Page 72 of Her Cruel Empire
Eventually, I excuse myself and wander back through the halls. I stop at Eva’s bedroom door—a door I’ve never entered, thoughI was never forbidden to try. Not like her father’s rooms. So I knock softly.
“Eva?”
No answer. I press my ear to the heavy wood and hear nothing—no movement, no sound of her voice on the phone. Just silence.
I go to my own room and sit on the bed. A storm rolls in, casting darkness through the window though it’s still day, and I lie there in the darkness, listening to the castle creaking around me, hoping and hoping for the sound of Eva’s footsteps in the hall. They never come, and eventually the soft rain on the window lulls me into sleep.
I wake to rustling sounds. Fabric against fabric, the soft thud of something being placed in a suitcase.
A maid stands at the foot of my bed, folding my clothes with swift, efficient movements. My heart starts to race.
“What’s going on?” I ask, sitting up.
She glances at me with apologetic eyes and says nothing. But before I can ask again, the door opens and Eva walks in. She’s immaculate as always—her black hair twisted into a perfect chignon, her clothes wrinkle-free. But there’s something different about her eyes. They’re flat, empty, like looking into a golden void.
She dismisses the maid with a curt nod and turns to me. “Are we going somewhere again?” I ask, though my throat feels tight with dread.
“You are,” she says simply.
I sit up straighter, pulling the sheet around me. “What do you mean?”
Eva’s smile is sharp, cold. The cat-that-got-the-cream expression I once found so alluring now cuts me to the bone. “I mean exactly what I said. A car will take you to the airport. You’ll be back in Vegas in about fourteen hours.”
“But I don’t understand—” I start to say, but she cuts me off.
“There’s nothing to understand. Our arrangement was for thirty days. I’m simply ending it early.”
The clinical way she says it makes my chest tighten. “Eva, you’re grieving. You don’t mean?—”
“I mean exactly what I say.” She moves to the window, her back to me. “A pro rata amount will be deposited into your account at the end of the original thirty-day period, as per the terms of our contract.”
Contract.
She may as well have slapped me.
“Is that really all we are?” I ask carefully. “A contract?”
She turns back to me, and for a moment—just a moment—I see something flicker in her eyes. Pain, maybe. Or regret. But it’s gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
“What else would it be?” she asks.
I force myself to stay calm, to speak with kindness. “Eva, I know you’re hurting. I know you’re angry. But especially at a time like this?—”
“Don’t.” The word cracks like a whip. “My circumstances have changed, and you are no longer required.”
I climb out of bed, not willing to have this conversation suffocating under covers. “And so you’re throwing me away like I’m nothing?”
“You’re not nothing.” Her voice is quiet. “You’re exactly what I paid for. But now I’m done.”
The casual cruelty of it steals my breath. I search her face for any sign of the other Eva,myEva. But she’s gone, replaced by this beautiful, terrible stranger.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” I say, trying hard to remember that she’s hurting. I don’t want to make her hurt worse.
But she’s about to destroy everything that had been building up between us.
“Don’t I?” She tilts her head, studying me with cold amber eyes. “You’re a romantic, little bird. You think life is a fairy tale with a guaranteed happily-ever-after. But this isn’t a fairy tale, Robin. This is the real world, and in the real world, people like me don’t get happy endings.”
“People like you?”
