Page 71 of Curvy Dirty Omega

“Is your father the reason you decided to become a detective?” Liam came up beside me when we hit the main floor, his hand settling on my lower back like he could somehow sense how rattled I was.

“Yes, he is.” For a lot of reasons actually.

The bedrooms were on the right side of the house and I went down that dark hallway without once hesitating thanks to the large alpha at my side.

Even here where there should be a hint of pheromones, I still didn’t smell anything other than the cleaner.

Maybe she’d planned for me to come here and stripped this place of any scent, but this wasn’t something that could be done on a whim. It was almost like she cleaned the house of pheromones on a regular basis.

The guest rooms were untouched and immaculate, but the master bedroom looked a little more lived in despite being spotless. Perfume sat on a vanity and there was a silk robe hanging on the edge of a privacy screen.

It was weird that I couldn’t smell a single thing when Melinda should have been sleeping here last night. Even a deep cleaning couldn’t catch everything. She might have filters installed, but I had the distinct impression she didn’t really use this room.

On the way back to the drawing room, I paused at the doorway of one of the guest rooms. It was laid out a lot like the luxurious master bedroom – like this was where someone important would stay.

There was nothing in here to tell me my hunch was right, but I took a step in anyways, curious to see if I was right.

Ignoring the rest of the room, I went straight into the attached bathroom and started going through the cupboard under the sink. Towels and extra toiletries for whoever might stay there. Nothing but what one might expect for a guest room modeled after a hotel.

But even the most meticulous cleaner could miss something.

I pulled my tweezers out of my left pocket along with the small baggy and grabbed the hair from the comb. It could be nothing, but my gut was telling me this whole fucking place was too clean, which meant she was hiding something.

The best way to hide something—someone, would be erasing their existence. If she was having an affair, it would be stupid to bring whoever it was here with all the security, but the rules in the Valor prenup were overly specific.

Her allowance would increase with each Valor child, not necessarily her spouse’s. They’d already be inside the estate and it wouldn’t be suspicious for them to come and go. No one would think twice about seeing them together either.

An affair outside of the house would garner too much attention since she was a world-renowned model married to Gideon, the heir to Valor Enterprises. I wouldn’t have thought she’d be the type to have an affair, but this house was just too empty. Even Liam’s house in the city had felt lived in despite the décor.

Eyeing the single strand of hair under the bright light of the bathroom, I felt weirdly relieved to see it was brown, not blond. It wasn’t dark enough to belong to Cassius either.

“Do you want me to ask Melinda if I can have that painting?”

I looked up in surprise, embarrassed I’d forgotten he was even here. My body hadn’t though. I was way too calm given the situation.

“Why would you want that painting?”

Liam grabbed my wrist and pulled me up, searching my eyes with a look so intense I had no fucking idea what he was thinking. “So I could give it to you. Why else would I ask for it?”

My jaw dropped. How could he say something like that with such a serious expression on his face? It was absolutely ridiculous how far he was taking this whole girlfriend/boyfriend act. “You want to give me a priceless painting? Why?”

He took the tweezers from me and carefully placed the hair in the baggy before tucking both in his pocket. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll consider dating me for real.”

I wanted to laugh, but even that felt like too much. If I laughed, it would mean I’d heard what he’d said. So, I turned and walked out of the bathroom, turning off the video recording on my phone and tucking the device into my skirt pocket.

Yes, I really wanted that fucking painting, but I shouldn’t ever possess it. I was already too consumed by whatever sickness my father had planted inside me. The pomegranate seeds lived in my stomach, and one day they would grow and grow until they burst out of my mouth to fertilize the tree with my blood and bones.

The fruit of the dead would blossom from that tree and I didn’t want to find out what it tasted like, because if I ate even a single seed, I’d be damned for all eternity.

Maybe it was a bit of an overreaction to something as innocent as a painting, but I knew the answers to my father’s sickness were hidden in the seeds of the fruit and I wasn’t sure I could survive knowing what had made him kill all those people when I’d barely survived everything he’d taught me.

That painting was a curse, but it was also a blessing – a contradiction just like the subject itself.

CHAPTER 25

Lucy

Liam grabbed a plate and started placing tiny sandwiches and cakes on it. I watched him consider the options like he really did care what I was eating. Normally, Frankie did this kind of shit or I did it myself, but there was something about watching Liam consider the red grapes or the green that really…

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