Naomi
My eyes fluttered open, and for a second, I didn't know where I was. The ceiling was wrong. It wasn't the blue of my room, that soft, calming colour that had become my prison. It was grey. Dark, masculine grey. And then it all came rushing back.
The boutique. The stage. The lingerie. The pink lace. His gentle touch that had made me moan, his soft caresses that had felt so real, so safe, before he had flipped a switch and turned into a monster. The pain. The bruises. The way he had ripped that innocent pink fabric off my body like it meant nothing. The couch. The hour of hell.
I squeezed my eyes shut, a fresh wave of nausea rolling through me. I didn't want to remember. I wanted to forget. I wanted to scrub the entire day from my brain and pretend it never happened.
But I couldn't.
I remembered passing out in the car. I remembered the way my body had just given up, the exhaustion and the pain and the emotional devastation finally becoming too much, and the world going fuzzy and dark as I lay against his chest. I remembered snippets after that, fragments of consciousness that floated in and out like broken pieces of a dream.
Being carried upstairs, his arms strong and sure beneath me, my head flopping against his shoulder. The familiar hallway of the mansion passing by in a blur. The feeling of being laid down on something soft, probably a bed. And then, just for a second, I had opened my eyes and seen him. He was emerging from the bathroom, a towel wrapped low around his waist, water droplets still clinging to his skin, those stupid tattoos on full display. And then everything had gone dark again, a heavy, suffocating blackness that had swallowed me whole.
Now I was here. In his room. Again.
I turned my head slowly, carefully, like any sudden movement might shatter me, and looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 10:30 AM. I had slept for almost twenty hours. Twenty hours of oblivion, of nothingness, of blessed, ignorant unconsciousness. And now I was awake, and the reality was waiting for me, patient and cruel.
I pulled the blanket down slightly, just enough to look at myself. I was wearing black satin pajamas, a shorts and shirt set that felt smooth and cool against my skin. Someone had changed me. Someone had cleaned me up, washed away the sweat and the tears and the other things, the evidence of what he had done to me on that velvet couch. The pajamas were probably expensive, probably chosen by him or one of the maids who wasn't allowed to look me in the eye.
But the bruises were still there.
They dotted my skin like a horrible constellation, dark purple and blue marks that mapped the journey of his cruelty. On my wrists, where he had pinned my arms above my head. On my hips, where his grip had bruised the flesh. On my breasts, where he had squeezed and pinched and mauled. And on my neck, where he had sucked and bitten, leaving marks that would be visible no matter what I wore.
I let the blanket fall back over me, a fresh wave of tears pricking at my eyes. I couldn't believe him. I couldn't believe his cruelty. It wasn't just the violence, though that was bad enough. It was the deceit. The sick, twisted game he had played.
He had touched me gently. He had caressed my back and my hips, his fingers soft and warm against my skin. He had made me feel things, had drawn a moan from my lips, had made my body respond to him like it wanted to, like it was choosing to.
And then, the moment I had let my guard down, the moment I had started to think that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't entirely a monster, he had flipped the switch. He had grabbed me and bruised me and hurt me, turning that gentle touch into a weapon, using my own traitorous response against me.
That was the worst part. Not the pain, not the humiliation of modelling those lingeries, not even the hour on that couch. It was the deceit. The way he had made me moan, had made my body feel something other than terror, only to use it as a justification to hurt me more. It was like he was proving a point, showing me that even my own body wasn't safe from him, that even my pleasure could be twisted into pain.
I was so stupid. So freaking stupid for falling for it, even for a second. I should have known. I should have known that anything gentle coming from Xavier Thorne was a trap, a lure designed to make me drop my defences so he could strike harder.
A sob escaped my lips, a broken, pathetic sound in the quiet, grey room. I pulled the blanket up to my chin, curling into a tight ball, and let the tears come. I cried for the bruises on my body. I cried for the innocence he had stolen. I cried for the moan that had escaped my lips, the one that had felt so good in the moment but now felt like the ultimate betrayal, a scar on my soul that would never fully heal.
And I cried because I knew, with a deep, aching certainty, that this was only the beginning. He had said it himself. The real training starts now. And if yesterday was just a taste of what he was capable of, the cruelty
and the deceit and the pain, then I didn't know how I was going to survive what came next.
**
A few minutes later, the silence of the room was broken by a soft knock on the door. It wasn't the sharp sound of Xavier's presence, but something gentler, more hesitant. The door opened a crack, and a maid's face appeared in the gap. She was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with dark hair pulled back in a severe bun and eyes that were carefully fixed on the floor.
"Mrs Naomi," she said, her voice quiet and deferential. "Master Xavier requests your presence in the dining hall."
She didn't enter the room, didn't step across the threshold. She simply delivered the message and retreated, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving Naomi alone with the weight of the summons.
A choked-up cry escaped Naomi's lips, a sound of pure despair that was swallowed by the oppressive silence of the room. She was going to have to stand up. She was going to have to move, to walk, to descend the grand staircase and present herself in the dining hall like a normal person having a normal breakfast. With the pain she was in. With the bruises covering her body. With the memory of yesterday's horrors still fresh and raw in her mind.
The thought of it made her want to scream.
But she knew she had no choice. She had learned that lesson too well, carved into her skin in bruises and bites and cruel words. Disobedience led to consequences, and consequences meant more pain, more humiliation, more of the hell she was already drowning in. So she had to get up. She had to move. She had to play the part of the obedient wife, no matter how much it hurt.
She sat up slowly, carefully, her movements measured and deliberate. The blanket pooled around her waist, and she gasped, a sharp, involuntary yelp of pain as her muscles protested the movement. Every part of her body ached, a deep, throbbing soreness that seemed to seep into her very bones. Her wrists were stiff and tender, the bruises there a dark, angry purple. Her hips screamed when she shifted her weight, and her chest felt tight and sore, the marks on her breasts a constant, burning reminder of his hands.
And then she saw it.
On this side of the bed, the side she hadn't noticed before because she had been too consumed by her own misery, was a small pile of clothes. A yellow sundress, the fabric soft and flowing, a stark contrast to the dark, menacing grey of the room. Beneath it was a matching set of bra and panties, simple and unadorned, and a pair of flat sandals.
Someone had laid them out for her. Someone had planned this, had anticipated that she would wake up broken and hurting and would need clothes to wear to her own public humiliation. The thought made her stomach turn, but she pushed the nausea aside. There was no time for that. He was waiting.
She stood up, and the world tilted for a second, a wave of dizziness that made her grip the edge of the nightstand for support. Her legs trembled, weak and unsteady from hours of unconsciousness and the abuse they had endured.
She stripped of her pajamas and reached for the bra first, her fingers fumbling with the clasp, wincing as the movement pulled at the sore muscles in her back. The fabric settled against her bruised breasts, a soft, gentle pressure that was still almost too much to bear.
The panties followed, and then the sundress. It was a pretty thing, all sunshine and innocence, with thin straps and a skirt that fell to just above her knees. It was the kind of dress a girl would wear on a picnic, on a sunny day in the park, not the kind of dress a woman would wear to breakfast with the man who had brutalised her the day before. She slipped it over her head, the fabric whispering down her body, and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the far side of the room.
She looked awful. Her face was pale and drawn, the shadows under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. Her hair was a tangled mess, and the neckline of the sundress didn't quite hide the marks on her neck, the dark purple marks peeking out above the yellow fabric like accusations. She looked away, unable to bear the sight of herself.
The sandals were easier. She slipped her feet into them, the flat soles a mercy after the torture of the heels she had worn yesterday. And then she was ready, as ready as she was ever going to be.
She padded her way to the door, each step sending a fresh wave of pain through her body. Her hips ached with every movement, her thighs rubbing together in a way that made her wince. And then there was the limp.
It was noticeable, very noticeable, a hitch in her stride that she couldn't hide no matter how hard she tried. Her left leg, specifically the thigh and hip on that side, seemed to bear the brunt of the damage, and every time she put weight on it, a sharp, shooting pain would lance up her side, forcing her to compensate with an awkward, lopsided walk.
She made her way down the hallway, one hand trailing along the wall for support. The stairs were a nightmare. She had to grip the banister with both hands, descending each step like it was a mountain, her face contorted in a grimace of pain that she couldn't quite mask. By the time she reached the bottom, she was breathing hard, her forehead damp with sweat, her body screaming at her to stop, to turn around, to go back to bed and hide.
But she didn't. She couldn't.
She found Xavier in the dining room, seated at the head of the long, imposing table. He was already eating, his movements precise and unhurried, a picture of calm control. A spread of food lay before him, an extravagant feast that seemed to appear every morning, though she had no appetite for any of it.
He looked up as she entered. His eyes swept over her, taking in the yellow sundress, the limp, the way she was leaning slightly to one side to take pressure off her injured hip. His expression didn't change, didn't soften with concern or harden with anger.
He simply smirked, a slight, almost imperceptible curve of his lips that was somehow worse than any glare. It was a smirk of satisfaction, of ownership, of a man who looked at the bruises he had inflicted and saw a job well done.