Page 185 of Sinful Desires
“Maman,” I groaned.
But they were already laughing, loud and raw. My mother’s hand on Scarlett’s knee, Scarlett wiping fun tears from her cheeks. I hadn’t seen mymamanthat soft in years.
Not since before the accident.
Scarlett had looked at every photo like it was holy. Asked questions. Listened.
Later, I took her upstairs.
My bedroom door creaked open like it hadn’t been touched since I’d slammed it shut the night I left.
Nothing had changed.
The bed was still made tightly. Old posters still stuck to the walls. Notebooks lined up in perfect goddamn rows on the desk.
Scarlett stepped in first, her heels hitting the hardwood. She dragged her fingers over the shelves and dresser, her gaze lifting to the ceiling.
She spotted them right away.
The stars.
The same glow-in-the-dark ones she had in her room. Mine had been stuck there since I was nine. Back when I was still scared of the dark and too ashamed to admit it.
My parents put them up after I’d had a nightmare that made me scream through the whole house. I’d never taken them down.
We’d truly lived similar lives, drenched in guilt and self-loathing an ocean apart.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at me.
“I meant what I said at the hospital, Théo.”
Her voice didn’t shake. It didn’t try to soften the truth.
“All of it. Every word.”
Je t’aime, Théo.
I just sat next to her, close enough to feel her warmth. Close enough to want more.
Then I reached for her hand and kissed it.
We’d had breakfast and left, and I’d spent the last three days working in the kitchen or by the pool, fingers on the laptop, my eyes on her a few yards away on the beach.
I sent the security camera footage to Lazzio, the newest frame zoomed in on the intruder’s face. I had a guess, but I needed proof before I started hunting him.
Lazzio texted back, saying he’d check with his private investigator later today, see if the image matched who we both probably knew it was.
I turned off my phone the second I saw the front door swing open and got out of the car.
I had called Captain Pascal twenty minutes earlier, telling him to bring me my black Porsche Panamera. The one my father had given me when I turned eighteen.
I hadn’t touched it in years. But tonight, I needed it.
My baby wanted a ride. I was giving her the best.
She walked out of the villa in a tight beige coat, heels high enough to snap necks, red hair straight and sleek falling down her back, makeup dark and smokey.
Putain de merde.
