Swiveling my head away from the telescope, I looked at him. He smiled.
“Go ahead and take this one. You saw it. It should be your wish.”
Still smiling, I nodded at him and closed my eyes for an instant, making my wish. Of course, I’d been wishing for the same thing for years now but the chances of Dad getting out of jail weren’t any better than the day he went away. We’d exhausted all of our appeals, and in spite of his good behavior, the parole board hadn’t budged.
Assholes.
At this point, all I had left were wishes.
“What was it?” he asked after I opened my eyes.
“Oh no, you know the deal. If I tell you the wish, it won’t come true.”
Dorian leaned away, narrowing his eyes at me.
“What?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” he began, nodding. “This is about your wish.”
“My wish? What about it?”
“I know that your dad was only trying to do the right thing. Even so, wishing won’t get him out of jail -- not now, not ever.”
What the…? How? Was there no end to him digging into my past?
He seemed to already know everything about my life, but the fact he knew about my dad… He must have known how important it was for me to see him. By keeping me there with him, Dorian kept the only source of happiness in my life from me, confining me to this prison of luxury and in a way, similar to my dad’s imprisonment.
“Are you angry?” he asked, interrupting my train of thought.
“I-I… Yes. I mean, wouldn’t you be if you were me?”
Dorian shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Well, I am. I need to see him. He’ll want to know what’s happened to me, why I haven’t come.”
Dorian took a couple of steps in my direction. “You will, in time. Just not right now.”
With that, I stood from the seat and walked away from the telescope, crossing my arms at my chest. “I’d like to go to my room now.”
Dorian didn’t respond immediately, eventually answering with a single word.
“Fine.”
It was a quiet walk back to my room. With every step I took, the anger I’d repressed while spending those few minutes with him looking up at the stars came roaring back.
He tried speaking to me once or twice, I don’t really remember. The only thing I do remember is wanting to get the hell away from him. So once I reached my room I opened the door quickly and tried to go inside. Before I could close the door, Dorian slapped his hand flat against it, holding it open.
“Go away,” I snarled.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, leaning his weight against the door and forcing it open.
“Jerk!”
I backed away. He walked up to me, wrapping his hands around my upper arms. Our eyes met.
“Look, there are men involved who will stop at nothing to get what they want. They will harm anyone who gets in their way. I don’t want to be responsible for any more loss of life, and that’s the end of it.”
I looked down towards his fingers and then back to his eyes. “Let go of me.”
He did and I turned away from him, making my way towards the bed. “I’m no one’s prisoner. You can’t keep me here forever.”
From behind, I heard the sound of the door closing. I turned to see him still in the room with me.
“I’d like to be left alone. Why are you still here?”
While I spoke, he walked in my direction, closing to within a couple of feet. He didn’t need to answer the question about why he’d stayed there.
It was obvious why.
The look in his eye told me everything I needed to know. It wasn’t like he’d been subtle up until now.
I decided to change tactics.
If he wasn’t willing to listen to reason, then I would use the only power I still had. Maybe if I just gave him what he was after, what he really wanted, then he’d change his mind and let me go.
After all, men are men.
At this point, I could have cared less about what was happening between him and Ainsley. It was becoming increasingly obvious if I didn’t do something to get myself out of the situation, who knows how long I would have to stay there? I was done with being controlled, being told what I could or couldn’t do, and where I could or couldn’t go.
“Tempest, I…”
Before he could get another word out of his mouth, I leaned into him, pressing my mouth against his. It wasn’t the best kiss I’d ever given anyone, far from it. Hell, I didn’t even moisten my lips before I did it, not wanting him to see what I was thinking. Even so, his reaction wasn’t anything like I expected.
He didn’t have one.
Instead, he was unresponsive, emotionless. Blood rushed to my face. My cheeks burned with the heat of embarrassment, shame, and rejection. Confused, I pulled away.
Dorian glared at me. “Don’t offer something you can’t afford to part with, Tempest. I know what you’re trying to do. The answer is still ‘no’. Visiting your father is out of the question.”
I wanted to kill him with my stare. “You bastard.”
“Fair enough. I’d rather be called that and have you safe than the alternative. You need to be patient and trust me.”
“Patient? Trust you! How about you go to hell?”
He turned and started to walk towards the bedroom door. “I’m not talking to you about this. I’ve got to be up early for a meeting.”
Furious, I looked in every direction, searching for something to throw at him. At last, I reached for my heel, ripping off my shoe and hurling it in his direction. It whizzed by his head, missing it by inches before it collided with the wall and hit the floor.
Unfazed, Dorian looked down at it and then at me. “Anger really isn’t attractive in you. Good night.”
He reached for the door and opened it.
“Fuck off!” I barked.
Ignoring me, Dorian closed the door. I heard the sound of his footsteps while he walked away. Exhaling, I flopped backwards onto the bed, opening my arms and stretching them out to my sides. I had to stop letting him get to me. Besides, it was starting to seem like he enjoyed it.
Trying to calm myself, I lay there for a while, maybe a half an hour or so. At last, I got up and took off my dress, changing back into the silk pajamas and deciding to go to sleep.
Walking towards the bedroom door, I reached for the light, pausing there, my fingertip pressed against the switch. I looked down at the doorknob and figured, what the hell, grabbing it and twisting. To my complete shock, it opened. Dorian must have forgotten to lock it when he left. Peering through the crack, I glanced out into the hallway.
This might be my only chance.
I eased the door closed and hurried to get my street clothes on. In less than five minutes, I returned to the door and opened it.
It was now or never.
Oh my God.
It felt like every sense I had was a thousand times stronger than normal. Every few steps I would stop, clutching my hands to my chest and holding my breath, listening for even the slightest of sounds. I inched down the hallway while my mind scrambled for ways to get out of there without being detected.
I’d seen Dorian’s security men around the property. If I managed to get out of the house, I still had no idea how to get off the estate. What little I’d seen of it during our walk to the observatory, I had to go on from memory.