“Whoa, love, where’s the fire?”
His hands find my biceps, goose bumps popping up beneath his touch, and I jerk back to tug at the hem of my skirt. “No fire. Just… overheated inside, a little. One thing you can’t thrift is air conditioning, I guess.”
My forced laugh does little to change the look of suspicion on his face.
“Right.” He releases me, looking down at my empty hands. “You didn’t get anything?”
“No, I was just looking.”
His frown deepens. “I thought I saw you with your arms full.”
How long had he been at the window?
I shrug, feigning innocence. “Must’ve been someone else.”
For several erratic beats of my heart, Jonas just stares down at me, those violet eyes searing a path straight to my soul.
Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I resist the urge to confide in him, knowing that’s not what this arrangement is about.
We’re on a need-to-know basis. Even that seems to have its limits.
“I reject the notion that I’d notice anyone but you,” he says quietly, piercing my heart with the tenderness of his words.
“Where’s the fire?”
Right fucking here. Can’t he feel it?
My brows furrow, confusion and lust etching themselves into my brain. The feeling grows when he slides his hand down my arm, locking our fingers together as he begins tugging me down the street.
Disbelief colors my features, muddying my thoughts as he drags me along. I can’t stop looking at where we’re connected, trying not to let my heart beat too heavily.
Finally, I steal a glance around, noting the photographer stationed by the bushes at the corner of the street. His attention is on us, documenting our every move, and the little thrill from before deflates into nothingness all over again.
I want to kick myself for entertaining anything beyond our contractual duties.
The two kisses we’ve shared have clearly fucked with me, and my long-buried desires are making everything look like more.
But Jonas isn’t capable of more, and he’s made that evident from the beginning.
More doesn’t appeal to me, anyway. That’s not why I’m here.
He drops me off at the house a little bit later before speeding off to “take care of shit,” and I busy myself with some sketches. Palmer calls a couple hours after I get home, and I take a towel outside and stretch out in the sand while he peppers me with questions.
“But you’re coming to brunch tomorrow, right?” my brother asks, and I hear his boyfriend shout something in the background. “Even I got an invite, and we both know Mama and Daddy don’t ask me to come to anything.”
Cringing, I reach up to untie the strings of my bikini top, letting the warm sunrays beat down on my back. “I hate to say it, but that feels like a trap.”
“Of course, it is. But you can’t deny that it’ll be exciting.”
“Exciting is definitely one word for it.” Rolling my head to the other side, I gasp as a figure down the beach appears in my peripheral.
Sitting up, I cover my breasts with my forearm, squinting into the distance.
“What? What happened, swan? Are you okay?”
Palmer’s voice barely reaches my ears as I stare out, unease notching at my sternum. The shore is empty, practically a ghost town, but I swear I saw someone.
Clearing my throat, I brush it off. My mind has been known to play tricks on me, so maybe that’s all this was.
Maybe someone from the farmers’ market got lost, or a tourist stopped to wet their feet.
“I’m fine,” I tell my brother, even though the tightness in my chest indicates otherwise.
I used to see things a lot more often. Shadowy, malignant figures everywhere I turned, waiting to push me down and force themselves on me no matter how many times I screamed no.
For a while, it was difficult to even leave my bedroom. The nightmares were frequent, forcing me to relive that night over and over. To expect it every time I came into contact with someone.
That’s why I went to Vermont. A fresh start.
To get away from the trauma.
I thought I’d moved on.
The attack at Daddy’s party weeks ago should’ve been my first indication, though, that I haven’t. Not fully, anyway.
I didn’t even flinch when I killed Preston’s friend.
Someone who’s doing well would have likely had a different, more appropriate reaction.
Sighing, I let Palmer ramble about past events for a while, using his voice as a balm to my nerves. Eventually, I tell him I need to get a shower, and he grumbles but lets me go anyway, making me promise to text him when we’ve left in the morning.
My lungs compress as I get to the top of the stairs, a sob catching in my chest. It bubbles, refusing to come out, and I cover my mouth with my hand until I make it to the bedroom at the end of the hall.
The door swings open, and I freeze in place.
A pile of shopping bags sits on the floor in front of the bed, their handles twisted together. Stepping closer, I scowl, recognizing the thrift shop’s logo on the reusable packaging.
Pulling the first one apart, I see the pink crystal swan from earlier, and my heart thumps loud against my ribs.
Reaching into another bag, I pull out the fuzzy socks I had in hand at the checkout counter. A cashmere sweater, a porcelain tea set with lilies painted around the rim of the cups.
Everything I had at the store but chose not to buy.
My throat constricts, and I put the items back, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
One thing’s for certain: if no one else, Jonas is watching.
Paying attention.
For some reason, I find that as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
17
The water morphs into a reddish brown as it pools at my feet, disappearing into the shower drain. Turning around to brace my hands on the wall, I let the harsh spray work over my tired muscles, massaging out the kinks that come with a labor career.
I reach over my shoulder, pressing down on a particularly stubborn knot caused by Sergeant Gonzalez’s nightstick, another name I’ve crossed off the list after questioning turned to retaliation.
Can’t blame the bloke for trying.
Unfortunately, I’ve had much longer to sit with my demons, and their festering can’t be cured except by bloodshed.
Every time I come back worse for wear, I can tell the little puppet sleeping in my bed wants to ask about it. Her sweet eyes light up, like she’s fascinated by the things that should horrify her, and her mouth poises around unspoken questions.
Perhaps it’s just boredom fueling her interest. Aside from lounging on the beach and the endless hours she spends painting or drawing, Lenny doesn’t seem to have anything else to do.
It’s almost as if she revolved around her family’s company and the PR relations she was forced to maintain, and now that she’s somewhat free of those shackles, she doesn’t know how to spend her time.
With each passing day, she seems to grow more despondent. I thought dating a socialite meant being dragged from event to event, and yet our shopping trip was the first time we’ve been out as a couple in the weeks since she moved in.
On the one hand, her despair fills me with a sick sort of gratification.
Revenge by proxy.
Alistair’s words echo in my mind, his insistence on keeping up appearances reminding me that while I don’t necessarily want to care about Lenny’s happiness, at least while we’re pretending to date, I’m supposed to.