Reckoning
She felt the quietness of sleep slip away from her far too early in the morning.
Steven is up, she could hear him in the dressing room. She looks at the glass roof above their bed; it was continuous with the three glass walls of their bedroom. Currently the greenhouse roof was closed by the outer shutters to block out the morning sun, she presses one of the buttons on her headboard and her half of the shutters fold open. She closes her eyes as the sunlight streams in through the glass roof and warms something in her that had felt cold since yesterday.
She prays it gives her answers to the million questions in her mind.
She remembers Steven's face when he ordered Noah shot. Remembers herself begging for his life and then giving in just moments after, overtaken with heat and pleasure, his mouth on her. Her coming for him, coming for him again and again. The shameful pleasure of it all.
She opens her eyes and turns from the vision. The left side balcony looks out onto the garden; the pool is a sparkling blue, set in white stone and over its infinity edge: the golf course views covet their lush green. It looks peaceful and as idyllic as it had when she left yesterday afternoon but everything had changed, she'd glimpsed a shade of the darkness that had been hidden in the perfection and it felt too late to close her eyes now.
She feels the sheets against her naked skin and tries not to think about it. This is the first time she's woken up naked in a man's bed.
She feels a dip on the bed behind her, she doesn't turn. Steven must know she's awake; opening the skylight always gives her away. He's quiet for a moment and then she feels his lips on her shoulder.
"Good morning to my darling."
His hands caress her waist and hips reveling in his ownership of her. Ownership she'd unwittingly confessed in desperation last night.
"I have to go and sort out some things at the office and then I'll sit in on a meeting, I should be done by 12. Would you have lunch with me in the City?"
She closes her eyes and prays for patience. Lunch, really?
She shakes her head without turning.
"Baby-- please, look at me."
He's already using his strength to turn her around. Pleas be damned.
He has the nerve to look handsome, freshly shaved and barefaced. She tries not to love him and it just feels exhausting and futile.
He eyes her with discomforting focus, as always, and leans forward to kiss her forehead.
"Okay, no lunch. Breakfast then? Please, my love."
She regrets his fixation on sharing meals with her. She hates how the morning sun bathes him in light and brightens his puppy eyes, weakening her resolve to hate him.
"Fine, but only if I have time for a shower."
He kisses her again, this time on her lips.
"You look beautiful just as you are baby, today more especially, but as you wish."
She had to kick him out of the bathroom; he protesting vehemently against the need for privacy anymore. It makes her breathe a sigh of relief that he'd woken up first, otherwise there'd be no way he'd let her shower alone, not after last night. She should have stopped him, should've fought harder but she let herself succumb to pleasure and now--
She leans her face into the rainfall of heated water and tries to wash away the memories.
The look on her face is a mixture of fascination and horror as she examines Steven's handiwork. Her body is covered in a constellation of hickeys from her neck to her thighs.
She chooses to dress in a navy slightly sheer matching lounge wear set, high necked and long to hide the bruises even though she knows she couldn't stand to go out today.
She pulls on the set and sighs at her reflection, it still looks way too expensive to justify calling it casual.
She remembers almost having a heart attack after Googling the Gucci set and seeing the $10 000 price tag, and to think she'd gotten more than ten boxes of the brand delivered to her that day; courtesy of her then boyfriend.
She'd tried to protest and have them returned but Steve made it clear no such thing would happen and had basically forbidden her to contradict him and his choice of gifts ever again.
That had been the angriest she'd ever seen him except yesterday (and hadn't that ended in fireworks).
And today she feels like she's covered in tense glass and at any moment it could shatter and activate a deadly chain reaction. A deadly chain reaction she'd barely managed to contain the previous day.
She twists her kinky hair into two flat braids to keep it out of her face.
He's seated at the table when she comes dowstairs, reading the paper; one of his quirks.
He puts it down when she sits on the adjacent side of the table. A delicious looking spread is layed out yet she doubts she can any of it down.
Cheryl, their Housekeeper, gives her a polite greeting and smile as she put the orange juice on the table and excuses herself.
Y/n hasn't seen her since yesterday, Steve must have gotten rid of the staff before she came back. She'd become very fond of both Cheryl and Pam (the Chef). They'd tried their best to make the penthouse feel like a home for her, had been so helpful and kind to her despite insisting on following Steven's orders to treat her formally and ignoring her own attempts against it.
A guard is standing near the pool. Guess her lock down still stands.
Steven brushes his large hand against her cheek, his eyes crinkled into a smile.
"You look even more beautiful, if that were possible. Thank you for coming down, sweetheart." He says and kisses her on the mouth.
Then he says the benediction for their meal and starts to transfer a mountain of eggs, bacon, sausage and hashbrown onto his plate while she pours a cup of green tea from the steeping kettle and picks at some fruit salad.
Steve is visibly holding himself back from commenting on her choice of cuisine. He can't seem to help but mother-hen over her meals. She's already endured more than one lecture and regimental program about the importance of breakfast and good nutritional habits from him.
"I was thinking that we should have a meeting with the planners today, decide on a date for our wedding." Steven says as he let's it go and cuts into his plate.
He doesn't want to fight, he's a happy man today.
She looks down her plate, trying to form her thoughts into more appropriate sounding words.
"I don't know about today, Steven, I don't feel much like company"
He reaches for her hand, "I figure we've put it off long enough and I can't wait to see my name on yours. Are you getting cold feet?"
He says it lightly, and it irks her. She wants to stop the words but she fails.
"After yesterday, do you really expect me not to be?"
He tenses and leans back, his jaw clenching.
"So yesterday was all my fault again?"
"I didn't say that Steven but you almost killed Noah, and now you're going to force him to go to heaven knows where. It's not just something you can shove in the past or fix with sex."
"I should have killed him but I didn't, doesn't that mean anything to you?"
He drops his utensils, they fall loudly onto his plate. "And you will do well to never let me hear you mention that boy's name in this house again." He grips her chin when she makes to shy away from his forbidding look, looking directly into her eyes, so she cannot mistake the warning for what it is: final. "Don't test me again, Y/n because there'll be no turning back this time."
He rubs her chin gently afterward, he hates to bruise her. He only allows himself to do so for her pleasure, he already hates himself for handling her the way he did last night.
She feels her blood rush when he picks up his utensils and continues to eat. She tries to turn away from the thought that she might like this side of him, tries to see how disgusting that was.
How could she? Millions of people out there warned against this very behavior and how it lured the hoodwinked to their death at the hands of possessive psychos.
She wants to believe the voice in her head that says Steven would never hurt her but it's too late, she's seen a side of him she wants to run far from.
"I don't think I can go through with this wedding anymore. I'm calling it off."
He chuckles.
"Hell will freeze over before I let you do that, baby. This wedding will happen and you will behave if you know what's good for you."
"Or what? You'll try to kill more people?"
"Yes and whatever else I see fit until you get the damn message: You are mine, Y/n!"
Then she hears him sigh, as if he were the one burdened!
"Sweetheart no, don't turn me into a monster, you know I love you too much to do it well." He kisses her hand.
"I forgave you, is it so hard for you to forgive me too?"
She chooses to remain silent, resenting the part of her brain that ever thought it was a good idea to come downstairs. It's probably the same part that gave in and begged last night.
"Come here." He orders. She knows what he wants. Her on his lap.
"No, I want my own seat." She tries to dissuade him lightly, usually he found her insistence on maintaining some independance from him cute. She doesn't want to give in to him. Actually, no, she's lying to herself. She does. She wants nothing more than to crawl into his lap and forget everything, but how could she?
"Don't you start with me today, Y/n. I'm not in the mood, I said. Come. Here."
She figures now not the time to resist. Not when he might--
She stands and walks around the corner of the white marble table.
He grabs her waist as soon as she's close enough and slots her between himself and the table, cradling her almost like a child. He kisses her hair and purs deeply because he knows how soothed she becomes when she hears the depth of his voice.
"Why must you be so stubborn, hm?" He kisses her ear, "Why do you like to fight me, baby? You know you're mine, you know I take care of you, you know that's how it should be but you still try to fight me. You know how that makes me feel."
Y/n remains silent trying to fend off the guilt trying to creep in. She shouldn't be feeling guilty right? Even though her fiancé had been so good, well not to Noah but to her? He's been more than good. He's the best, better than she'd imagined. She fights the urge to apologise.
"I spoke to your mother, she said she'd love to come over and help with the wedding preparations. Perhaps she should stay for a few days, would that make you happy?"
That makes her turn to him,
"You're not seriously trying to use my mother against me, right now."
What frustrates her is how Steven is pressing the one weakness that she can't defend against. She knows her mother would take Steven's side. Not only had Noah been washed clean from her mind but she also had nightmares of the days when her daughter had turned down so many guys that she'd begun to fear Y/n was secretly lesbian. Besides, she'd probably also bragged far too much about her rich, handsome son in law to all her church friends. She'd probably die before she let her break up with Steven.
He grunts in frustration, running his hand through his hair in a rather painful looking manner.
"Well if you'd rather avoid that then work with me Y/n because I'm at my damned limit right now. Either we set a date somewhere in the near fucking future or I will have no choice but to call her in."
She feels her molars grinding,
"Fine."
It seems one word answers would be her survival kit for the future.
"Don't be angry at me baby, please. You know, I love you Y/n. I love you so much, I'll love you even though you hate me right now. I'll love you until you love me again."
He puts away her fruit salad and feeds her his breakfast, plating up a second serving and continuing to feed her by hand until he's feels satisfied that she's properly nourished.
When it's time for him to leave for the office, Steven lifts her out of his lap and makes her walk with him to the elevator.
He cradles her head like it's precious, kisses her lips, her nose and her forehead.
"I'll be back shortly after 12 o' clock so we can have lunch and then the planners will arrive at two. Be good and no staying out in the garden too long, I don’t want you getting a nosebleed again."
"Yes, daddy." She agrees, knows he won't let her disagree anyway.
"Good girl, I love you. Don't miss me too much, I'll be back before you know it."