Chapter 15

Unfortunately, the cookies don’t help my case that much. We get home, she opens the boxes, eats half the cookies, then bids me goodbye so she can go nap with a full stomach. She even had the gall to lick her lips and pat her full belly as she blithely announced her departure.

I’m left staring at the half-empty boxes. Muttering a string of curses, I grab a cookie and shove it into my mouth.

Soft, crunchy, and chocolatey. Everything I hate.

I eat another one.

It’s all her fault. Making me eat chocolate and sweets when I’ve avoided a sugar addiction my entire life.

I finish the first box and turn to the second, all the while blaming her for this.

If I didn’t need to impress her, I wouldn’t have all these cookies in front of me, beckoning me to eat them. And if I didn’t watch her mere minutes ago eating them with so much gusto, I would not be so tempted right now.

But I am.

And what’s worse is that with every taste, all I can picture is her lips as she bit into the cookie. Her luscious mouth as she chewed on them.

Fuck.

I need to stop.

Getting to my feet, I close the cookie boxes and put them away. Then I stalk up the stairs and go to her room. Planting myself in front of the door, I knock.

The seconds trickle by and my pulse starts drumming in my ears.

At last, Minnie opens the door.

Big mistake.

She’s wearing a black oversized shirt that I gave her when she first came here, and nothing else.

Her legs are bare, and as she notices my gaze drifting lower and lower, she wiggles her toes. They’re small and dainty. Just like her.

I gulp down.

“Do you need anything?” she asks in a monotone voice.

Do I? I can’t remember why I came here.

As I rack my brain for something to say—something that won’t make me look like the dumbass I already feel—she continues. “If you need me to clean the kitchen, I’ll do that later. I don’t think you have anything against me taking a short nap, do you?”

She narrows her eyes at me. Just how tyrannical does she think I am?

I straighten my back and attempt to infuse some confidence in my stance, though I don’t even know why I’m here other than to ogle her. Although, if I’m honest, she’s rather nice to ogle and that in itself makes the visit worth it.

Fuck. I must be losing my fucking mind because there’s no way I’d entertain that train of thought unless there was something clearly wrong with me. Something like…magic.

This girl… What if she has bewitched me? Because under no circumstances would I have eaten more sugar in the span of a few minutes than I have in my entire life.

My stomach rumbles in approval, and I can feel the sugar high poking its head to the surface, which for someone with already bad ADHD, that can only mean one thing.

Chaos.

Unless I have been possessed by a sugar ghost, there’s absolutely no way I would have willingly engaged in that. Nor would I have been standing here, watching Minnie as if I’ve never seen a woman before in my life. Which, granted, I’ve never seen someone like her before, but maybe that’s the issue.

She must have done something to me, something that logic cannot explain.

She wormed her way into my house, and that wasn’t enough, so she concocted to invade my mind too.

What if it’s her food? What if she’s been feeding me something that altered my brain chemistry in such a way that I’ve become addicted to her presence?

“Marlowe? Are you going to stand there all day and brood?”

“I wasn’t brooding,” I lie.

She places her hands on her hips and tilts her head to the side.

“What do you want?” she asks with a sigh. “I really want to nap.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask, can I join you? But that would be low, even for me. So instead, I end up muttering something worse.

“Did you put a spell on me?”

The words are out of my mouth before I can think them through.

Her eyes widen slightly. “What?”

“You heard me. Did you put a spell on me?” I ask, watching her with narrowed eyes.

A faint blush appears on her cheeks. Suspicious.

“Where would you have gotten that idea from?” she mumbles, but she averts her eyes.

Even more suspicious.

“I’m rich, objectively good-looking, and at the right age to settle down. I’m the perfect target for that magic of yours.”

“You…” Her lips tremble with mirth. “You think I used magic to what?”

“To get me to become obsessed with you, of course. You want a ring on your finger. Admit it,” I tell her squarely. “Well, I feel compelled to tell you that you’ve made a bad gamble when you chose to work your wiles on me.”

She blinks a few times before she bursts out laughing.

“So let me get this straight. You think I must have put a spell on you to get you to become obsessed with me because I want you to marry me?”

“Indeed. And I’m here to tell you it won’t work.”

“So you’re obsessed with me?” she asks as she wets her lips and takes a step forward.

I take a step back. “Have you not heard what I said? It will not work on me.”

“If it doesn’t work on you, then how do you know there’s anything at all happening to you?”

“Because you’re a witch,” I say accusingly.

“Marlowe, with all due respect,” she starts in a serious tone. “I know your favorite show to watch is Supernatural, but that doesn’t mean everything around you has a supernatural explanation.”

How the hell does she know that? I don’t recall mentioning it to her.

“You’re the one who mentioned magic first.”

“As a joke.” She chuckles. “Are you sure you’re not trying to find an explanation for something that’s already happening to you? Something you may not want to happen to you?”

Once more, she takes a step forward. This time, I don’t move, letting her chest brush against mine. I barely hold back a groan.

“Something like the fact that you might…like me?” She bats her lashes at me.

I place my hands on her shoulders.

Hope blossoms in her features.

Lifting her up, I deposit her in her room and put some space between us.

“I don’t like you, Minnie. I merely tolerate you,” I grumble as I pull the door closed to her room, trying to ignore the stricken expression on her face.

Minnie’s behaviorthe next day tells me that I mucked things up once more. This time, even worse. If before she would at least mumble something back to me or acknowledge my presence—at times—now she straight up pretends I’m invisible.

As for me? Frankly, I have no idea why I went to her room in the first place, let alone why I felt the need to accuse her of being a witch. After my sugar haze cleared, I could see that I was not in full control of my faculties when I made those accusations, a fact that I communicated to her as well.

She didn’t answer.

Well, to be more precise, she did answer, but not directly.

She just left behind a piece of paper with a blood-red pentagon on it and my name written in the middle.

Now she’s not just ignoring me. She’s mocking me as well.

I would too, since everything I told her was pretty much nonsense.

On top of that, when I went to look at her search history, it was all about spells on how to make him love you, but also one search hit for how to turn him into a toad.

Safe to say, she’s not a witch. If she were, I would have become a toad a long time ago considering the times I’ve made her mad or straight up insulted her.

Alas, the damage has already been done. Now I need to find a way to fix it. Especially since the dinner with my mother is…tomorrow.

Fucking hell!

I spend the entire day morosely stalking up and down the stairs of my house, half to catch a glimpse of Minnie as she does her magic with food, and half to find a solution to my dilemma: earning her forgiveness.

Ultimately, I end up in my car and driving away from the house in an attempt to clear my head—and also get Minnie a present so she’d stop ignoring me.

The perfume was a bad idea, so I’m crossing that off the list.

She has clothes and shoes, but girls love that stuff, so I’m sure she won’t mind more—especially since she doesn’t have a specific outfit for this occasion. And now that I think about it, I haven’t gotten her a bag, have I?

I need to remedy that, too. Girls love designer bags.

The stores are nearing their closing times, so I hurry to find something to her liking.

Her favorite colors are white and red. I’ll just get something in those colors.

Easier said than done since most of the dresses in white are bridal, while the ones in red are far too sexy and sultry for me to be comfortable going out with her like that. Even if my mother rented out an entire space, there will still be people seeing her when she walks into and out of the restaurant, as well as the serving staff.

I curse in annoyance.

This is not going well.

Eventually, I settle on an off-white dress with a modest length and neckline, but which should flatter her figure nonetheless. Although I’m reluctant to have anyone see her like that, it’s the only thing I deem acceptable, which she might also like.

A nice pair of white heels is easy enough to find, and since her entire outfit is white, I think she can add a red bag to it—that way, she’ll have both of her favorite colors.

Luckily for me, I spot the perfect red Chanel bag in a window and go inside to buy it. The sales associates are not very accommodating at first, saying the items in the window are not for sale. But a few phone calls later and I’m walking out with the red bag.

I don’t want to be gone for too long, so I jump into my car and drive back home. Excitement simmers inside of me as I think of her reaction when she’ll see these gifts. She’ll smile, that’s for sure.

Or at least, I hope she will.

I love her smile.

I’ll love her smile even more if I’m the one to put it on her face.

I hum along to the song on the radio as I drive just under the speed limit—another first.

It’s fully dark out by the time I get back.

I don’t waste any time after I park the car in my garage and I head straight for her room, gift bags in tow.

“Minnie?” I ask as I knock at her door.

No answer.

I wait a few more seconds before I knock and call her name again, this time louder.

No answer.

Frowning, I pull the doorknob to the side. The door slides open.

I walk inside, only to find the room empty. I put the bags on her bed and walk around the room.

“Minnie?” I call out again, stopping in front of the bathroom and listening for any sound.

Nothing.

She’s not here.

At this point, I’m not overly concerned. She could have very well returned to cleaning.

Leaving the bags on her bed, I head to my office and pull up the camera feed from around the house.

I scan every single frame, looking for her, but she’s nowhere to be found.

I gulp down.

Something slides beneath my skin, worming its way right under the surface of my epidermis. Discomfort settles deep in my gut.

She wouldn’t leave.

Where would she go?

We’re basically in the middle of nowhere here. She’d have to walk miles to reach the highway.

Once more, panic pokes at my usually calm demeanor, causing me to become frantic in my attempt to find her—any trace of her.

I rewind the video footage until I see her exiting the house. I access the feed from the outside cameras, but they only show her going into the back field before the same static as before appears on the screen.

Fuck.

I need to get the system checked out. It’s not normal for static to appear so often, even after countless upgrades.

Cursing at the fact that technology is failing me, I head outside, looking for Minnie in the last place I’d seen her go—the field.

It’s cold out.

Much colder than I expected. So cold, in fact, that I wonder how the fuck Minnie would have gone out wearing only my old shirt. As she exited the house, her legs and arms were bare. The flimsy material of the shirt would have hardly provided any boundary against the chilly wind.

Fucking hell. The moment I get my hands on that little heathen, I might just wring her neck.

I stride across the field determinedly, looking right and left for her. The entire expanse of the field is covered in white, so a small, black dot would certainly be rather conspicuous.

Except, what I see is not only one small black dot but two.

I can spot her in the distance, some five hundred feet away.

She’s close to the fence surrounding my property. But she’s not alone.

There’s someone else with her. Someone not so small. Someone who looks like…a man.

A man who is hugging her.

I can’t make out more than his stature and build and the fact that he’s wearing all black.

Despite the cold, my blood boils in my veins. I increase my pace.

I’m around three hundred feet away when Minnie half-turns, almost as if she can hear me—though it’s impossible from that distance. She makes some gestures with her hands and just as I blink, the other person disappears.

I don’t even get to process my disbelief as pure rage overtakes me.

She was talking with another man. On my land. While living with me.

Who was it?

How did he know to come here?

Did she call him here?

Is it that soulmate of hers or is it someone else? Maybe a lover. Maybe she’s been lying to me all along and I was far too blind to see it. Maybe this was all just one giant set-up. Cozy up to me, learn everything about my house, then bring her lover so they can both rob me blind.

It’s not a far-fetched scenario.

I may be a very private person, but unfortunately, there’s plenty of public information about me thanks to my high-profile family. My family name alone would attract all kinds of attention, most often the negative kind. I suppose I should have thought about that before I picked up a stranger from the side of the road.

For fuck’s sake, there are no records about her online. None whatsoever.

Even knowing that, I’ve decided to ignore the rational side of my brain that was yelling at me that this is a disaster waiting to happen. She was a liability from day one and I could have kicked her out at any point after I found out about the inconsistencies in her story.

The more I think of it, the more mad I am at myself. But not as mad as I am at her and this betrayal.

Yet it’s not the thought that Minnie lied to me about her identity that guts me, it’s the fact that she may have colluded with another man to achieve this plan of hers—whatever it is.

The more I think of her and that shadowy figure together the more I find myself slipping.

I don’t do anger.

I don’t do disappointment because I never expect anything in the first place.

I don’t do emotions at all—they’re far too troublesome.

Yet since she came into my life, every fucking rule I’ve had for myself has gone down the drain.

I crack my knuckles as I march toward her. I hate the way tension knots in my gut, in my veins, in every goddamn organ. The urge to smash my fist against a hard surface is almost irresistible. I need to feel the physical pain as a way to make sense of this ineffable emotion that’s bubbling inside of me. Because physical pain is the only pain I should be acquainted with, the only one to fit the definition of pain.

Not…this.

My insides are getting twisted up in pain the closer I get to her.

“Marlowe, what are you doing here?” Minnie asks me in a soft, quivering voice when I reach her.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” I retort.

“I thought you’d left…”

“Who was he?” I ask, barely containing the rage in my voice.

Her lashes flutter in confusion.

“Who was…who?”

She’s a great actress, I’ll give her that.

She appears genuinely surprised by my question.

“The man you were meeting. Who is he?”

“What man?” She frowns.

“Cut it out, Minnie. I saw you. Who was he? That soulmate of yours? An old lover? A current lover? Who the fuck is he?”

She regards me with those innocent doe-like eyes of hers and my heart stills in my chest. Yet the image of her in that man’s arms is fresh in my mind—so fresh, it’s making my blood boil with anger again.

I grab her shoulders. Her skin is warm. Hot. She’s only wearing a shirt in this freezing weather, but she’s hot to the touch.

The rational part of my brain that would have questioned this is long gone. If I weren’t so mad, I may have paused to ask myself how this is possible—especially since it’s not the first time. But how can I think coherently about anything but this infuriating situation? How can I still have any thought in my brain when she is my sole focus? When I need to know whether she was meeting a lover or not more than I care to take my next breath?

It’s fascinating on a deep level—perhaps I should ask my therapist about this. First, I need to find another therapist, I suppose. And quite urgently.

The way Minnie can play with my emotions is dangerous—far too dangerous. And this isn’t just about my mental peace—though I have not had any since she came into my life—it’s also about keeping my urges in check. That used to be something I was good at.

Before.

Now?

I fear no one in my vicinity is safe as long as I’m constantly in a murderous mood. But more than anything, I am not safe as long as I allow her to have such control over me.

“Who. Is. He?” I demand again, my voice dropping to a low octave. She shivers, but it’s not from the cold.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marlowe,” she whispers. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good. I should scare you,” I grind out. “I should fucking scare you, Minnie. Because it seems I’ve been far too lax with you if you thought you could meet with your fucking lover in my home.”

“What lover? Are you insane?” She shakes her head as she tries to deny it.

I tighten my hold on her arms, feeling the way her plush skin molds to my bruising grip.

My mouth curls up in a sick smile.

“Oh, I am insane. Perhaps you should have realized that earlier. Before you started fucking with my mind. Before you turned me into this.”

“Marlowe…”

“Who. Was. He?” I repeat.

“I told you. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmurs, gazing up at me with concern.

“Stop lying, Minnie,” I grit out. “Stop fucking lying to my face. I know what I saw.”

I let my gaze scan the surrounding area behind her, and sure enough, there’s a pair of foreign footprints.

“What’s this then?” I ask as I pull her toward the trail of footprints that lead into the neighboring land.

She loses her equilibrium and falls to her knees in the snow. Her chest rises and falls as she looks up at me.

“Marlowe, you’re worrying me. There’s nothing there,” she says in a small voice. Raising one hand, she points to the pristine snow.

I blink.

No fucking way.

“What the fuck…” I mutter under my breath.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Marlowe, but there was no one here. No man. No woman. No one. Absolutely no one,” she continues in a calm voice.

I let go of her arm and take a step back.

What the fuck?

What’s happening?

There were clearly prints in the snow, just as there was a man with her minutes ago. I saw it. I’m sure I saw it.

But…

Minnie slowly gets up and dusts the snow from her body. Her movements are slow, calculated. She’s not trembling. She’s not grimacing from the cold.

Her expression is as serene as ever as if the coldness could never reach her.

My heart pounds in my chest. Faster and faster. A vein throbs in my temple.

Confusion swarms inside my mind.

She takes a step toward me.

“There’s no one here, Marlowe. There never was.”

“But I saw?—”

“Maybe you didn’t see properly,” she offers as she stops in front of me, placing a hand on my chest. She gives me a worried smile. “Are you all right? Do you need to lie down? I can make you some hot soup and you can take a nap.”

I gulp down. Uncertainty flickers across my features. Yet another emotion I haven’t experienced before, but that now seems to have possessed me.

“I think you’re right,” I say as I take a deep breath.

Maybe I did see wrong. Maybe I’ve been too stressed about her being mad at me that I just imagined things. It’s not as if I don’t think daily about the effect Minnie has on other men and the fact that I’ll very well end up killing someone soon for looking at her the wrong way.

Perhaps it’s just my subconscious telling me that I need to be more careful with her—keep her close to me and away from the world.

“Let’s head back inside.” She takes my hand and leads me back to the house.

As soon as we reach the warmth of the house, I release a deep sigh. I regard her warily, an apology brewing in my mind. Yet when the moment comes to verbalize it, I find it hard to do so.

I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out.

“Come, I’ll make you something hot to eat,” she says.

I don’t move. I simply stare at her. The anger from before hasn’t abated. If anything, it’s intensified.

“Marlowe?” she calls out when she notices I’m rooted to the spot.

She tilts her head to the side in question.

“I saw you,” I repeat. “You were not alone.”

“And I showed you there were no footprints in the snow. Come on, Marlowe. I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

In two long strides, I’m in front of her with my hand around her throat. I don’t squeeze. I merely push her chin up with my thumb so she’s looking me in the eye.

“I don’t care whether there was someone there or not. But trust me when I say that if I ever see you with another man, I’ll kill you both.”

“W-what?” She blinks.

I smirk at her and slowly tighten my grip on her neck.

“You will not talk to other men. You will not smile at other men. And you will certainly not hug other men.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, confused.

“Tell me you understand me, Minnie,” I drawl, slowly getting back to my comfort place. If everything else fails, then there’s only one answer—murder.

“But… You don’t even like me,” she stammers.

“I don’t need to like you.” I shrug. “You belong to me.”

She stares at me with those big eyes of hers before her expression slowly morphs in front of my eyes. Her lips curl up in a secretive smile.

“So you will kill me, too?”

Is she…taunting me?

I narrow my eyes at her.

“I’m a selfish bastard,” I whisper, moving my hand up her cheek and caressing her skin. “I’d rather kill you with my own hands than know some other bastard laid his hands on you.”

“So you’re a killer, huh?” She raises a brow.

“That’s an understatement, little heathen.” I let out a dry laugh.

“I know, I know.” She giggles. “You’re a big, bad killer, aren’t you?”

I freeze. My eyes slowly widen.

“What did you just say?”

“I know who you are, Marlowe,” she whispers as she leans forward. Grabbing my hand, she keeps it against her cheek, grazing my thumb with her teeth. “I know what you’ve done.”

“What do you know?”

She chuckles.

“For starters, your silly story about art. But I know why you did it. And I approve,” she purrs softly. “Then there’s that story about my foster father? It was a lie. I was never in the system, nor was I in prison.”

“I know you’ve been lying about your identity,” I say, my eyes narrowing at her. How the hell does she know about slimy Pauly? “As for the prison, it’s only a matter of time,” I lie. “The police are actively looking for you for shoplifting.” Another lie, since she’s technically only a person of interest.

She shrugs, her expression nonchalant.

“They can’t prove it,” she adds with a smile. The little heathen… She must know about the faulty footage then. Her presence around those sites is the only thing tying her to the crimes, but that would not stand in court since it’s just conjecture.

“So you never stabbed your foster father, did you?” I ask, leaning back and watching her intently. Though I’d already guessed she lied about that, I’m curious why she’d been so specific. Had there been someone else she’d stabbed? Another man who hurt her? Because then I’ll need to know. She mentioned he was still alive.

Not for long…

“Nope,” she answers, popping the P in such a cute way that I momentarily forget I need to be mad at her. “I never stabbed anyone. I’m not a fan of knives, truthfully.” She feigns a shudder. “I prefer swords.”

“Then why the specific lie?”

“Well, it wasn’t technically a lie…” she starts.

I raise a brow.

“You stabbed him,” she states confidently.

My brows knit together in confusion. What the hell is she on about?

“What are you talking about?”

“Was it two years ago? It was snowing that night too,” she mentions.

My eyes flash at her.

Two years ago. A snowy night.

The memory assails me as if it were yesterday.

How could I forget the incident that rattled me so much I lost my usual calm? That day marked my official decline. Since then, I have not been able to kill anyone cleanly, methodically…

“That man was beating his wife. She was full of blood and begging for her life, but no one dared to intervene. People watched, but they ignored it. But you didn’t,” Minnie continues.

My body tenses. That’s too specific. Almost as if…

“How do you know that?” I demand sharply.

She smiles.

“I was there. I saw everything. The way you charged at him, the way you stabbed him over and over, staining the snow with red…” She closes her eyes as she releases a sigh of satisfaction. “Truly a work of art.”

It’s as if I’m staring in the face of a stranger. But I find that I don’t care about the fact that Minnie knows the truth about me, or that she’s lied about her past. The most deranged thing is that regardless of who she is, my heart has never beat faster in my chest.

My dick has never been harder either.

“Who are you?” I rasp out.

She smiles.

“A fan.”

I narrow my eyes at her.

Ambiguous answer, but a spear of excitement goes through me.

I need to know more.

“Is your name really Minnie An’yan?” I ask skeptically.

“Well…” She wets her lips. “Minnie is short for Minerva. And my last name is, indeed, An’yan. I didn’t lie about that.”

Minerva. I regard her intently. Minnie suits her better.

Minerva is much too prim and proper. Minnie is…cute, playful, unexpected. Just like her.

Yet when her expression becomes serious and she challenges me…

Maybe I can see some traces of Minerva in her.

And that duality is fucking hot.

“Then why is there no record of you anywhere on the internet?” I ask.

“Hmm, I wonder,” she murmurs as she shrugs. “You know all this, yet you still allowed me to live in your house?”

“Minnie…”

“But you have nothing to be afraid of, do you?” She continues, “Because you can kill me anytime you want. And because there’s no record of me, then no one will ever look for me, either. Easy kill, isn’t it?”

“You’re not wrong,” I say with a chuckle. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about who you are.”

“You will know who I am. In due time,” she says cryptically.

“And until then, I should just allow you to stay here with me, no?”

She gives me a proud nod.

“Why?”

“Because I belong to you,” she states seamlessly as she flutters her lashes at me.

The tension from before melts away as I throw back my head and laugh.

“You’re amusing, Minnie. For that alone, I’ll keep you around.”

“And here I thought it was because I’m so irresistible that you simply couldn’t bear to not look at me ever again,” she adds jokingly.

I clear my throat. She’s not too far off the mark, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“You’re not bad to look at,” I mumble.

She smiles and shakes her head.

“There’s a present waiting for you in your room,” I add after an awkward pause. “You’ll wear that tomorrow for dinner with my mother.”

Her lips form a small O and her cheeks flush a pretty pink.

I turn to go back to my room, ready to renew my search into Minnie’s identity. Perhaps the name Minerva might yield more information.

I only take a couple of steps before she calls my name.

“Marlowe?”

“Yes?”

“Did you mean it? That you’d kill me if you saw me with another man?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she admits honestly. “A part of me hopes you wouldn’t.” She takes a deep breath. “But the other part of me loves that you would.”