Page 46

MARISELA

H e was pretty. Prettier than any grown man should be.

With long, dark lashes. Deep brown eyes and a square, shaved jawline.

Medium-toned skin that told me he was mixed with…

something. A strong nose and a prominent brow.

The type of sharp features that meant you could feel it when he looked at you.

Like he could somehow peel back every layer of clothing on your body without ever touching it.

It was the most I’d felt of anything in days. Familiarity with a smattering of confusion. An odd sense of being comfortably exposed while I fought the instinct to cross my arms over my chest.

But that wouldn’t be ladylike. The voice whispered in my ear. Ladies kept their hands at their sides, a smile on their lips and their legs closed. Tight.

As tight as the constricting of my throat as I tried to swallow past my anxiety.

I wanted to shake the noise out of my head.

But they’d dug a hole. Fed and nurtured the insanity until it took root.

Until it sprung free on its own and twisted itself around my common sense.

Like a parasitic vine in a rose garden. Taking over to the point trying to rip it free would do more damage than good.

They’d played those tapes over and over again. And then it all mingled together so that I didn’t know the difference between my own voice and theirs. My own thoughts and the ones they’d implanted.

Exposure therapy I’d heard them say. But torture is what I would have called it. A slow, methodical torture as disembodied chatter took over the silence. I didn’t know what silence was like anymore. Just the white noise of static and the buzzing of the electrodes on my forehead.

What I did know was that those dark eyes were looking at me again. Staring at me from across the table. Watching me. Calling me forward to the point my toes were dancing in my Mary Janes while the man beside me—the same man I was supposed to marry—didn’t spare more than a glance in my direction.

Which was fine. I didn’t care much for him either. Mutual disgust wasn’t the worst way to coexist.

I blinked and suddenly the clinking of silverware and glasses alerted me to the time.

Dinner was over and I didn’t even remember eating.

I couldn’t be certain I ever did. Just that the table was being cleared and I was being shuffled towards the parlor door, where tea and coffee were now being served.

I cleared my throat, trying to force out a full sentence and coming up with a handful of words.

“The powder room…?” All eyes turned my way as I did my best to appear more human than doll.

But not so human that I insulted the self-importance of the men surrounding me.

“May I please use your powder room, Mr. Prescott?”

The older man in the navy-blue jacket with gold buttons eyed me for a moment, a sour expression twisting up his lips though I didn’t know why, before he waved a hand in the air. “Make it quick.”

“Yes, sir.” I dipped my head into a polite nod, slowly turning on a heel and walking out of the room.

I couldn’t breathe. Not with all of them looking at me. Not with him looking at me. I felt like I was drowning and dying of thirst at the same time. Like I was both trapped inside my body and floating above it. As a bunch of rich fuckers in stuffy suits discussed their plans for me.

I grabbed the powder room door and wrenched it open, prepared to slam it closed again when a polished shoe forced its way inside, followed by the body it was attached to.

I recognized that shoe. The Italian leather and hand-stitching.

But more than that, I recognized the way his voice dropped an octave when he spoke to me.

The way he tasted my name and the heat of his palm as he brushed it over my cheek.

“I know you…” It was a statement, even if it sounded more like a question.

He stepped forward and I stepped back. Not because I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid. More like trapped. And I couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped again .

“What did they do to you, little lamb?” He might have been looking at me, but he was talking to himself.

My eyes widened before I schooled my features again. Ladies didn’t emote. The voices were quieter now, looming in the background instead of the forefront of my mind, as the smell of his cologne wrapped itself around me. Creating a cloud of a different kind.

He clicked the lock on the door in place, and then he was stalking forward again. Closer and closer until I was pressed against the corner of the powder room.

“Where’s the mask?” I hissed, unable to keep my own from slipping. I was angry, hurt, and angry again because I didn’t like feeling hurt.

He tilted his head to look at me for a moment, his dark eyebrows pinched together as he reached out a hand to brush a stray curl out of my face. I flinched. Human touch was an odd sensation nowadays. Alien when it used to be the only thing that let me know I was alive.

His lips pursed, like he was chewing on the inside of his cheeks as he watched my reaction. “Don’t think it really matters anymore, does it, Marisela?”

“You’re right. It doesn’t.” I clenched my jaw, my eyes flicking behind him as I waited for the door to pull open at any moment.

Surely someone would come looking for us.

For me, at least. I didn’t have the luxury of even pissing on my own.

“You were working with them the whole time, weren’t you?

” I shoved at his chest. Adrian’s chest. Because I had a name to go with my shadow man’s bullshit now. A face too .

“No.” A one-word reply. No more explanation than that.

“Yes,” I hissed a little more forcefully. “After we… after you …” I shook my head. “You told me to wait in my bedroom that night. Promised me you were coming back for me. But you never did, did you?”

“No,” he agreed, but it didn’t matter because I was already speaking again.

“And do you know what happened next?” I didn’t wait for him to answer me.

“Papa found all that blood in the hallway, called his friend and told him Mama attacked me. That she ran off so he could send me to that place to recover from the shock .” I was shaking, my chest heaving and my fists flexing at my sides.

“No one even bothered to question where the blood came from or why I didn’t have any wounds on me.

Then again, I’m sure they were paid not to ask.

You were paid not to ask,” I spit the accusation in his face.

He didn’t blink. “No.”

“ Yes! You were there. At the hospital. I remember those eyes. Your voice. You helped them bring me there, and then you didn’t come back.

” I pounded on his shoulders as he dropped to his knees in front of me, tightening my grip on the exhausted tear that wanted to break free and channeling the rage instead. “Why didn’t you come back?”

“No,” he repeated, as he stared up at me, and then he was lifting up my skirt and tugging down my stockings before I could register what this man was doing on the bathroom floor.