Page 25 of Seduce & Destroy

“Yes,” I hissed softly back.

When she struggled to find a moment of clarity to speak, I took the opportunity to study her features. The room was darkened, but I could still see the green-tinted grey of her eyes, the soft spattering of freckles on her nose, and the way that her dirty blonde hair showed highlights in reduced light.

I looked briefly at her screen. There was a list of names: some in red, underlined, and some crossed out in green, but my name wasn’t there.

My gaze returned to her. “I’ll be at your door tonight.”

Laney shifted beneath me.

“Don’t ignore my knock this time,” I said, pushing myself off her chair and walking out the door.

Chapter 9

LANEY

Ididn’t think that the girl who had haunted my teenage dreams would be such a brat. The way she came into my private space and demanded I listened to her. I could forgive that she was new, but I couldn’t stand an ego. I would show her.

“Do you want to hang out tonight?” I said to Neenan across from me in the barracks’ mess hall. Can’t ignore a knock if I wasn’t there to hear it.

Two plates of chilli con carne sat between us, perfectly untouched, as I build the courage to dig in. Being in such a remote location meant our food was often made from cans and grains. My father, top management and I usually received the limited fresh produce we could get. Yet, I ate the mess hall food more often than my mother probably would’ve liked, but sometimes, the plain food was exactly what I needed—comfort food.

“Did they change cooks or something?” He continued to look at his plate with disgust.

“I don’t know.” I spoke fast. “But we could watch a film or sneak out in the woods, start a fire,” I wiggled my eyebrows.

“Yeah, right. You mean I start the fire, while you hide under a blanket and then paint our nails.”

“I’ll make sure yours are very pretty, rest assured.” I gave him my best doe eyes. “Pretty please.”

“Are you even allowed outside?”

“Allowed? I’m not a teenager.”

“I don’t know, man. The woods are scary, who knows what is out there? Or worse…who is out there?”

“I’ll bring knives,” I defended.

“As if you don’t have one strapped to your thigh right now,” he said, daring to shovel a mouthful of rice into his mouth.

“And on my ankle.” I smiled.

He grimaced at that moment, leaning forward, and sputtering over the table.

“Are you okay? Oh my God!”

He swallowed a couple of times before he could speak again.

“Can we go to your kitchen? I’ll let you paint my toenails.” Father and I had our own kitchen and supplies hidden in the dimmest corner of the manor. It had once belonged to the service men and women in the seventeenth century when the house and the home were two separate spheres, but it meant that it was always quiet. Out of sight, out of mind. I sometimes snuck Neenan down there as a reprieve from the outside world. It didn’t hurt that the cupboards were filled. Everyone needs a block of chocolate every now and then. “But not my fingernails, okay!”

I laughed as we stood.

“Keep an eye out for anyone looking,” I told Neenan, while I checked over my shoulder periodically looking for long dark hair. Since Kenna’s visit to my office, I’d been on guard. It had spooked me, not because it was her, but because I was so vulnerable in front of her, and I hated it. I had to spit my words out to be heard. Her proximity stifled me, and I couldn’t give her the power. It would drown me. I had to show her I was stronger than that, and not just at the whims of my feelings.

He nodded to my request, glancing around each new hallway we passed. If he was suspicious, he didn’t show it, even when I suddenly reached my hand out to stop him in his tracks as I saw a person with a leather jacket in the distance. One look at the person's hair, and my chest deflated. It was short. Not her.

“Are you hiding from someone?” He asked.

“No,” I denied too fast. “Just thought I saw something.”