Chapter 8
1581 Words
Grayson stood ten feet away, from leafy branches of the willow tree. His hands were tucked casually into his pockets, his posture relaxed, but there was nothing relaxed about his face.
His eyes were completely dead. No anger—just a cold, bottomless void that made the hair on my arms stand straight up.
He had heard everything.
"Belle," John’s voice crackled through the phone speaker.
"Belle, are you there? Talk to me. Who is back there with you?"
Before I could force a single word out of my throat, Grayson moved.
He took three long, strides across the grass, closing the distance between us. Before my brain could even register the threat, his hand reached out. His fingers brushed against mine, and with a swift, effortless jerk, the phone was ripped from my grasp.
"Hey!" I gasped, the shock finally breaking my paralysis. I lunged forward, reaching for it.
"Give it back! Grayson, give it to me!"
Grayson didn't even look at me. He raised the phone to his ear.
"Hello," Grayson said, his voice a low, smooth baritone that held a terrifyingly calm edge.
The line went completely silent on the other end. I could practically hear ’s breath hitching through the speaker from three feet away.
"I am going to say this exactly once," Grayson continued, his eyes finally flicking down to lock onto mine. He stared at me with an unblinking, intensity that made my stomach do a flip.
"Belle is no longer a resident of London. She has returned to her family. If you call this number again, or if you attempt to contact her through any other medium, I will personally ensure that you lose everything by Monday morning. Do you understand me, John?"
"You psycho!" I screamed, throwing my weight against his chest, trying to knock the phone out of his hand. "Don't you dare threaten him! He didn't do anything!"
Grayson didn't even budge. It was like running full-force into a brick wall. He kept his arm raised, completely out of my reach, his chest absorbing my pushes without a single tremble.
"Hey?" John’s voice boomed through the speaker, with a defensive anger. "Listen to me, you son of a b***h, you can't—"
Grayson didn't let him finish. He brought the phone down, tapped the screen to terminate the call, and immediately held the power button down until the screen went completely black.
"You bastard!" I yelled, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. I slammed my fists against his chest. "That is my private property! You have no right to do that! You have no goddamn right to treat me like this!"
Grayson let me hit him. He stood there, completely still, letting my angry, useless blows land against the hard planes of his chest.
He waited until my breath caught in a sob, my strength draining away as the sheer hopelessness of my situation crushed me. When my hands finally dropped to my sides, trembling and weak, he finally moved.
He reached out, his long, warm fingers wrapping around my wrists. With a gentle but entirely unyielding pressure, he pinned my hands against his chest, right over his heart. I could feel the steady, heavy, rhythmic thud beneath his shirt. It was terrifyingly calm.
"Are you done?" he asked softly.
"I hate you," I whispered, my voice cracking as a tear slid down my cheek. "I swear to God, Grayson, I hate you so much."
A faint, dark smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, but his eyes remained dead serious. "I don't care if you hate me, Belle. As long as you are here."
He released my wrists, but before I could take a step back to escape him, he raised his hand and opened his palm. He looked down at it, his thumb slowly tracing the cracked edge of my phone case.
"How long?" I whispered, a sudden, horrifying thought striking my brain.
Grayson looked back up, his eyebrows raising a fraction. "How long what?"
"How long have you been watching me?" I demanded, my chest heaving. "In London. You knew his name. You’ve been spying on me, hasn't you? The entire years I was away?"
Grayson didn't even have the decency to look guilty. He tilted his head, a single lock of his damp black hair falling across his forehead, making him look dangerously rugged.
"Did you really think I would just let you walk away, Belle?" he asked, his voice dropping.
"Did you really think I’d let my sweet, naive little girl live in a filthy city across an ocean without my eyes on her."
"You're a monster," I breathed, taking a panicked step back.
I had spent two years celebrating my freedom, thinking I had finally broken away from him. But the entire time, he had been there. In the background. Watching. Waiting for the perfect moment to snap the trap me.
"I am a man who protects what belongs to him," Grayson corrected. He took a step forward, completely erasing the distance I had just made. He raised my phone, and with a careless flick of his wrist, he dropped it onto the stone path beneath the willow tree.
Crack.
Before I could even gasp, he brought down his shoe flat onto the screen.
The sound of the glass shattering and the plastic crunching echoed loudly. He ground his shoe into it, completely destroying the device until it was nothing but a pile of useless electronic scrap and jagged glass.
"No!" I cried, dropping to my knees on the grass, staring at the ruined remnants of my old life. My photos, my messages, my contacts—my only connection to the normal, safe world I had built in London—completely obliterated in a single second. "Why did you do that?! You psycho!"
Grayson bent down. He didn't touch the broken phone. Instead, his hands wrapped around my upper arms, and with a single, effortless pull, he hoisted me back onto my feet. He didn't let go. He pushed me backward until my spine hit the rough, sturdy bark of the willow tree's trunk.
He stepped directly into my space, his body completely crowding mine. The friction of his thighs against my jeans, the heat of his chest pressing against my body—it was completely overwhelming. I could smell his scent. My heart was pounding so hard against my chest I was terrified he could feel it.
"Listen to me very carefully, Belle," Grayson growled, his face mere inches from mine. His eyes were burning with a jealousy. "London is over. If I ever hear you speaking to another man like that again, or if I ever catch you trying to find a way out of this estate, I won't just ruin him. I will dismantle his entire life piece by piece. Do you understand me?"
I stared up at him, my lips trembling. I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to scream a thousand curse words at him. But looking into his eyes, I knew he wasn't bluffing. He was entirely capable of destroying innocent people just to keep me isolated. To keep me dependent on him.
"Yes," I choked out, a fresh wave of tears blurring my vision. "I understand. Just don't hurt him. Please."
"Good girl," he murmured.
He leaned in closer. His lips didn't touch mine, but they brushed against my wet cheek, slowly trailing down the line of my jaw until his breath fanned against the skin right beneath my ear. I sucked in a sharp breath, my entire body stiffening. I hated him for trapping me, I hated him for breaking my phone, but God help me, the sudden, intense friction of his body pressed against mine was doing something to my senses.
Grayson inhaled deeply against my neck, as if he were memorizing my scent, before he slowly pulled back. The sudden absence of his body heat left me feeling cold and strangely exposed against the tree trunk.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brand new, phone. He set it down on the stone bench beside us.
"You’ll use this phone for now," Grayson stated.
"It is fully encrypted. It has my direct line, and the office directory. No social media. No international capabilities. Your digital footprint belongs to Jones Holdings now."
He turned on his heel, walking out from under the willow branches and back toward the house. He paused after a few steps, looking back over his shoulder at me.
"We leave for a private dinner with the board of directors in two hours," he ordered calmly. "Go inside, take a bath, and change. There is a dress waiting for you on your bed. Do not be late, Belle."
I stood against the tree trunk, watching his figure disappear across the lawn.
When he was completely out of sight, I finally let out a trembling breath. I walked over to the bench, my legs shaking, and picked up the phone. I looked down at the shattered heap of my old phone on the ground.
I was fully behind bars now. I had to play his game. I had to submit, keep my chin up, and wait for a loophole.
But as I touched my burning cheek where his lips had just brushed, a terrifying thought entered my mind.
I wasn't just afraid of Grayson. I was afraid of how much a part of me wanted to let him.
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