45
1023 Words
Aggravated, I lean closer to the phone. “Decline call.”
The screen goes blank. The Pink Panther theme falls silent. Dani and I stare at it for a moment until it starts to ring again.
We look at each other. She shrugs. I sigh heavily and reach for the phone.
Holding it next to my ear, I say, “Hello, Callum.”
Sounding as smug as ever, he says, “Hello, darling. Enjoying dinner?”
I glance around the restaurant, but don’t spot anyone peering out from behind a corner with a telephoto lens. “I’d ask why you’re spying on me, but I already know you’re a freak like that. Thank you for the credit card. I’ve been making good use of it.”
He chuckles. “I know you have.”
“Of course you do.”
“And I’m gratified that you’re not one of those silly girls who’d be offended or refuse to use it on the grounds of your feminism or some such.”
“My brand of feminism is too smart to turn down free stuff. By the way, I borrowed one of your cars.”
“Yes, I got a call from the police chief about that. Apparently, you were speeding on Rodeo Drive.”
“Why am I not surprised you’ve got the police chief spying on me too? And nobody can speed on Rodeo Drive. It’s a short street with a million stop lights.”
“Yet somehow, you managed it.”
I grudgingly admit, “I might’ve been trying to discover its zero-to-sixty speed.”
“You could’ve just asked me.”
“That wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. Why are you calling me?”
“Maybe I miss you.”
Rolling my eyes, I sit back in my chair and shake my head.
His voice darker, Callum says, “Don’t roll your eyes at your husband, darling. That will earn you a spanking.”
I sit bolt upright and look wildly around for some clue of how he’s seeing me, but find nothing out of sorts. Chewing a mouthful of pasta, Dani watches me with interest.
Callum says, “Look up and to the right. See that security camera on the ceiling? No, that’s a speaker. Farther right, over the potted palms.”
I squint at the small black glass orb protruding from the ceiling over the plants in the corner. A red light inside flashes on and off as if it’s signaling hello.
When I remain silent, he prompts, “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I’m too busy patting myself on the back for how well I’m adjusting to being married to a psychopath. I’m not even crying or anything.”
He chuckles again, pleased. “I have mobile access to all the security cameras in the buildings I own.”
“Bypassing how wrong it is that you think it’s kosher to watch someone remotely through a ceiling camera, how did you know I was here?”
“The GPS on the Ferrari.”
“Ah.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I won’t do this all the time.”
“Somehow, I find that extremely hard to believe.”
“I promise I won’t. But when I’m out of town…” He pauses for a moment, then comes back on sounding far more intense. “I need to know you’re safe.”
I sense layer upon layer of hidden meanings in that short sentence, a whole world of secrets I know nothing about. The hairs on my arms prickle.
When he speaks again, his tone has returned to normal. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know that the transfer from the brokerage account has gone through. The trust was fully funded an hour ago. The documents will be waiting on the kitchen table when you get home, along with instructions for accessing the money.”
Slightly dazed by the conversation, I can only think to thank him again.
“You’re welcome. Oh, and Emery?”
“Yes?”
“Be a good girl and don’t snoop in my drawers.”
The line goes dead. I slowly set the phone down and meet Dani’s eager eyes.
She says, “So?”
“I don’t even know where to start. Every time I have a conversation with that man, he turns my brain into mashed potatoes.”
“I can’t wait to hear about it when he turns your v****a into ground beef.”
“That’s not gonna happen, girlfriend.”
“But you want it to, don’t you?”
Shooting a glance at the ceiling camera in the far corner of the room, I say loudly, “No.”
When the camera’s red light blinks on and off again, I can almost hear Callum growling that I’ll be punished for lying.
For the rest of the night, all I can think about is what kind of punishment that might be.
Seventeen
T
rue to his word, the documents Callum said would be waiting for me on the kitchen table are there when I arrive back at the castle.
Referring to it as a house would be insulting to the architect, whoever they were. And I still don’t believe this is actually my home, so I won’t call it that either. So for the time being, it’s “the castle.”
I should look on the internet to find out how Marie Antoinette referred to Versailles and use that.
I spend a while wandering around the place, looking into room after sumptuous room. Arlo is nowhere to be seen, so I climb the big curving staircase to the second floor and poke my head into more rooms until I find a modest guest bedroom that doesn’t look like somewhere King Louis XIV would sleep.
Exhausted, I kick off my shoes, crawl under the covers of the queen-sized bed fully clothed, and fall into a deep sleep.
When I open my eyes in the morning, Arlo is standing bedside, smiling down at me.
“Good morning, madam.”
- Writer
