Kent doesn't wait for me to climb the steps up to the house. Instead, he goes in ahead of me, leaving me to follow dutifully behind.

I feel my stomach turn over for the second time today, though this time for totally different reasons. I would feel better, frankly - understand it more - if Kent were freaking out at me. Yelling at me, losing his temper, giving me commands. But this Kent? The quiet, controlled, considered Kent?

He's the one I'm afraid of.

I look down at my feet as I climb the steps, feeling every bit the naughty schoolgirl about to get yelled at for breaking the rules. The pleasant buzz that the tequila built in my mind gets wiped away by my anxiety, my adrenaline. It's as if my body knows that I have to be focused right now to face him.

When I walk into the house I see that his office door is open, a silent demand for me to enter. I take a deep breath, steeling myself, obeying that command and then walking into the office, stopping just as I cross the threshold.

"Close the door," Kent demands, his back to me as he leans his arm against the mantle of the fireplace, staring down into the fire. I don't do anything for a moment, staring at the fire myself. Why did he light it? It's warm out - a fire, so late in the season - "Fay," Kent snaps, turning to glare at me. "The door."

"Oh!" I gasp, scurrying into action and pushing the door shut behind me. Then, not knowing what else to do, I lean back against it, staring at him, waiting for him to deliver his judgement.

Kent just stares at me for a long moment. Then, he begins. "What the hell," he demands, "did you think you were doing today?"

I shrug one shoulder, not really knowing what to say. Honestly, I should have spent the time in the car planning my response to this very question. And because I don't have a practiced answer, I just tell him the truth.

"I...acted on instinct," I say, my voice a whisper. "Ivan was there, all of a sudden, his car across the road - and I got out because Jerome was going shoot at him and get himself killed. So I went to tell Ivan not to come any further, and he said he wouldn't if I went out with him for the day and..."

I run out of words, out of ideas, out of breath under the force of Kent's furious glare. But it doesn't matter. Kent knows how it ends.

"A date, Fay?" Kent asks condescendingly, putting his hands in his pockets and slowly walking over to my place by the door. "You thought that a great response to my enemy blocking your path to the stables was to go on a date with him?"

I blush as he comes to stand before me, his feet spread wide in a powerful stance.

"It wasn't a date," I murmur, looking down at my feet, feeling the redness on my cheeks deepen. "It was just..."

He laughs at me then, a low, disdainful thing.

"Drinking all day at a bar, laughing, kissing," he chides, leaning forward towards me. "It sounds like a date to me, girl."

I whip up my head at that, glaring at him. "We didn't kiss," I blurt out, defiant. Then, I blush harder when he laughs at me again.

"Does it matter if you kissed, Fay?" Kent asks, leaning back and shaking his head. "The damage is done. You were seen today, did you know that? That place he took you - it's a gathering place. Neutral territory. So, it wasn't just you and him there in that darkness - no. Men from all the families saw you there. Your father's men saw you there. Alden was the one who called me, in fact, to tell me where you were."

I go pale at this realization. Kent was right - I had assumed that Ivan took me to someplace personal and private, to a place where we precisely wouldn't be seen. I hang my head, realizing that the damage is just as bad as Kent says it is.

"So, you understand now," Kent continues. "What you've done. How you've embarrassed me. How you've embarrassed Daniel, of all people. About whom I actually thought you cared."

Frowning, ashamed of myself, I meet Kent's eyes, a little angry at that. "I do care about Daniel," I spit out. "I - I'm sorry. I didn't know that we'd be seen."

"Haven't you learned enough, Fay?" Kent bites out, his voice sharp. "To know that you can't trust your instincts in this world? That it's always one step ahead of you?"

I sigh, hanging my head, realizing that he's right. Damn it, I really thought Ivan had liked me...but now, realizing that he brought me there just so we'd be seen, so Kent would be embarrassed? I realize that I've again fallen for a ruse. "Have I not been kind to you, Fay?" Kent scolds. "Have I not given you your horse, given you your sister back? You have everything you need to live a happy life, if you'd just stay within the lines I draw for you."

His voice raises in the final words of his sentence, and I clench my teeth as I hear them. Perhaps it's the frustration in me, the embarrassment, rising again, but his words - they rankle me. I can't help myself as I raise my head to glare at him.

"Is that what I'm supposed to do?" I spit out. "Just...follow the rules? Live the life you lay out for me, Kent? Wear the clothes you pick out for me every morning, participate in the approved activities you plan, talk to the people you want me to, when you want me to?" I feel my mouth raise in a little sneer as I continue my tirade. "What's next, Kent? Are you going to pick my food out for me, plan my meals? Cut my meat on my plate every morning?"

Kent comes forward then, all quiet control, and places a hand beside my head on the door, leaning close. "If that's what it takes, Fay," he murmurs, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "To get you in line? Then yes. I'll feed you with a spoon, if you like."

I glare up at him, my lips pressed into a thin line. "And if I disobey?" I ask, my voice angry. He opens his mouth to respond but I continue, to fast for him. "What are you going to do then, take me down into your little t*****e chamber in the cellar? Punish me?" "No, Fay," he says, bringing his face closer to mine as he smirks at me. "I got the feeling that you...liked that. A little too much. So, we'll have to find some different methods to teach you how to act in this family."

I gasp at this, shocked at the gall of him - but also, frankly, by the fact that...well, that he's right. I just didn't know he knew.

Embarrassed, I push myself away from the door, moving to my right, working to get past him, away from him. "Bully," I growl, my teeth clenched. "I'm engaged to your son, you don't have any right to control my life -"

He puts his other arm up, blocking me as I try to get past him, and then his hand is suddenly against my chest, pushing me with force back against the door. I feel the breath leave me as I look up into his face, which glares furiously down into mine. "Do you think this has anything to do with Daniel anymore, Fay?" he snaps. "No, you ended that today, with your little date. You belong to me now, girl. I decide your fate from here on out."

"Is that it, then?" I ask, cocking my head and staring daggers into his dark green eyes, which are lit now with that fire I know I kindle in him. "It has nothing to do with Daniel anymore? So what, Kent, are you just admitting that you're jealous?"

"Jealous?" he whispers, considering, as if turning the word over in his mouth, tasting it on his tongue. He brings his whole body closer to mine, moving his hand away from my chest and instead back to the door on the other side of my head. He's trapping me now with his whole self, not touching me but pinning me to the wood none the less.

"Do you honestly think I'm jealous of those little boys, Fay? Daniel, or even Ivan?" Kent continues, his face filling my vision now, a smile turning up the corners of his lips. "That I'm jealous of the little stolen kisses, and the way he takes your hand, and the shivers he sends up your spine that make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end?"

I say nothing, staring up at him, the traitorous hairs on neck indeed standing to attention at his words, at the feel of his breath against my face. My breath comes quicker now, raising my chest, brushing it against Kent's. He observes me, laughing a little to see that me open my breath to get more air, that I fidget beneath the force of him.

His laugh turns in me like a knife.

"Yes," I snap, lifting my chin in defiance. "I do think you're jealous - I think you wish you were the one to -"

He snaps into action, then, quick as a fox, forcing a gasp from me as one arm wraps around my waist and another slides behind my neck, his hand holding my head in place as he pulls me flush against him, against every hard muscle of his body. "Wish I were the one to do what, Fay," he demands, cruel. "This?"

I cry out, but the noise is silenced by his mouth on mine.

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