Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

seemed so normal. Medium height, blond, with a nice jawline. His hair was longish, but not as if it was a style he’d chosen. Rather, it was long in a way that screamed lack of self-care. His oily skin and ill-fitting shirt also added to the overall impression of a man who didn’t know how to dress or take care of himself.

A man who’d never had a friend or lover to guide him on how to present himself to the world.

“I always read your papers,” he said. “I support you, Anna.”

That’s what she’d expected from a man who labeled both himself, and her, as cerebral. “What did you think about the commentary on the dichotomy of positive and negative representations of therapy and psychiatry in pop culture?” she asked with as much genuine curiosity as she could feign.

He frowned down at his wine glass, and she gripped the chain tighter, trying not to visibly tense in anticipation of the blow if she’d miscalculated and he reacted badly. An academic discussion should appeal to the “cerebral” aspect of his fantasy construct, but if he felt she were challenging or quizzing him…

“I don’t think we need to make people feel like therapy is acceptable,” he said after a moment. “The people who need it just need to do it.”

That was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Annalise nodded, even leaned into him. “Interesting. And what of people who might feel ashamed of needing help.”

“Do they even matter? I mean, if they need that kind of help, they’re probably useless.”

She swallowed down a slightly hysterical giggle. The utter lack of self-awareness was comical.

“I want people who need help to get it,” she countered ever so gently. “If they don’t come to see people like me…well, then we’ll never know how to explain the ways a human mind works.”

That statement was also nonsense because she wasn’t a therapist. If he’d actually understood the papers she wrote, and what she did, surely he would realize that what she’d just said was off.

But he didn’t react except to reach out for the wine bottle, plucking it from the tiny counter and setting it on the table. “You can just talk to them after they catch them.”

Annalise nodded again, now confident that hubris was a driving factor in his actions. This man thought he was far smarter than he actually was. Which also meant, if she was careful, and controlled her own reactions, he could be manipulated. Manipulated into sitting there and talking to her. Into drinking wine that might lower his inhibitions and reaction time.

Annalise reached for the inelegantly presented plate of charcuterie. “Do you want me to make you a plate? I love to have some wine with fruit and cheese.”

He shifted awkwardly, then squared his shoulders. “Yes. You should make me a plate.”

Annalise unwrapped the cheese, and when she put a lost and helpless expression on her face, he rose and grabbed her a table knife, then a plate. She cut cheese, arranged a plate, then passed it to him before lifting the bottle of wine. “Do you want some more wine? Anything else I can get you?”

He preened, clearly enjoying her in the role of subservient female. He’d said he wanted to take care of her. What he wanted was to control her, to have power over her. Rather than allow him to choose the shape and manner of it, she would do it. Give him perceived power over her by making herself subservient.

Buy time until Jakob and Walt arrived.

Only how long would it be? How far behind her were they?

God. Please let them be on the way.

She asked for his opinions of her other papers and journal articles, careful never to ask or say anything that might remind him that she knew nothing about him.

The minutes dragged on into an hour, maybe more, and Annalise’s fist was so tight on the chain that the links felt like they were fusing with her skin.

Jakob and Walt were coming for her…unless they weren’t. Unless Jakob was in the hospital fighting for his life, Walt beside him. Because if Jakob was hurt, that was where Walt would be.

Or worse, what if Jakob was dead?

She’d been so careful to keep herself from even obliquely considering that possibility, but now that she’d let that horrific thought in, she couldn’t get rid of it. Couldn’t shake the memory of Jakob’s face drawn tight in pain, of him falling back against the wall of the hotel, and then sliding to the ground.

“Anna.”

His hand clamped tight around her wrist and Annalise jerked, brought back to the moment, fear for Jakob fluttering high in her chest.

“You weren’t listening to me.” He sounded disappointed and angry.

Annalise twisted her wrist in his grip, so her hand was palm up, fingers softly curled, a deliberately vulnerable position.

“I’m so sorry. Something you said gave me an idea for another paper.” Was she talking too fast? It felt like she was.

He was still frowning at her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, lowering her gaze. “It was very rude of me.”

He grunted, an arrogant noise of satisfaction that made her body burn with rage. She hated this, hated sitting here playing pretend while the man she loved, and who loved her, might be sick or dead.

No. Jakob was okay. Walt was there with him.

Just the thought of the sweet American doctor had the tightness in her chest loosening. How Walt had managed to sneak under her defenses—and Jakob’s—so quickly was a mystery to her. She thought she’d lost the ability to trust others, to let people in. For so long, it had been her and Jakob against the world.

Walt changed that. He challenged them to open themselves up to possibilities they’d only dreamed of.

As well as possibilities she’d never considered.

What would she give to be back in that hotel just before the fire alarm sounded? Jakob standing behind her, kissing her neck, his hands on her breasts, Walt teasing her with his big hand, thick fingers. She