateo, I also constantly think I’m going to wake him up. Mateo wakes up if you breathe too hard in his direction; Vince does not.
I have an idea, but it makes my stomach hurt to imagine trying. The way he has our arms locked together at the wrist, I don’t think I can move without waking him up, but I can see the keys on the desk beside the bed. I’d have to literally climb over him without moving his wrist, without waking him up, to get the keys. If I could get the handcuff off me, then grab his car keys and slip out, I could drive off and leave him here. I could call for help. I could call Mateo.
&n
bsp; And I fucking will. I don’t want Vince to die, but I’m not about to let him take me off to God knows where to keep him alive, either. He should’ve known better than this. This was incredibly stupid. He had to know he couldn’t just grab me right out from under Mateo’s nose and whisk me away. It’s going to be hard enough to manage Mateo’s temper after I tell him Vince kissed me, but I need to get home before he’s able to do more than that.
It takes a long time to convince myself to do it. I’m certain I’m going to get caught. I’m not gutsy enough for this. I wish he would’ve kidnapped Meg instead—she would’ve already retrieved the key, let herself out, and driven away—with the cupcakes.
I’ve gotta get it together.
It takes forever to get up on my knees. I’m trying so hard not to move the bed, cringing every time it so much as creaks.
I miss Mateo.
Not evil Mateo, the one I’m likely to encounter next, but Bahamas Mateo. I wish we were back at that hotel. I wish more than anything he was the man lying in this bed beside me.
Maybe I can get the keys, escape with Vince’s car, and not have to deal with this. That seems unlikely. Even if I get away now, Mateo’s going to demand to know what happened. I’ll have to tell him, because if Vince came back after four years, that means he might come back again.
I can’t believe him.
Mateo let him out. He was free. I can’t believe he did this shit.
He’s still asleep and I’m balancing on my knees, so now all I have to do is reach over his body and grab the key. Of course he couldn’t leave it right on the edge, where I could easily accomplish this. Of course I have to try to keep my handcuffed wrist still and stretch across the bed until I’m ready to tip over.
My finger touches the cool metal key and relief moves through me. Holy shit. I’m almost there. I’ve almost got it. I use my finger to pull it closer. I have it! I have the key.
