Page 34 of His Pretty Little Duet

I shrink a foot.

Humiliation snaps at the heels of my pride. I don't like the idea of accepting clothes at all. Not one bit. It sounds like swallowing a boulder of debt. "Ah. No,thank you."

Again, smooth.

"What?" Thrown by my answer, his brows weave tightly. "Why not?"

I stand up and walk over to the dishwasher, bending to stack my plate inside and hide my pathetic,ungratefulface from him. Ungrateful maybe, but I'm not a charity case. "I can't accept any?—"

"Fawn," he cuts in, "he wants to buy you clothes. He has guests tonight, and he wants you to have a dress at the very least."

"I have clothes," I mutter to the contents of the dishwasher, where even the dirty plates seem to pity me. With their shiny surfaces and scratch-free coating, they are a bunch of obnoxious, privileged dishes.

No enchanted crockery, my arse.

"Right," he says, playing with the word, his response sailing over the countertop to where I frown at inanimate objects. "You know it's okay to accept help."

Inhaling courage, I straighten to look at him, finding knowing cool-blue eyes. "Iamletting him help me, and I'm really grateful, but I'm just here to see my dad. I don't need to be dressed. Or fed. Or—" I run out of things to say.

Jasmine appears from the lounge room, her maid uniform on and a bottle of Spray and Wipe clutched in her hand. "You are letting him help the baby," she chimes in, and I deadpan. "You're taking the absolute minimum even then."

Contempt, whether misplaced or not, crawls its way up my spine, a sensation I'm unable to flick from my fingers. "I'm going for a swim." My words come out curt as I stride straight for the French doors of the mansion I live in for free, because I am a baby bird pushed from the nest, trying to fly but not able to and having everyone notice every fall and collision. My reality and efforts are merely failings in my spectators' eyes.

I lock my teeth, bend to pull my shorts down my thighs, and wrangle my shirt over my head, my long blonde hair flicking free as I hurl it onto the lounger.

I dive into the pool in my underwear, the cool arms of her silky body enveloping me, smothering me, and for a few seconds, no one can watch me barely existing.

Watch me beg for the truth about that night. The crazy girl with no memory of how she got knocked-up. Improbable.

Watch me beg for an autopsy. The stupid girl who challenges the words of her two foster brothers, only to have the police sneer at her.

Watch the silly girl being coddled by a stranger twice her age who makes her warm and uncomfortable and all the while having another person's kid growing in her uterus and no memory of how it happened.

Watch a lost cause.

Then it's over.

Surfacing, I breathe in as the water slides down my face to return to the pool.

Laying on my back, I make water angels. As I close my eyes, the water muted trees clap to an otherworldly cadence. I never asked for handouts. Not for me. I've felt alone since I was ten, before that, really. Now, I may not have done a good job raising myself on judgemental words from my foster mother or the perpetual humility forced on me to the point of soul-crushing emptiness, but I kept myself alive on it. I didn't give up. I didn't shoot myself in the head likeshedid.

"Hey."

Within my watery self-therapy session, I hear the muted words of a man reach me. Opening my eyes and coming to my feet on the concrete pool floor, I glance up and see a pitiless gaze filled with interest.

I smile at him.

One of the gardeners has come over to the poolside, a mist of perspiration clinging to every muscle his singlet exposes. He's cute. Young. Probably Benji's age.

"Hello." I splash water at him, a small amount hitting his skin. "You look hot."Oh my God.I inwardly groan but pretend the only interpretation of that was a literal one.

"Thanks for the shower." He pauses with hesitation. "I've never seen you before, and I've worked here for years."

"I'm not staying long, just a friend of the family."

He smiles easily at me.

Easy would be nice.

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