Page 95 of Xander

He sighed as if I were acting like a petulant child. “This is temporary. Less than twenty-four hours.”

I scoffed.

How many times had Henry said something similar?

“This is temporary. As soon as this renovation is done, you’ll be a free agent to go wherever you want at a moment’s notice.”

But one renovation would always turn into three more.

“I really need you to stick around the premises and oversee this last project. You can manage that much, can’t you, darling?”

But the moment never came when I became a free agent. There was always something else to oversee.

Xander reached for me, but I slapped away his hand.

“Get. Out. And leave me to my prison. I don’t want to see you.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “I know you hate me right now,” he said, his voice thick. “But I swear, Jordan. I’ll make it up to you.”

My heart ached at his words, and I looked away from him.

“Jordan,” he paused before saying, “I love you.”

I wanted to cover my ears and sing at the top of my lungs to drown him out. “Don’t ever talk to me about love again,” I spat out.

His face fell, resembling a wounded animal. He acted as if he had no idea why I would react this way to my solitary confinement.

“Look, baby.” He appeared to use extreme control to be patient. “This isn’t about locking you up. It’s about Henry⁠—”

Nausea swirled in my stomach as I turned away from him. “Don’t bring him into this because you're worse than him,” I spat. “Despite all of his flaws, Henry never locked me in the bedroom like a caged animal and then left town.”

Despite my determination not to let him see my tears, I threw my head on the pillow and openly sobbed against it. Xander had broken my heart in the cruelest way possible.

“I’m nothing like him, Jordan," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I love you. More than anything in this world. This room is safe. It has security cameras so I can keep an eye on you. If I let you out of this room while I’m not here, I don’t know what you might do⁠—”

“I don’t need to be monitored.” My heart pounded with desperation and panic. “How could you suggest that?”

“Jordan, you’ve hurt yourself before.”

“I’m not crazy,” I screamed before grabbing the lamp by the nightstand and chucking it at him, which probably disproved my point.

Xander dodged the attack by ducking, and the lamp crashed against the wall behind him. Frustration flared in his eyes, and he was on top of me on the bed. I held up two hands to shield my face from him, thinking he was going to hurt me, except he coddled me, patting my hair to calm me down.

For some wild reason, I let him do it. I was so shocked by the gentle touch, when I had expected anything but, I didn’t have it in me to bat away his hand. No one had lovingly petted my hair in years. The loneliness in me unwillingly leaned into the touch.

It was so twisted.

I was letting my predator comfort me.

He let me sob against him, eventually leaving me to clean up the broken lamp. After he was done, I felt him watching me for several moments.

Xander finally broke the tense silence. I thought he’d say something comforting, but he floored me by saying, “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, baby. I’m letting you keep your phone to show you that I trust you. But if you do something stupid like calling the police, that privilege will be taken away. Everyone on my payroll has been made aware of your history, and if the police came here, they’d been instructed to hand over those documents. The police will then personally drop you off at an institution or request I get a nurse to keep you sedated.”

I stared at him like I had no idea who he was anymore, feeling utterly broken and betrayed. This was the same threat Henry had used to keep me on a tight leash for years. Of all people, Xander knew of the psychological damage his father could inflict upon a person.

I never thought he’d use the same leverage against me, and with that, he had completely shattered my heart.

“One day, you’ll see that everything I’m doing is for us,” he told me.