Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Marksen said something to them in French and their attention went right back to him, smiling and preening and touching his arm with their tacky, fake red nails like I wasn’t right there wearing his shirt. I knew I was his hostage, but I assumed they didn’t know that.
It was rude, and I took offense at their assumption that I wasn’t with him, and he could be taken. I wasn’t at all jealous. The hot, possessive feeling in my veins and my twisting gut was offense, not jealousy.
Marksen told me these women were brought in to get me ready for a special event.
He then explained that they didn’t speak a word of English, and that he’d told them I was his crazy sister and not to believe a word I said. So they couldn’t help me even if they wanted to. The way they looked at Marksen, I doubted they had any interest in me at all.
They were hired to do whatever Marksen said, to make me up for whatever it was that he had planned for the night. Hair, makeup, dressed and styled like the woman I was when I wasn’t an abductee. The women didn’t say a word to me the entire time they were there. There were no half-hearted attempts to mime something or to speak to me in any language. They talked to each other in rapid-fire French.
Of course, Marksen spoke it fluently, but my skills were lacking after only a year of high school French.
I may not have understood the words they were saying, but I did understand the way the women angled their bodies toward him and bent low to give him a peek at their cleavage or leaned over way too far in a way that was practically presenting him with their asses like stray cats in heat.
They were pathetic and obvious, but to Marksen’s credit, he didn’t even seem to notice. He joined me in the bathroom when he sent me to shower, then stayed with me in the main room the entire time the women were there.
And every time I looked at him, his eyes were focused on my reflection in the mirror.
I refused to blush under the attention.
This wasn’t a fairy tale, and I refused to be the beauty with Stockholm syndrome.
His focused attention did earn me a few glares from the women. One even burned me with a curling iron. Then said something to Marksen. I assumed she was making her apologies to him for burning me or explaining it was some kind of accident. How she could have accidentally pressed the hot iron to my neck instead of the hair that was mostly finished in the updo was beyond my understanding. But really, at that point, what was one more mark. Fortunately it wasn’t really noticeable.
The women continued to speak just to each other and Marksen, then plucked and prodded me until they produced the result he wanted. When he was satisfied with how I looked, he kissed each woman on the cheek, and a spike of white-hot jealousy shot through me.
I assumed he was dressing me for another depraved photoshoot until he disappeared into the bedroom and came out a few minutes later looking devilishly handsome.
He stood beside me dressed in a black Ralph Lauren tuxedo that would have been perfectly appropriate for my brother’s wedding. Instead of the classic red rose in his lapel, he wore a white rose, its edges dipped in gold paint and adorned with what looked like leaves from an olive tree. Clearly, the theme for the night was Ancient Greece, and something about that made me think I should have known what was happening.
His appearance in the tux did tell me a few things that I knew for certain.
First and most importantly, this wasn’t just another photoshoot.
If it were, he wouldn’t have gotten dressed up himself. He had also planned everything down to the last detail, including how I was to behave and what would happen if I didn’t.
“Tell me, princess, what are your rules for the evening?” he asked, looking at me in the mirror.
I hated seeing us together like this.
It almost looked normal, like we were an actual couple getting ready for some charity event. That could have been us if our family hadn’t had so much bad blood in the last year.
I really did have feelings for Marksen when we were younger. I would have been overjoyed if we had run into each other at my brother’s wedding or any number of events we may have both attended and, instead of kidnapping me, he had just asked me for a dance, or even better, a date.
I would have said yes so fucking fast. I would have gladly been his “good girl” or his “princess,” and I would have loved every minute of it.