Chapter 105

This dress was the only good thing that came out of my Hamptons hell, and now she has turned it to worthless trash. ‘‘Oopsy.’’ She smirks at me. Accidental maybe, but she’s more than happy about it and gloating like a childish playground bitch.

‘’This dress cost more than you get paid a month, what the actual fuck?’’ I literally snap at her, accusatory and hatred evident as Alexi’s hand cups my shoulder firmly and tugs me back to disengage my crazy mode of ‘‘Kill Joanne.’’

‘‘Enough! Get upstairs like I told you and don’t come back down. Joanne, go do your job and get this mess cleaned up.’’ He sounds as equally pissed at her as he does me, and she scuttles off like a little obedient lap dog without a hint of rebellion. Obviously, my first assessment of her was right, she has no backbone when it comes to Alexi. He will get bored of her faster than I can blink.

‘‘You’re paying for the dry-cleaning bill, seeing as she’s your disaster. I didn’t need any help down here and this dress is irreplaceable.’’ I snap at him, completely distraught and enraged as I haul myself free of his grip childishly. ‘’Don’t fucking touch me.’’ I grit it out under my breath as an afterthought in rage because he’s a bully, a bossy shit, and I am done playing his stupid games.

He lost the right to touch me after what he did in the Hamptons, and he will never get it back. His touch makes my skin crawl now. He lets me go but holds me still with those focused eyes and furrowed brow.

‘‘I’ll pay for the cleaning or a new dress, now don’t make a scene or I will publicly spank you.’’ He warns in an equally hushed tone, but I just roll my eyes at him.

‘’Of course you will.’’ Sarcasm oozing with disdain and even I know that’s an empty threat. He might get someone else to spank me, but this complete distaste for violence against women is a weakness for him that he should stop emphasizing. It’s not honour or a code if that kind of trait is discovered by someone like Santagato.

He just scowls and growls like a good old beastly monster, and I make a move before I encourage some other form of discipline. I am still sore about that damned room and that god awful cross among every other thing he has inflicted on me and just hightail it out into the corridor to work my way back to the lift before he rethinks my free pass.

Wiping my dress in a completely useless manner and tutting and sighing at how ruined it is. The security men are huddled in a little group laughing and joking by the back door and pay no attention to me. The ones nearer the rear exit are gazing outside with the door open, and something going on back there that is either entertaining or dramatic enough to gather them like gossipy women to watch.

I don’t stop to find out what and walk along the quiet empty hall to the left which houses the lifts, concealed from the club and the door, pull out my card and swipe the nearest pad to get one to open. I wander into the first one that slides open gracefully, turn around and then jump in fright when a figure slides in beside me and covers my mouth with his hand before thrusting me against the wall aggressively.