I gulped in a breath, my fingers trembling as I moved toward him. “What are you doing?”
“I told you not to use foul language,” he said. “You’re more intelligent than that.”
Desperation left me to chase after him as he carried my favorite pair of shoes down the hall and into the kitchen.
“I didn’t!”
“You called me a bastard in the shower,” he said calmly. “I warned you about speaking that way. Maybe next time you will remember it.”
Horror froze me to the spot as he tossed the shoes into the sink and then unceremoniously dumped bleach all over them.
“Are you crazy?” I bellowed. “Do you have any idea how much those cost?”
He discarded the ruined shoes into the garbage. “What does it matter to you? I’m almost certain you didn’t pay for them.”
Blackness threatened the edges of my vision, and it hurt to breathe. He couldn’t understand. He had no idea what he was doing to me. He wasn’t just taking my possessions, he was taking my pride. “I earned those.”
He laughed in a humorless, condescending way, and I wanted to rip his throat out. “Someday, you will come to understand that material possessions can’t buy you happiness, pet.”
“This is bull—” I stopped short, and he offered me a bemused smile.
“See? You’re learning already.”
Bitterness coated my tongue, and I couldn’t remember feeling this low since I’d left California. There was no intelligent conversation to be had with him. Only the venom that flew from my lips. “I hate you.”
His eyes were an inky melancholy when he stepped closer, brushing a thumb over my cheek. I didn’t want to tremble, but it happened involuntarily.
“Save your words, pet,” he whispered. “I haven’t even given you a reason to hate me yet.”
“WHAT ABOUT MY CLOTHES?”GYPSYobscured her breasts beneath her crossed arms, positioning herself in the middle of the kitchen so I was forced to acknowledge her.
I walked to the fridge and pulled out the milk, setting it beside the cereal on the counter. “You cut them up, I’m afraid.”
“I’m talking about my real clothes,” she argued.
“Would you like some breakfast, or do you prefer to pout through this meal as well?”
She didn’t answer, and when I turned to look at her, it was clear she still wanted to fight. She was having trouble accepting her new reality.
“I want my clothes.”
“Then perhaps you should start cleaning,” I offered. “Maybe after breakfast?”
“I told you I’m not cleaning.”
“Then you better get used to being naked.”
I turned my attention back to breakfast, and she stomped off, but I knew it wasn’t over. It was going to take longer than I anticipated to acclimate her. She was strong willed, and I admired that. But it didn’t mean I was any less eager to break her.
I spent the day working on Emmanuel’s case from my home office while Gypsy spent the day ignoring me. I knew she’d cave eventually, so there was no need to hurry the process along from my end.
She’d been in the kitchen a couple of times already, begrudgingly slamming cupboards in what I assumed was the search for food. The only time our paths had crossed since then had been when I found her in the bedroom huddled in the sheet from the bed.
I presumed that at the present rate, she’d be in there all day, which was why I was surprised to find her standing in the doorway to my office, sheet still wrapped around her like a toga.
“This is ridiculous,” she huffed. “Seriously, what do you expect me to do all day? Lie around and stare at the ceiling?”
I gave her a passing glance before returning my attention to the computer screen in front of me. “I already told you what you were supposed to do.”