“Swear to Christ, if you feed me another line of bullshit, I’ll put you over my knee and spank your ass, Emersyn.”

Holy shit.

“It was…Shawn.”  I sigh and cringe when I remember the night I came back to the club and the welcome home from him I got.  I don’t know why I thought that he would have left me alone.  I might be older now, but with The Ram ready to retire, Shawn is even more powerful at the club.  Ivy is still strutting her old ass around the floor like she’s twenty.  The Ram sticks to the bar or his office, not giving a damn about what goes on around him.  Now that his Princess of Syn has come home licking her wounds, he could care less what happens as long as the money is flowing.

But Shawn.  He is like a piece of gum you can’t get off your shoe.  The evil that was only simmering in him years before has now grown to insurmountable levels.  He no longer cares who catches him fucking unwilling dancers in the back.  Clearly, since he raped me the first night I had come back and didn’t even stop when Ivy walked into the room.  She looked right at my tear-streaked face and cocked her head like she couldn’t understand what she was seeing.  Shawn just laughed and took me harder.

“Who the fuck is Shawn?” he snarls.

How do I explain Shawn?  “He-he’s… I’m not sure how to answer that, Maddox,” I tell him honestly.

“Explain,” he demands.

I hold his eyes for a few beats before scooting off his lap and folding my legs next to where he is lying.  “Shawn is the manager of Syn.  The Ram—my father’s right hand…and my worst nightmare.”

The veins along his neck pulse with his anger as I wait him out, praying that he doesn’t ask the questions I know will follow.  I have wanted nothing more than him to open up to me, so it’s only fair that I play by the same rules.  Even if the truth is as ugly as it gets.

“You know my parents own Syn, right?”  At his nod, I continue.  “I was put into dance when I turned two.  The cute little beginner classes every little girl dreams of taking,” I laugh without mirth.  “Those turned into advanced classes as the years went on.  I’ve been trained in just about every form of dance there is.  And all of that was for one thing—so that I would take over the club as headline dancer and my parents could sit back and keep making money.  But according the The Ram, no princess can rule without her prince, and to him, my prince is Shawn.”

“That doesn’t explain how that motherfucker’s handprints ended up all over your body.”

I don’t argue with him; it doesn’t explain that.  But I also don’t know what he’s going to do when I tell him the rest.

“Keep going,” he stresses.

“I managed to put them off until I turned twenty-one.  Don’t ask me how because I’m still not sure, but the first night I took the stage seemed to be the green light for him to claim his princess.  And every night until I was saved from there, until the night I came back.  He continues to claim his princess.”

“The hell you say?”

I just nod my head and move to leave the bed.  Distance seems like a good idea right now.

“Don’t you dare leave this bed.”

I turn and almost fall to my ass when he pulls me back to him.

“He put his hands on you.  That bastard hurt you.  I’ll fucking kill him,” he vows, and I don’t doubt that he means it.

“No, you won’t.”

“The hell you say!”

I roll my eyes at him, causing his to narrow. “I’m where I deserve to be, Maddox.  We can chalk this night up to a lapse in judgment on your end, and come morning, you can drop me back off and go home.”

“Are you serious?  You think for one second that I’m willingly going to hand-deliver you to your piece-of-shit parents and a fucking rapist!” he bellows.

“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”  I wiggle out of his hold and walk to the bathroom.  I need to get my shit together and I can’t do it when he’s near me.

I stand under the scalding-hot water that’s raining over my body and let my mind wander back to when I believed my love for Maddox could overcome everything.  That seems like a lifetime ago when it was really just months earlier.  He’s pushed me away for so long that it almost feels like some twisted kind of normal for us, but it isn’t fair to either of us to continue this tug-of-war.