Chapter Fifteen
Robert’s Point of View
I watched her as she tightened her grip on my blue pajamas, which she had stolen from my closet as if they were her only shield.
She stood with her back to me, but her tense shoulders and racing breath betrayed all the terror she was trying to hide.
Seeing her wearing a shirt stained with strawberry cake and her hair disheveled in that mess did not diminish her prestige in my eyes; rather, it made her look like a wild cat trapped in a narrow corner, still refusing to surrender.
It was funny how she thought a piece of silk belonging to me might protect her from me, while she stood in the middle of my kingdom, and in my room whose contents no one had ever dared to meddle with before.
I took an additional step until my chest almost brushed against her back; I wanted to make her feel how small she was in the face of my authority.
I said to her in a low voice, terrifyingly calm:
— "Silence is not an answer, Julie.. do you think I won’t know about your little performance in front of the doctor?"
I was enjoying seeing her internal struggle, and it seemed to me that her pride was the only thing preventing her from collapsing right now.
I was waiting for a single movement, a single word from her, to see to what extent this "angel" with the sweet voice could turn into a devil carrying a scalpel.
She turned to me forcefully, as if my words were the straw that broke the back of her false composure.
She looked at me with her burning eyes, which were igniting with a mixture of resentment and rebellion, and said in a sharp tone:
— "It doesn’t seem that secrets stay hidden in this place!"
I suppressed a mocking smile that almost appeared on my lips; this little girl truly thinks I run this empire by mere chance, or that my eyes sleep through what goes on behind closed doors.
I filled my lungs with what remained of the scent of my cigarette smoke in the room and replied with a coldness that matched the sharpness of her words:
— "There is no place for secrets here, Julie.. everything that happens, I know in tedious detail."
She raised her small finger in my face with a defiance I wasn’t accustomed to from anyone, and said, her voice trembling from the intensity of the insult:
— "Your doctor cannot ask me to take off my clothes.. and with all insolence, she wants to verify my virginity!"
For the first time, I see a rebellion this dangerous; she doesn’t just reject orders, she refuses to adapt to the rules of this "club" in any way, as if she were created to break every rule I set.
I replied to her in a dry tone, trying to reclaim my authority that seemed to be shaking before her anger:
— "This is the club’s protocol, and you cannot bypass it."
She bit her cherry lip hard, as if trying to suppress an insult, then said in a sharp tone:
— "You cannot force me to follow any protocol, Mr. Robert."
The word "Mr. Robert" came out of her mouth with a completely different tone; I was used to hearing my name from everyone with reverence or fear, but from her, it sounded like a silk-wrapped bullet, carrying a different impact in my ear.
I couldn’t help myself, so I took a decisive step and placed my hand on the door behind her, trapping her between me and the cold wood, until nothing separated us but our labored breaths.
I said to her in a low voice, carrying a final tone of threat:
— "Don’t make me force you into this.. believe me, you don’t want that to happen."
She lowered her head with a graceful movement and slipped from under my hand like a small bird escaping a hunter’s grip, then stopped a few steps away from me.
She didn’t turn around; instead, she threw her words, which were a blade sharper than that scalpel she left with the doctor:
— "Are you going to take off my clothes yourself to check your merchandise?"
I froze in my place, my insides boiling with a mixture of astonishment and suppressed anger.
I was surprised by the extent of her audacity; how did she possess such courage to hurl such words in my face even though her body was visibly trembling—a trembling my eyes could not miss?
She was like someone dancing on the edge of an abyss while shaking with fear of falling, yet never stopping.


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