Page 17 of A Touch of Dark
“It’s beautiful.” The words spill from me without permission, but in my head, they aren’t quite a compliment. Beautiful. Ugly. Grotesque. “How can you—”
“Don’t touch.” He grabs my wrist before I even register reaching out. How? He tugs when I try to snatch the limb away, tightening his grip. “Beautiful,” he says tacitly. “I thought you said it wasterrible.”
I twist my wrist to no avail. He’s too strong. The pads of his fingers capture sinew and bone beneath them and press just hard enough to sting.
“Let me go—”
“What are you wearing?” He cocks his head as if sensing something that I can’t, his nostrils flared.
“Get off!” I tug my arm again. “Let go.”
“Perdóname.What are you wearing?”
Snark is my first instinct. “A dress,” I spit out.
“And?” Impatience seeps from him like the poison from my oleander. Invisible. Deceptive. Like he’s hunting for something.
“And…” I look down at my feet. “Heels.”
He frowns, still unsatisfied with my answer. “And?”
“And nothing.” Then I remember my newest gift. Swallowing hard, I add, “And…a rose in my hair.”
He lets me go and his hand drifts toward a piece of charcoal before he flattens it against the table instead. “I take it that you appreciated my gift.”
He laughs and the deep, guttural rumble robs me of my senses for a brief moment. I blink. He and the rest of the room disappear. Reappears. Disappears.
With my eyes still closed, I utter my reply. “Very much so.”
A sound catches in his throat.Ah.Not quite a laugh. He’s amused. He’s annoyed. “Por favor.Tell me, what color is your dress, Juliana?”
“Why?” Trying to decipher him triggers a dull throbbing in my temples.
The discomfort isn’t because of the question itself, however. It’s how he asked it. Politely. Curiously.
“Black,” I finally admit.
Another partial laugh is my reward. “A lie.”
I glance at him sharply. “How can you tell?” Maybe he isn’t so blind after all.
His gaze isn’t on me, but focused straight ahead, toward the light coming in from one of the windows. “I know.”
“Well, then you should also know that I’ve decided to keep the painting.” Have I? Only now do I feel like examining my reasons for coming here in the first place. To evade Simon, possibly. To thank Mr. Villa for his thoughtful gift. To hide. To concede. To refuse. “You can burn the doll.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that, Ms. Thorne.” His tone dips an octave deeper than before. Picking up a thinner stick of charcoal, he continues to sketch, adding detail to an outstretched hand. There goes at least one mystery: Hehasto see. There’s no other way he could be so precise. “I trust you can show yourself out.”
Squaring my shoulders, I turn to do just that—but I’ve barely gone a step before he calls out, “By the way, Juliana. You sound different in white.”
“How did you…” My footsteps falter, my heart clenching painfully. “Fine,” I croak rather than accuse him of lying out loud. “You want your painting back? Let’s make a fair trade, then. You give me something I want. I give you what you want.”
“Your doll isn’t sufficient enough?” he counters.
“It’s already served its purpose.” I think of Simon and shudder. He couldn’t have planned a more memorable way to present his Sammy replica than this—held hostage by a newer monster. “So do you want to trade or not?”
“Trade. Information, perhaps? Like that of your father and his reputable donors and the careful, gilded cage he’s built around you that you can’t even see?”
“No,” I say hoarsely. “Don’t you dare talk about him—”
