Page 83 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
My father stands too close at my side with his stomach gaping open when my eyes open.
I gasp in a pathetic attempt to catch my breath as I fall away from him.
The thick wood below me assaults my body, hitting hard against my bruises.
Dragging myself backward, I rush to the music room, not caring who is in there because my father’s ghostly figure walks behind me, and it’s more frightening than anyone else could be.
Pushing open the heavy door, I close it with him still on the other side. I feel to the left for the switch to bring light into the room.
It’s too dark.
I hate the dark.
Panic washes over me when trembling fingers can’t find the switch, and I freeze when I feel someone’s breath on my neck. I inhale the sweet, spicy scent of the other person in the room, not knowing what else to do.
A big hand covers mine as it trembles against the old, flowered wallpaper—his other hand feathers up my body from my waist to my neck.
I stutter out the words, “Thank you for saving me. I appreciate it.”
He nods, his face close to mine.
“But you frightened me, too. And you shouldn’t be here.” The words are hard to voice. But maybe by him standing so close to my spine has me realizing I have one. “So please, can you go now?”
There’s a pause where neither of us moves before he squeezes my hand in acknowledgment and gives me another nod. His fingers move with mine, placing my hand on the switch.
He pauses as if he hopes I’ll turn on the light and turn around to face him.
But if he is dressed up like a clown, I can’t see that makeup again without feeling a fear I can’t shake.
So, I keep us in the dark.
Space between us grows, making me more aware of a chill in the corner of the room—there’s a window open. Almost silent footsteps move toward it.
So, he is just an intruder.
An intruder whose sweet aroma is no longer around me.
The click-clacking of Annabelle’s boots as they come down the stairs gives me the courage to turn on the light, comforted by the sound of her close by.
Turning slowly, I see no one else in the room. No clowns. No intruders at all, but?—
“Oh, my god! Duggan La’Darragh, is that you!”
Racing around the room and all the instruments scattered everywhere, I land on my knees at the piano seat, plucking my little stuffed antelope—that looks more stuffed than I ever remember him being—from the chair.
“Dollie?” Annabelle enters the room. “There’s no one upstairs.”
No, because he’d been in here with me.
CHAPTER 20
Ambrose—present day
Valaria is going to murder me. And I can guess how, probably with those razor claws she wears on her fingertips.
I’m styled for the night but amverylate for work, and I haven’t even left yet. I wasn’t expecting the evening to go this way. To be getting ready upstairs and hearing all those screams and scuffles. The house is huge, so they were very fucking loud for me to hear in my room.
Any thoughts of potential distance I’d forced into my head about Dollie went straight out of my bedroom window when I heard her scream, begging that creep to take his hands off her.
