Rachel gnashed her teeth together and groaned against the strain on her shoulders. The man continued pulling her arms tighter until her shoulders were on the verge of dislocating. She cried out with the pain and begged for him to stop.
Donovan raised his hand in a silent command to the man behind her. The man loosened his grip on her arms in response. Though the pain let up somewhat, he kept her arms pulled tight enough so she couldn’t squirm her way out of his grasp.
Donovan rose from the chair and walked toward her, his hypnotic, amber eyes never departing from hers. Rachel realized with dismay that even after three years, his power over her had not diminished in the slightest.
His knuckles moved over her cheek. “Rachel Thomas, is it?”
Her chin trembled at his tender, loving touch, and lines of tears marched down her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Donovan didn’t respond. Joe stepped up next to Donovan and held out a syringe and alcohol swab. Donovan first took the swab, and hinged the short sleeve of her shirt on her shoulder. He rubbed the cold alcohol swab against her upper left arm. He turned to Joe and exchanged the alcohol swab for the syringe.
Rachel bit down on her bottom lip and her neck muscles tightened when the needle entered her skin. “I’m so sorry, Donovan,” she repeated.
“So am I,” he said. He pulled the needle out of her arm. “Joe, Sean, you can leave us now. We’ll be right out.”
Sean released her arms. Rachel’s arms and legs went limp, and she tried to take a step forward. She lost her footing and fell into Donovan’s familiar arms. Her vision blurred and her thoughts scrambled in her head.
Donovan brushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her forehead. “It’s all going to be okay, Rachel. When you wake up, you’ll be back home with me.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Rachel woke with a start. She pushed herself into a sitting position and took in her surroundings. She was in her old room, the room she’d hoped to never see again.
Her head ached from where Joe hit her with the gun. Placing her hand on her upper arm, she rubbed at the soreness where the needle entered her skin. She realized Donovan gave her a sedative, and she remembered nothing after falling unconscious.
Pulling the covers off her body, she climbed out of the plush, king size bed. The bare walls, the white carpet, the lack of decoration. Everything remained the same. Even though she could have decorated the room in any manner she wished, with any amount of lavish she desired, she never cared for anything more than what was in the room now. She always enjoyed the simplicity.
She stood in the middle of the room and turned around in a circle. It was as if she had been transported back in time by three years. The same king size bed protruded from the far wall and was covered with a simple down comforter. The same short, oak dresser stood across the room. She knew if she opened the drawers, they would be filled with her clothes that she left behind. The same overstuffed, comfortable armchair rested in the corner of the room. Towering over the armchair was the same brass floor lamp she used for late night reading.
She walked to the dresser. A hardback compilation of stories by Edgar Allen Poe sat in the same location where she left it. She flipped the book open to the bookmark and saw it marked the same page where she stopped reading three years earlier.
She set the book down. Her eyes landed on the large, black jewelry box next to the book. She opened the lid of the box, and placed her hand on the delicate diamond necklace inside the box without directly looking at it. A memory flickered in the back of her mind of a dance she shared long ago while wearing the necklace. Not wanting to dwell in the memories, she snatched her hand back from the ornate piece of jewelry and replaced the lid on the box.
Rachel rubbed her sore arm again and moved into the walk-in closet, where the dark colors of her old wardrobe greeted her. They were a stark contrast to the white in the rest of her room. Her eyes fell on a leather garment cover in the front of the closet. She rotated the garment bag on the hanger until it faced her. Though she already knew what she would find, she unzipped the bag.
She peeled back the flaps to reveal a black dress, the same one from her dreams. She stepped back and her insides curdled. This was not a nightmare from which she would wake. She zipped up the garment bag to hide the dress, and rushed back to her bed, as if it would provide her sanctuary.
Her bedroom door opened a few minutes later. Donovan stepped out of her nightmares and into her bedroom. She knew someone would be close by, standing guard. He wouldn’t allow her to escape a second time. She rose from the bed to meet him, and watched each step he took toward her.
His chilling smile reached inside her body and took hold of her heart. “Rachel,” he said. “It’s so good to have you back. Seeing you here again...” His fingers traced her cheekbone. “I have missed you so much,” he whispered.
His familiar touch burned through her skin, but she restrained herself from jerking away from him. “Donovan, I don’t—”
Before she finished speaking, he struck her cheek. The sudden force of the blow threw her back onto the bed.
His voice hardened. “I gave you everything you could ever want or need. I gave you every part of me. You were the only thing I lived for, Rachel. Then you stole from me and left me here alone.” He hit her again.
She raised her hands to protect herself, but somehow his fist found her face twice more, each hit harder than the last. Her brain bounced against her skull, and she sank deeper into the bed, hoping to disappear and stop him from hurting her more. He didn’t stop, but punched her several more times before walking away from the bed.
Rachel’s tears dried up in her eyes, and the pain replaced all the air in her lungs. She tried to call out his name, tried to beg him to stop, but no words came out with her raspy breaths. Everywhere she looked, she saw red.
“Three years,” Donovan said, oblivious to her struggle for air. “I’ve been searching for you for three years and when I find you, someone else has taken my place.” His fist connected with her face again.
“No,” she managed to say when he pulled back his hand. Hard as she tried to talk, to give him some sort of explanation for her actions, nothing else came out.
Donovan’s eyes smoldered with anger. “Did you have sex with him?”
“No, of course not,” she said. She hoped he didn’t detect the lie.
“I believe you, which is good for his sake.”
Rachel tried not to show her relief to know Mark was alive, and she wondered about Danielle. “Please, Donovan,” she begged.
“But you let him kiss you, and hold you, and touch you,” Donovan said. He picked her up off the bed and slammed her against the wall. The back of his hand smacked against the side of her mouth. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
Warm, salty liquid seeped into her mouth and onto her tongue. Red polka dots of her blood stood out against the white carpet, but it did not compare to the amount of blood soaking into the comforter on her bed.
“Don’t you remember what happened the last time you let someone do that?”
Her eyes once again produced tears. “Not again,” she said. “I’ll do anything, just please, Donovan, not again.”
“You are mine, Rachel. You belong to me. That’s never going to change.” He leaned over and his lips covered hers. Even though three years had passed since the last time she experienced his kiss, she remembered every detail as if she had never left his arms.
She wanted to collapse on the floor and sleep until the pain was gone, but she let him lift her shirt over her head and unbutton her jeans. Done with punishing her physically, he now wanted her to sleep with him. Her jeans slipped down to the floor and she stepped out of them, as his eyes drank in her exposed skin.
His fingers tightened around her arm. “Show me,” he said.
He didn’t need to say anything else for her to know what he wanted to see. Rachel turned around and lowered her head. She closed her eyes, and her cheeks
and neck burned crimson.
His fingertips traced her scars, and electrified her back. Every movement of his fingers sent phantom pain throughout her body. He moved closer to her and lowered his mouth near her ear. “I knew they would still be there,” he said. “I’m sure you thought of me every time you saw them. Your little reminder that you’ll always be mine.”
He turned her back around kissed her again. His mouth strayed down and trailed the base of her neck. The loving and tender kisses were a stark contrast to the outburst of violence he demonstrated only moments ago.
Even though he wouldn’t hurt her anymore tonight, Rachel would sleep with him without fighting him. She didn’t want to take a chance of what might happen if she resisted. She had to show him that she wanted to be with him.
This same sequence of events had occurred so much in the past that it was like the proverbial bike ride for Rachel. A beating, followed by sex, and then apologies or explanations for his actions. Over and over, the cycle never changed with Donovan.
She would somehow make it through the intimacy without so much as a whimper, no matter how bad the pain. It was the only way to regain his trust, something she needed to do if she wanted to survive. In the short time she had been back, she resigned herself to the idea that her days of running were over.
Rachel was home.
Chapter Thirty-three
Paul wanted to kill someone. The desire was growing by the minute and was already stronger than he had ever felt before. If he couldn’t take his anger out on Sean like he wanted, then anyone would do. But he was as defenseless as Rachel, now that she was back at the estate.
At this moment, as Paul wore out the grass beneath his feet, Donovan was in her room. Paul could not bring himself to think about what atrocities Donovan committed against her, and Paul could do nothing to help. It had been made clear to him that he was not allowed anywhere near Rachel, at least not for the first several weeks she was back.
Still paying for her fleeing the estate, he gladly faced unending punishment on her behalf while she was gone. He would have continued forever, if it kept her safe. But he always knew that at any moment, the time would come when Donovan would catch up with her. Paul had managed to sabotage the search for her a couple of times before, but his efforts only bought her a short amount of time. Donovan was nothing if not determined, and with endless resources, there was no place Rachel could hide.
If she had not met Mark, she wouldn’t have stayed so long in Wichita, and she would not be here now. All the excitement Paul should have felt at her finding someone to love, and someone who loved her, was washed away in the reality that Donovan found her and brought her home. What would be a wonderful and romance-filled time for anyone else in the world, backfired on both her and Mark.
Now that she was back, Paul needed to save her more than ever, but there was no hope for either of them. Mark would not be alive for much longer, maybe another twelve hours if he was lucky. Rachel would revert back into the state she was in before she left the estate three years ago.
Rachel was a smart girl, Paul thought, smarter than most. She had always used her intelligence to her advantage in every situation. More than that, she was a survivor. Paul knew that even if she stayed, she would find a way to survive again. She would make it through, no matter how many new scars she acquired. She would recommit herself to both Donovan and to her role at the estate. Paul took small comfort in that. If he could not help her, she would somehow be okay in the end.
An idea formed in his mind, and Paul halted his pacing. Maybe there was a way to help her, but hope would come only through one person: Mark. He could reach Rachel in a way Paul never could. Mark had to convince her to leave the estate again, convince her to run far away this time and never stop running.
It was risky, as Paul’s plan relied on a man he had never met, but there wasn’t much choice. Getting her out was the only way either of them would make it through this alive.
Chapter Thirty-four
Rachel rolled over in bed and watched Donovan dress. She held out her hand. “Why can’t you stay?” she asked.
He slipped his arms into his shirt and buttoned it up. “I have to go into town to take care of some things and meet with Graham,” he said.
Though he had gone into her bathroom and washed her blood off his face and hands, smears of her blood stood out against his white dress shirt. Rachel knew he would change his clothing before he left the estate, but her blood would never come out of his shirt.
A pang of guilt racked her, and she took responsibility for ruining his clothing. The clothes she wore when she arrived at the estate were also tainted with her blood. She would throw those away not only because of the blood, but because they were a reminder of her time away from Donovan. He would not want her to keep them, since anything that was not from the estate did not belong here.
She withdrew her arm and pulled the covers over her bare chest as she sat up. Under the surface of her eyes, a well of tears threatened to spill over from the pain in her face. The swelling on her face grew with every passing moment and intensified her pain.
A dull ache spread across her cheeks and mouth, adding to the pain from Joe hitting her. The only unaffected area was her nose. Donovan always made it a point not to hit her there, so it wouldn’t break and alter her appearance. The rest of her face and body were open targets, but he always preferred hitting her face.
She resisted the urge to assess the damage with her fingers. She did not want Donovan to know she was concerned with what he did to her, and call attention to his abuse. She risked sending him back into a rage if he noticed her dwelling on her injuries.
He rarely lost control like he had with the agonizing beating she had suffered, but the difference between now and then was he had stored up three years of good reasons to punish her the way he did. One more hit, even the slightest slap, seemed all that her face could tolerate before it shattered into pieces.
Donovan pulled on his suit jacket. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Get dressed,” Donovan said, and he left the room.
Rachel looked down at the blanket she wrung in her hands, and her forehead creased. Donovan’s absence from the estate would be the perfect opportunity to somehow get to Paul and find out what happened to Danielle and Mark.
Guilt flooded her as Mark entered her mind. It was wrong to think about Mark, to wonder about him. This was exactly what got her into trouble the last time. Donovan should be her only concern. Falling back into the role she had played, into the life she had lived was much too easy.
Rachel forced herself out of bed and over to her dresser. She found a low-cut black camisole lined with lace, and black pajama shorts, a nighttime outfit that was one of Donovan’s favorites on her. All of her clothes smelled fresh, as if Donovan had kept her room and clothes cleaned in anticipation of her return. Both of them knew she wouldn’t be gone forever.
She slipped on the clothes, wincing from the pain in her face as the shirt came down over her head. Even bending down to pick up her dirty clothes pushed the limits of her broken body. From what she could tell, it would take about three days for the bruises to begin healing, and a full ten days or more for them to disappear. At least, that’s what she remembered from the last time she sustained similar injuries.
Donovan returned, and she welcomed him with a warm smile. He held a silver tray in his hand, the contents of which were covered with a white linen. He sat down on the bed next to her, and placed the tray beside him. He ran a finger under one of the straps on the camisole, and lowered it down over her shoulder. “You look so beautiful in this,” he said. He leaned over and kissed the crook of her neck.
Rachel prickled with goose bumps at each brush of his lips against her cool skin, and she hated her body for reacting to him.
“Are you trying to get me to stay with you longer?” he asked.
She wanted nothing more than for him to leave, and had only dressed in clothing she knew would please him, but she cou
ldn’t tell him that. “I wish you could stay, but I know you have things to do,” she said.
“I’ll be back later tonight and I’ll stay with you then. We’ll spend a lot of time together over the next several weeks. We have three years of lost time to make up.”
Rachel forced a smile. “I can’t wait.”
Donovan lifted the linen off the tray on the bed. On top of the tray, another syringe filled with menacing liquid sat next to an alcohol swab and a bandage.
Rachel could not contain her tears. “Please don’t do this, Donovan,” she said. Even as she spoke, she knew he had no other choice but to drug her. He would do it today, tomorrow, and for many days, even weeks, to come until she convinced him she would not leave again.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said. “I don’t want to do this.” He raised his hand to her face and wiped away her tears. “You know I only have the best intentions. It’s going to take some time for us to get back to where we were.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “I know that I destroyed your trust in me and I ruined everything we had together. I am so sorry that I left you, and I wish I could take it back. Things will change things between us, Donovan, and all of my actions will be made up to you. I know what I did was wrong.” She laid her hand on top of his and pressed his hand against her aching face. “But you don’t have to do this. I’m never leaving you again.”
Donovan cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. The kiss was filled with sensuality, yet laced with innocence. Donovan had never before kissed her in that manner. His kiss was always hungry and full of desire, but his lips now contained all the love he still felt for her, even after so much time apart. It reminded her too much of the way Mark kissed her.
Again, Mark invaded her thoughts at the absolute worst time. There was no more room for Mark, not while she was with Donovan. Their relationship would forever be in the past so that she could rebuild her tattered life with Donovan. She never wanted it to end like this with Mark, but here she was at the estate, in Donovan’s arms, tasting her future with him. The situation in itself eliminated Mark.