Page 48 of Seduce & Destroy

“What is it?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“You don’t talk about your mum that much?”

“Father barely talks about her.” I looked at her. A sad smile spread across her face.

“I haven’t opened it yet,” She explained. “I’m only meant to open it after I get married.”

I tilted my head, in confusion. She had already been married.

“I went into isolated counselling before my wedding night. Couldn’t open it.”

I nodded, put the box to my side, and leaned my head back into a sigh. My head was heavy, but my vision had cleared—finally.

“This stuff is full of memories, huh.” I tried to stifle the bitterness in my voice. A house was a house in my household, never a home. It was difficult to watch an operation of safety and security when your parents taught you how to handle a chokehold before a hug. Besides, I didn’t have enough stuff to call it a collection.

Wealth gave you the opportunity to explore possibilities. It was a luxury my family couldn’t afford, it’s why chains have become an accessory in my wardrobe. I couldn’t pay for jewellery.

Laney sighed. “Never got to leave, though. Not to go out, have fun, live my own life, you know?”

“Have you ever been to a party?”

“No, have you?”

A long time ago. It was a drunken haze of teenage petulance and hormonal disrespect that only led to mistakes and punishments. “You’re not missing anything. Believe me.”

“So, you have!” She grunted, “I just want to experience that.”

“You really don’t. It’s not what you think. Intoxicated people are so annoying.”

“Yeah, but you know that. I don’t, and I wan–”

“No.” The word cut through the room. I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh. “No,” I said softer. “My memory is still foggy on what happened at the last party I went to. It was late, I was drunk, and something happened that night that dulled the colours of the world. I see it only through the lens of how a diver looks up at the water above them, transparent but rippling into obscurity. I woke up in a bed without the girl I went to sleep with, only this.” I pointed toward the scar on my collarbone. “You don’t want that.”

“You loved another girl.” It wasn’t a question, but the devastation on her face prompted me to answer it.

I shook my head. “It was nothing.” Getting up from my chair, I approached her and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “One sided. Brief. Humiliating.” A dark cloud overtook my features.

That woman had used me. It was on a job, not unlike this current mission, to kill the head of the family business. But it was brutal. I was hired as a maid to the old matriarch, and when I would administer her medicine, she would reach her hand under my skirt and run her fingers through my folds. Each touch felt like poison had entered my veins, but I had to bear it to achieve the goal. She loved to play with her little fucktoy.

To cope, I fell into her housekeeper's bed to console me, and she eased my pain. The night I got drunk at the party, I was there happily dancing with the housekeeper, and someone whispered to her about the old lady's obsession with me. She didn't give me the chance to her that I didn't want them. She was disgusted and ran me from the house with the wound to my collarbone. I'd loved that woman for her comfort, or at least, I thought I did. Afterwards, I was told I was one in a long line of maids she'd used and thrown out. The worst part was that I thought she really cared.

Laney took me out of my thoughts when she looked down at her feet, suddenly shy. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No, never,” I said, quickly, and lifted her chin to be in line with mine with a finger. “Unless it could be with you.”

The words hung heavy in the air, clouding the room with an energy so unexplored and vulnerable neither one of us knew what to do with it. But goddamn, it was honest.

She cleared her throat after a prolonged minute. “We should get some wine.”

I inwardly groaned. My head was fuzzy from feeling lightheaded already, alcohol would be a lethal mix, but I needed something to take the edge off the tension that racked my body. Nodding my head, I walked out the door after her.

She led me to a hidden staircase in the dining room.

“You have a wine cellar?”

“Of course, you don’t form an alliance with the Italians without reaping a reward.”

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