Page 10 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Nine

“We were strangers under the same roof. We were perfect pretenders in the stage of the world.”

— Ranjani Ramachandran

Scarlett

25 years old

One year ago

I groaned as the warm water slid over my shoulders. Glitter and makeup swirled at my feet, remnants of a night well spent, draining away.

The gala went exactly how I’d expected. Everyone had clapped, a few cried during “Butterfly,” but I guessed they just liked the attention.

My family had been there too. Kiara said it was the most beautiful dress I’d ever worn. Probably because she’d helped Victoria pick it.

On stage, as I hit the highest note of “Hate The Way I Live” and people had risen from their seats to applaud, it had hit me.

Performing had become muscle memory. Routine. Rehearsed to hell and back.I bowed, I smiled, I cried on cue, I waved. Rinse, repeat.Everything always felt robotic. Except for tonight, just for a second, it hadn’t.

Not during the songs, not during the applause, but when some small girl in the front row had clutched her chest like she couldn’t breathe, like I was her oxygen.

It scared me how badly I wanted to believe her.

Sometimes I caught myself wondering if begging my father to make me a star was the biggest mistake of my life. Back then, I’d thought fame would taste like freedom. But it didn’t.

It tasted like the last sip of flat champagne at a party you’re desperate to leave. Stale and hollow. Nothing like what I thought I was signing up for.

After the standing ovation, I slipped back into the crowd like I’d been born there.

Because I had been.

I was a Harper, after all. These kinds of events were practically embedded in my DNA, right between public speaking and pretending to care.

Luxury didn’t impress me anymore. Neither did foie gras.

I caught sight of Angelo across the room, deep in conversation with his mother and Jade, who, two years ago, had somehow gone from assistant to COO.

And honestly? Something in me just knew .

The way he looked at her, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to strangle her or kiss her, gave it away. I’d known my cousin my whole life. I’d never seen him that twitchy around a woman. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

It was almost funny.

I ended up seated next to Victoria, who declared loudly that she literally cried at the end of “Butterfly.”

“No wonder you won a Grammy for that one,” she added, glancing at my chest. “Also, your tits in this corset? Very Victorian widow. In mourning. For modesty. Kiara was right, it was the perfect choice.”

The dinner crowd swirled around me like overly perfumed vultures. People came and went: some asked for photos, others for hugs, a few just to breathe the same air.

But first, they had to go through LeRoy. My human wall. He’d parked himself next to me like a marble statue with a Bluetooth earpiece.

By the time the fourth person asked if I was allowed to talk, I leaned in and muttered, “You know, you could at least pretend I’m not radioactive. I don’t bite.”

A pause.

“Not unless provoked.”

LeRoy blinked once. “If that’s your preference, Miss Harper.”

To his credit, he actually moved five steps back, like I’d granted him parole.

Victoria groaned, shaking her head. “Gosh, I don’t know how you do it.”

I arched a brow, turning toward her. “Do what?”

“Live with this man.” She nodded toward LeRoy as she fanned herself dramatically. “I mean, look at him! Every single person in here is staring at him. Women and men. Hell, even the bartenders are watching.”

I scoffed, my eyes darting around the room.

She wasn’t wrong. It was like he was a magnet, and everyone was stuck on him.

Women were practically melting in their heels, whispering behind their glasses, sneaking glances like they were trying to steal a piece of him.

The men looked at him like they wanted to either be him or bury him six feet under, their eyes burning with a cocktail of envy and fear.

But LeRoy? Completely unfazed, as if he were accustomed to it, his eyes only on me.

I shot him a glare, then turned away to reach for my glass.

Victoria sipped her champagne. “Think he ever gets bored watching you like a hawk?”

I jabbed my risotto with more force than necessary. “God, I hope so. Maybe then he’ll finally quit and I can go back to disappointing people without supervision.”

She laughed, and for a moment, dinner wasn’t entirely terrible. The risotto was decent, the wine was good enough, and, thankfully, no one had mentioned rehab, Page Six , or arranged marriages yet.

Small wins, right?

An hour slid by, and by the time dessert was served in the second dining room, I was too drained to even pretend I cared about the next round of forced chitchat.

We grabbed our purses and called it a night. LeRoy escorted us out, and the second those doors opened, the swarm of fans behind the barriers hit me like a wave.

Security tried their best to keep them back, but that didn’t stop me from feeling a twist of guilt. There they were, standing in the cold, sacrificing warmth and sleep just for a glimpse of me.

So, I smiled, stepped forward, and bestowed one polite nod after another.

Pictures, autographs, a few hugs—it wasn’t much, but somehow it made me feel a bit less like a performer and more like a person when one of them told me their favorite song and why it mattered to them.

It was brief, it was routine, but it still warmed me in a way I didn’t expect.

By the time I made my way back to the car, Victoria was already asleep, her head tilted back against the seat, her soft snores the only indication that she was still with us.

Cute.

I slid into the back seat quietly, and LeRoy took his place in the front. I gave a quick murmur to my driver, an order to head home. The second we made it back, Victoria bolted off to her place, and LeRoy and I headed to mine.

He punched in the new password, the door clicked open, and he turned on all the lights before stepping aside to let me pass. He closed it quietly behind us with no words exchanged.

Just how we liked it.

No awkward good night or whatever fake pleasantries were expected.

I saw his eyes flicker to my favorite painting on the wall, the one with a naked girl with red hair running through a lavender field, before he quickly looked away.

I made a beeline for my room, shedding the night’s dress. I barely even glanced at it before I was in the shower, letting the water pour over me.

When I finally stepped out, my skin pruned to perfection, I tossed my wet hair into a braid. After tugging on a pajama set with long sleeves and shorts, I padded into the kitchen, flicked on the light, and winced like I’d just stepped into the sun.

Mid-crisis. High alert. Brain fried.

The only logical solution? Unholy amounts of sugar and sodium.

It was the perfect moment for my go-to comfort concoction, a meal so sacred, so objectively disgusting, it should be illegal in at least twelve countries.

I raided the pantry.

Salt and vinegar crisps? Check. Japanese mochi bread loaf? Check.

My next stop was the fridge. I secured the raspberry jam, then fished the peanut butter out of the cabinet.

I slapped two slices of bread onto a plate like I was performing surgery under pressure. One slice got an aggressive smear of peanut butter. The other, jammed within an inch of its life.

Something itched at the back of my neck.

I shook it off. Just paranoia. Or maybe the carbs.

I reached for my chips and?—

“I changed the security system. Someone tried to log in tonight.”

I screamed. A full, chest-cracking, soul-leaving-my-body scream.

The chips almost didn’t survive. I spun around so quickly I nearly took the whole counter down with me.

LeRoy stood there tapping on an iPad without even glancing up.

The screen was lit up with streams of data, numbers, graphs, and timestamps, none of which mattered nearly as much as the fact that my heart was trying to punch its way out of my chest.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I snapped, clutching my plate like it was a shield. “You can’t just stalk people in the dark like some emotionally repressed shadow demon!”

He kept tapping. “I’ve contacted your building owner,” he said, voice flat. “In the past month, there have been three unauthorized attempts to access the hallway cameras. Always at night. Always targeting your floor.”

I threw my hands up. “Cool. Love that for me. Could you maybe not deliver murder statistics while I’m trying to stress-eat my feelings?”

His eyes flicked to the plate, then back to me. “You call that food?”

“I call it coping ,” I hissed. “You wouldn’t get it. You probably subsist on protein bars and silence.”

He lifted a brow. “I don’t get emotionally attached to sandwiches.”

“Oh, good,” I muttered. “Then you won’t cry when I shove this entire loaf down your throat.”

There was a pause. Just enough for the air to turn ice cold.

“You’re welcome to try, Miss Harper. But we both know you’d choke before I blinked.”

One. Two. Three seconds.

“Who says I don’t like choking?”

For the first time, he hesitated, just for a second, his finger hovering over the iPad screen.

I finished assembling my culinary abomination, pressing the chips into the peanut butter, slapping the jam slice on top. Turning back to the fridge, I yanked out my favorite apple juice and poured it into a crystal glass.

“Remind me again,” I muttered, “how long have I had to endure your existence?”

“Six months.”

“Six months of hell, and you’re still as irritating as ever,” I grumbled, setting the juice back in the fridge, my back to him.

“Six months of you complaining and I’m somehow the worst part of your life?” he replied, his voice smooth as a blade. “That’s a compliment, if I’m being honest.”

I smirked, tilting my head back to meet his cold stare. “Don’t flatter yourself. I haven’t tried to really get rid of you yet. Got bigger rats to deal with.”

“By rats, you mean the voices in your head?”

I took a bite of my sandwich, chewing slowly, indignation spreading through my lungs like fire.

“You know, for someone who’s supposed to be mute, you sure have a lot to say tonight.”

He stepped closer. “Who else has access to your building’s security system?”

I took a long drink of my juice. “None of your business.”

“If someone’s planning to break in, drag you out of bed, and kill you, it stops being your business, Miss Harper.”

The air in my lungs suddenly felt trapped.

“It becomes mine .”

He thumbed across the tablet, pulling up another set of security logs like he was checking the weather. “If they get in, it won’t be to steal your TV. It’ll be to grab you. Cut you open. Piece by piece.”

The peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth, and for once, I was grateful. It meant I couldn’t scream.

He finally looked up, his gaze landing on me. “No one would hear you scream, Miss Harper.”

I stopped chewing. The sandwich tasted like ash in my mouth.

How the hell had he read my mind again? Had I somehow signed up for Psychic Asshole Bodyguard 101 without knowing?

“So, unless you want to end up in trash bags in a landfill, you’ll start answering my questions. Now .”

I gulped, the sandwich suddenly too heavy in my hand. Slowly, I set it down, my fingers brushing crumbs across the counter.

“Angelo,” I muttered, my throat tight. “Angelo Lazzio. My cousin.”

He tapped something on the iPad, the screen casting a ghostly green light along the hard line of his jaw. “Then I’ll call him right away.”

He turned on his heel to leave, his back to me as he made his way toward the door.

The man had a gift. Not the charming kind. The you might wake up duct taped in a basement kind.

I bet he did it on purpose, just to keep me on a leash. Make sure I didn’t get any cute ideas, like freedom or breathing without his permission.

“You’re so boring. I bet you’ve never done anything fun in your life.”

He froze for a second, his back still turned, before slowly looking over his shoulder.

“Fun? You mean like raiding thrift stores while your luxury sponsors send you free shit? Must be nice to play at rebellion when you’ve never had to actually live it.”

Bastard.

In my defense, that had been years ago when I was drunk, high, and about as dumb as a brick. I’d been dating—or, more accurately, flogging—some artist who’d dared me to do it. So, naturally, I had accepted the challenge.

I’d gotten arrested, made headlines, and had to do community service in the scenic Central Park. Now, looking at the picture of myself in an orange jumpsuit and Prada sunglasses, my red hair in a ponytail, and a cigarette dangling from my lips, I couldn’t help but think it was iconic .

My father had nearly broken my jaw that night.

I crossed my arms, leaning back against the counter, and threw him a smirk.

“So, you’ve been spying on me? What’s next, putting up posters of my face around your room? Another stalker to add to my collection?”

“I do my job. Understanding my client is part of the protection. Better to know who I’m dealing with.”

I chuckled darkly and stepped closer to him, narrowing my eyes. “Oh, do enlighten me, soldier. What exactly have you figured out about me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked coolly. “You’re a spoiled, selfish little girl playing at misery. Loud enough to be noticed, empty enough that nothing ever sticks.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. I opened my mouth, but for once, no smart comeback came.

It wasn’t just an insult. It was a truth, wrapped in venom.

He’d seen me for exactly what I was. And somehow, it hurt more than I’d expected.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at me like he was deciding whether to rip into me or just leave me with my pathetic sandwich.

He chose the latter.

Without another word, he turned and walked out.