Page 57 of Beautiful Secrets

Zasranec!

I push up straight in my seat, and almost go straight for the door handle, but then Cole lets out a chuckle and turns on the indicator. “Hey now, I know what’ll cheer you up. Little bit of retail therapy, whatdya say?”

“What is it?” I ask suspiciously, still sour that he made fun of me.

He barks out a laugh. I think he means it to sound bright, but there’s a tightness to his voice too.

If I hadn’t heard that, I might have thought he was telling tall tales about his childhood just to amuse himself. But now I am convinced it was all true.

He parks on the street, squeezing his car into a parking spot I wouldn’t have thought big enough to accommodate it.

A boutique.

I open the door, and force myself not to fixate on the fact that it was indeed unlocked the entire time—even though the bolt was down.

We still have to go to his asylum—and at least now I know I can jump out at any time.

Cole walks past, grabs my wrist, and slides his fingers between mine. The touch is so unexpected, I almost pull away.

We are greeted by an elegantly-dressed sales lady who takes us deeper inside the store. The shop space is larger on the inside than it appears from the street, and it has an upstairs area with a landing that wraps all the way around.

Cole starts speaking to the woman, but it could have been in a different language with their thick accents and the strange words they use. So instead of trying to figure out what they are saying, as soon as Cole lets go of my hand I start browsing through the racks of clothing.

The silky feel of those fabrics—so different from the stiff and scratchy tulle mother makes me wear—thrills over my fingertips.

“See anything you like?” comes Cole’s voice, an inch from my ear.

I start, whirling around with a hand on my heart. “You give me a fright,” I say, and then blush. “Yougaveme a fright.”

His smile could be many things, but condescending it is not. “Pick out something nice,” he says. “Something pretty.”

I huff. “Let me guess…something pink?”

He shrugs, and walks away.

My eyes immediately go to the front of the store. The door is closed—I assume to block the sound of traffic from the street—but no one is standing guard. I could—

“Or I’ll choose something for you.”

I start again, but this time I don’t turn around. “Stop buzzing around like a fly,” I tell him in the sternest voice I can manage. “Go have a smoke.”

“Fine,” he says.

His hand appears to one side, holding the stem of a champagne flute, a rosy liquid bubbling inside. I take it without thinking, and he brings another flute close enough to tap. That crystalline sound sings through the room.

“Dressing rooms are upstairs,” he murmurs into my ear.

Then he walks out of the shop and lights up a cigarette right outside the doors before strutting away. I turn, wide-eyed, and immediately spot the sales lady he was talking to earlier.

She is watching me.Intently.

He must have told her to keep an eye on me in case I tried something. For all I know, she is in his pocket.

My hand brushes something deliciously silky, and I tear my eyes away from the woman to look at what I found.

As soon as I take it off the rack and hold it up, my breath catches.

It shimmers. It shines.