Page 45 of Secret Pleasure (Bound Hearts 13)

“So you can bully her?” Raeg snapped, his expression filled with contempt as he watched her.

“Whatever it takes,” Davis answered for her. “Whatever it takes to keep her alive.”

Margot nodded sharply and left the room. What she had to do next would require all the deceit she’d learned to practice over the years. All the lies she’d learned to tell.

She was going to convince Harvey to come to her.

Then she was going to ensure the little bastard could never hurt her daughter again.

10

FOUR DAYS LATER

What happened?

Why was she in her parents’ downstairs guest room? It made no sense. And why was Margot sitting next to her bed, texting? Margot hated texting.

She hated texting worse than she hated e-mail. She could be convinced to do e-mail, but Alyssa had never known her to text.

“Momma?” It slipped. She rarely called her mother Momma. She remembered doing it six years before, but until now she hadn’t done so again.

Margot lifted her head, the smile that curled her lips so hard and cold that for a moment she thought her mother was angry with her.

“I love you, Alyssa,” Margot said then.

“I know.” Sadness sank inside her; the confrontational relationship she and her mother had was as much her fault as Margot’s. She knew that. “I always knew.”

God, she was so tired. She just want to sleep, to drift away on the warm currents she could feel reaching out to her. She was always so cold. Margot couldn’t understand that; neither could Summer. Alyssa was always so cold except when she slept. When dreams of Shane and Sebastian wrapped around her and warmed her.

“I’m so tired, Momma,” she tried to explain, but it was so hard to focus. “Please just let me go.”

“Will you be back, Alyssa?”

She wanted to lie to her mother, but lying to her was something Alyssa was always loath to do. Margot never lied to her. She was always honest, even when it hurt.

Alyssa forced her eyes open, forced herself to stare back at her mother. “Let me go,” she whispered.

She’d heard her mother’s voice, even in her dreams, demanding she live or Shane and Sebastian would be hurt. Why should she care? Why did their suffering bother her? Why did she dream that they already suffered so deeply?

“Well then,” Margot’s voice hitched. “Sebastian and Shane just arrived in town and they called your cell. I’ve been texting for you, sweetie.”

Texting for her? Trepidation shot through Alyssa then. Why would her mother text Shane and Sebastian for her?

“No.…” They weren’t there; they didn’t want her. They were afraid she would be a nuisance.

“Oh yes.” Satisfaction filled Margot’s voice then. “When you take your last breath I’ll direct those sons of bitches straight to the men awaiting my order. They’re here for you, you know? Can you believe they came for you after betraying you so cruelly? Do you think I’ll have any mercy on them, Alyssa? I swear to you, I will not.”

Came for her? Was she a pet, some toy they thought they could play with, toss aside, then come back for? She’d be damned if they would.

Life flared in Alyssa’s eyes in ways i

t hadn’t since she’d returned from Barcelona. Then anger. Margot wanted to shout in victory, but the realization of what she was about to do was too heartrending.

“Good then. I’ll just text them back. As you of course. Ask them to give me a few days to think,” she said, returning to the messages she’d been exchanging with Sebastian. “We’ll not discuss this again.”

“I’ll win the next argument,” Alyssa promised her, though she was already drifting off back to sleep.

“When you wake, Alyssa, I put something in your wish box,” Margot said softly. “Find it.” Brushing back the heavy strands of her daughter’s hair, she whispered a kiss against her brow. “I love you, girl. I always loved you so very much.”