Page 57 of Dancing With Delusion

“Mentally.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She’s been erratic. Her behaviour has been . . . out of control.”

“That’s just Tori.”

“She ripped up my suits and dressed in the cut-offs. She turned up to my business meeting like that, looking deranged.”

Phoebe almost smiles. “What did you do to deserve that?”

“Does it matter? It’s not normal behaviour.”

“Yes, it matters, Dmitry. Tori is,” she pauses to think and then smiles, “loud and outgoing. She wants the attention and doesn’t care how she gets it. But she isn’t crazy. Surely, you got a hint of her personality when she dragged her heel along your car?”

I smirk. “Yes, but this is different, Phoebe. I’m scared for her.”

Her smile fades. “I need to see her,” she announces. “I’ll tell you if she’s lost the plot.”

“She’s getting the best care,” I say with as much conviction as I can, because I’m not certain about any of it.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Take me to her right now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Did you know she self-harms regularly?”

She gasps, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“There’s things you don’t know about her, Phoebe, and I hate to break her confidentiality, but she’s in hospital because she cut herself so deep, she almost . . . well, let’s just say she had us all scared.”

She takes a minute to process my words. “Why didn’t you call me?” Her tone is accusing, and it pisses me off.

“Because I had other things on my mind,” I snap.

“Before,” she yells, “when you first found out about it, or when you began to think she was unwell?”

“It wasn’t my place. She didn’t want anyone to know.”

“I could have spoken to Marcus. We could have helped her.”

I roll my eyes at the mention of Victoria’s brother. “He already knew.”

Her mouth falls open. “What?”

“Jesus, Phoebe, stop being so blind. Half the reason Victoria is the way she is, is because of him.” I pull my drawer open and pull out the file I have on Marcus. I slide it over to her. “He isn’t the man you think he is. Take it and do some catching up.”

Tori

The door opens and I push to sit. I’ve been upgraded to a thin mattress on the floor, but my hands are still cuffed along with my ankles. Vivian stomps inside and screams. I stare wide-eyed at her erratic behaviour. Over the last few days, I’ve started to see I was never the mad one—it’s always been her.

I watch warily as she begins to pace, her expensive heels clicking on the concrete floor. “It doesn’t matter what I do, he can’t get his mind from you,” she yells, adding another frustrated scream. I’d laugh if I wasn’t at the level where she could kick me. I get up onto my knees. “It’s always about you, and I am so fucking sick of it,” she continues to yell.

I stand, struggling to get my balance. I’m so hungry that my stomach growls in protest. “What did you think would happen, Vivian? That he’d confide in you, let you get close so he’d realise how great you are?”

“Out of sight, out of mind,” she hisses.

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