Chapter 24 Five minutes
RORY POV
Today was my first day of being a wife.
A miserable one at that.
The rest of yesterday had been filled with me trying on new dresses the staff had selected for me. Apparently I wasn’t allowed to wear whatever I wanted anymore. They had my outfits picked out, each one assigned to each day like a uniform. Like I was a doll being dressed for someone else’s satisfaction.
Five ladies had bathed me yesterday. I argued that I could do it alone but apparently it was strict instruction from the boss. He had said, and I quote "one hand can’t wash away poverty."
The five ladies had scrubbed my entire body till my skin was raw, waxed me completely bare, done things to my skin I hadn’t known existed. I had never been undressed in front of so many people in my life but I was grateful they were all women which made it marginally more bearable. They washed my hair and used a better dye on it, making the brunette richer and deeper than before. My long wavy hair that normally fell to my backside was trimmed to the middle of my back. Full body skincare. Baby pink polish on my nails and toenails.
By the time they were done I was so exhausted I barely had time for Liam. But I made sure I slept in his room and he was more than happy to see me. He had woken up in the middle of the night unable to find me, shaking from another nightmare, and had come looking. I followed him back to his room and stayed the whole night. He slept well with me beside him.
A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
I was fastening a blue Chanel jacket over the silk black dress I had been assigned for today.
“Come in,” I said.
Rosemary, the head maid, peeked in. She was a kind-faced woman in her fifties who had been with the Millers for twenty years. I wondered if she knew about the late wife.
“Breakfast is ready ma’am,” she said politely. “You should come down with Liam.”
“We’re coming, thank you Mary,” I said.
I turned toward the closet where Liam had been doing his thing for the past ten minutes.
“Liam are you done?”
"Coming!" he chirped.
He burst out of the closet a second later, a sheepish grin on his face. He was wearing the trousers l'd picked, but he'd added a blue Chanel jacket that was a near-perfect match for mine.
Ilet out a genuine laugh, the first one in days. I knelt to his height, tickling his sides. "You sneaky thing! I don't remember picking this out for you."
He threw his head back and laughed. The sound was therapeutic, squeezing something deep in my chest. "Common Rory, I just wanted to match with you,"
"You must really like me a lot," | teased, planting a kiss on his forehead.
He went still for a moment, stunned by the affection. Then he grabbed my hands in his small ones. "I like you a lot, Rory. You helped me. You saved me. Please... don't leave me."
The sadness in his voice made my heart clench. He was so small to be carrying so much weight. I realized then that maybe all he needed was a mother, a trace of the woman who was missing from every corner of this house. There wasn't a single photo of her.
Nothing.
Maybe all Liam needed was his parents. Even a picture of his mother might help.
"Liam?" | asked quietly. "Do you think your daddy is a good daddy?"
I don't know why I asked. I just couldn't reconcile the man who threatened to rape me with the man who raised this sweet boy.
Liam shook his head firmly. “Daddy is a good person,” he said. “He buys me everything I want. He takes me to school sometimes. He buys me lots of toys and plays with them with me. And he tries to calm me when I have bad dreams but it doesn’t work. Not like you do.” He paused. “Daddy is nice Aurora. He’s busy sometimes and I understand that. He’s a billionaire and he has to work so I can have things. I don’t feel bad when he doesn’t get to spend time with me. He would do anything for me.”
I stared at this child.
I hadn’t expected that. Not any of it. The whole time I had been assuming Alexander Miller was failing his son, too cold, too absent, too consumed by whatever darkness lived inside him. But Liam wasn’t describing a bad father. He was describing a man who was trying in the only ways he knew how.
A psychopath to the rest of the world. But trying, in his way, for his son.
“I’m glad you love your daddy Liam,” I said, adjusting his jacket.
“Don’t worry,” Liam said seriously. “He’ll like you too. He’s nice to you.”
I almost snorted out loud.
Nice to me. Right. Nice like threatening to carve my father’s heart out of his chest and rape me until my lungs gave out.
“Let’s go down for breakfast,” I said.
We walked down to the dining room. Alexander was already there, dark and imposing at the head of the table. His eyes flicked up, trailing over the matching blue jackets. He didn't say a word, but his gaze lingered on me a second too long.
Liam ran straight to him.
“Daddy!”
Alexander looked up at his son and something shifted in his face, brief and private, the particular softness that only ever appeared when Liam was in the room and disappeared just as quickly.
I just gave a stiff "Hi" before taking my seat. We ate in silence, the only sound the clink of silverware against fine china.
“Can I have hot sauce Rory?” Liam asked, turning to me. “Please? Daddy doesn’t let the chef put it on my eggs but I really like it.”
“Liam—” Alexander started.
“I’ll get it,” I said, already pushing back from the table before Alexander could shut it down completely.
I felt Alexander's eyes on me the entire time.
They were heavy, tracking my every movement like a predator watching a deer. I felt a flush of heat creep up my neck. Why was I reacting this way to a monster?
He was a monster. He had threatened to kill my parents and force a ring on my finger and I had cried in the back of his car all the way here and signed papers that made me his wife while my tears blurred the ink.
I returned with the hot sauce, my hands slightly shaking. Alexander wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up.
"My study. Five minutes," he said. His voice was a low vibration that made my stomach flip.
I waited exactly five minutes before knocking on the heavy oak door. When I entered, he was standing by the window, his back to me. He didn't turn around.
"Close the door, Aurora."
I did. The click of the lock felt final.
He turned then, his eyes dark, unreadable, and terrifyingly cold.
"Strip."