Page 30 of His Pretty Little Duet

Hating the question, wishing it had never been asked, but wanting more than anything to confide in him, to be honest, I merely shake my head with regret a spiralling pit I'm balancing on the cusp of. A tear pinches from the corner of my eye. He looks at the bead, tracking it as it glides down my cheek and drops off my lip. "I don't remem—" My voice falters, trembles. The emotions don't make sense; I haven't cried over this. Not once. I was angry. And I've been on a mission to find out what happened... but I never cried.

Right now, admitting I don't remember feels like a shredder to my heart. But I want to tell him the truth. And I don't try to understand why, maybe simply because, like me, he wants to know. And that matters... Someone else wants to know, andthinks Ideserveto know. "I don't know for sure. I was cuddling this boy and that's the last thing I remember. I think it's his, but I can't be sure."

"You were high," he states, displeasure dripping from each and every syllable, his tone almost a growl. I hate the sound. My heart starts to sting. "Was the boy who touched you high too?"

I gasp. "How did you know I was h?—"

"Do you take drugs?"

"No!" I bite out. The memory of the interrogation room, the officer who sneered at me, confused me, rains down frustration and fear and helplessness. I hate assumptions. Hate being questioned. I hate even more that I don't blame any of them. I was a fucking mess that day.I had just lost Benji."I only ever touched drugs that once.That night."

Something dark and angry consumed the thin blue rings around his large pitch-black pupils. It's there. But it doesn't scare me. I don't think it's for me... He leans in closer, his lips just above my ear, his whiskey scented breath floating down my throat, forcing my spine to steel with the intensity pulsing from him and into me. "Are you lying to me, Fawn?"

"No!Fucksake." My head gets dizzy. My heart desperate to stop the unfettered disappointment in his voice. "I swear it. I swear. I'm not lying to you. I don't want everyone to think I'm this drug-addicted tramp?—"

"Everyone?" he says smoothly, but the warning his tone carries causes me to flinch. "The only person you need to concern yourself with isme.Only me."

"I thought I heard a glass smash," Aurora says from the kitchen doorway. While my body instinctively wants to separate from his, he simply glances over at her, leaving our closeness and the position of his hand on my lower stomach for her to witness.

It feels daring.

Possessive.

As if he's staking a claim.

My pulse runs riot in my throat. The word wife fills my head with white noise. She is right there, looking like a goddess even in a nightgown, even with the soft hooded eyes of a woman who was pulled early from slumber.

Oh God.

What am I thinking?

What am Ievendoing?

When we say nothing, she smiles. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt." Her lips are an elegant tick on her flawless features. "Careful when you get down, Fawn. You might cut yourself." Then she turns and sashays away from us. I stare at the space she disappeared from, lost in confusion.

When I look back at him, the silver lining that wasClayhas disappeared behind his mask of professionalism despite his wife's indifference to our intimate position.

Clay removes his hand from my lower stomach, leaving a lingering warmth that seeps deeper than skin. He lifts me from the countertop and walks me away from the broken orange juice jug.

He places me gently on the ground; his height at this close distance makes me feel like a daisy in a great tree's shadow. I want to ask so many questions about Aurora and whether he felt that moment between us, too, that they are crawling up my throat wanting freedom."Silly girl. You're reading into things."My foster mother's anthem chants inside my mind.

Hail the queen of gaslighting.

In this case, she's right, though.

Dragging my foolish reality of the situation down my throat, away from my waiting tongue and mouth, I lock my jaw.

When he reaches down, covering my body with the silky gown, lacing it up himself, I chant her words and close my eyes."You're reading into things."

Ignore the way you feel seen.

Ignore the way his eyes narrow, his lips look good enough to kiss.

Ignore your heart. What concerns him is not the same thing as what it beats so violently in your throat for!

It isn't.

I let him tie the knot at my waist, wordless, confused. My hands don't know what to do, so I coil my blonde ends around my fingertip.

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