Chapter 34
thirty-four
I shouldn’t be home yet.
After a hellish day fighting through crowds ten men deep, I planned to sneak in another workout before I came upstairs.
It seemed polite, too. I know Alice has a call with her mother—and I suspect she isn’t ready to explain any of this to her yet. Especially since Alice can’t seem to accept any of it herself.
That’s a mystery I need to unravel. After her breathless gratitude over this morning’s gift, I’m more convinced than ever that wanting what I’m offering isn’t the issue. Which means there must be something else.
Despite my burning curiosity, I had decided to give her as much time and space as I could stand. I practically kidnapped the woman and dragged her back to my place like a pillaging Viking. Letting her go about her business without my eyes glued to her every move seemed the least I could do.
Well. The best laid plans.
Perhaps I should have taken the whole “give my skittish, sweet girl space” concept into account before I picked out that goddamn robe. Because once she put it on…
I definitely checked the cameras more than I should have.
It’s almost become a reflex, at this point. Sliding my home security app open, checking on her. Making sure she’s still quietly singing to herself while she works and hasn’t escalated into an anxious humming frenzy.
I do it as I walk onto the elevator, pausing halfway to pressing the button for the building’s gym level.
Alice is there, sitting at my kitchen table—but she’s biting her nail to the quick, wincing as she listens to whoever is FaceTiming her.
Since she’s still wearing her new gift, I’d guess it’s her mother or Tris on the other end of the call.
When she flinches, her shoulders hunching with shame, instinctive fury pours through me.
I smash the button for the thirty-ninth floor without thinking at all.
I know how to keep my entry silent, carefully maneuvering the door and my footsteps so I don’t disturb Alice. The second I enter my apartment, a shrill voice edged with a Southern accent sails down the hall. I only catch bits and pieces at first.
“… start explaining yourself!” the voice insists. “Why on Earth would you be in a man’s apartment?
I grit my teeth, pushing back the urge to walk right in and explain exactly why.
Because I brought her here.
And I’m damn well keeping her as long as she lets me.
My deep-seated possessiveness knocks me back a step. Jesus. This woman isn’t even mine. Not yet. Not even close.
There’s a distinct chance she won’t ever get over the way we met. How she believed I was just a stranger, flirting with her, and how humiliated she felt when she found out I had an ulterior motive.
The depressing thought seems all too likely when I turn my head, peering into the guest room she slept in.
It’s virtually untouched. And I notice she hasn’t brought any of her art supplies or extra books.
Meaning she doesn’t plan to stay very long.
“Can you sit up straight for one measly minute? Your posture is distracting me, Alice. And I deserve an explanation! My God, what have you done to your hair?”
If I’m trying to impress this woman, telling her mother to go fuck herself probably isn’t the best place to start.
I only walk into my guest room to keep myself from charging into the kitchen and snatching up her phone. Fresh guilt swamps me as I examine what little she brought with her. Just one vanity case, her work bag, and—oh. What I thought was a duffel bag is actually a fabric hamper of clothing.
There’s a dryer sheet stuck to one of her socks. She must have grabbed the basket of clean laundry because it was faster than packing a proper bag.
“And get your thumb out of your mouth. It’s horribly unbecoming.”
So is your voice, pero loca, I think as I start to fold Alice’s clothes. Intent to at least stack them for her.
“I’m not surprised no one will hire you when you can barely scrape out a basic explanation.”
My fists wrap around one of Alice’s dresses, flexing against the impulse to stomp out to the living room.
Someone did hire her, I mentally growl at the faceless woman berating my sweet girl.
I heard Ella tell Grayson that Alice has more work on the way, too.
One of their wealthy acquaintances is planning their own high-profile wedding.
I can’t wait for Ella to let Alice know so I can tell her how proud I am.
The clothes in the hamper quickly dwindle, revealing a few items she must have tucked underneath to hide them.
A smile spreads across my face when I see that she did bring some of her wicked paperbacks.
Her Errant Earl, this time. My smile widens into a grin.
Along with a pirate one that has the word Swashbuckler in the title.
Fuck, that’s cute.
So is the last item in the basket—a shoebox, wrapped in separate layers of ancient pink-heart-speckled wrapping paper.
It’s cute. Innocent. The kind of thing a teenager might do. Very Alice, too, to randomly decorate a box. She has little craft projects like that spread around her place.
It feels light enough to be empty. I don’t think twice about opening it; I figure I can use it to store the socks and panties I rolled up.
“ Mama,” Alice says, “I-I can’t really t-talk right now—”
“So dramatic with the stammering, Alice,” the woman mutters back. “Am I really so horrible to talk to? It’s simple—tell me where you are and why you’re there. In a robe, of all things. With your hair in absolute disarray.”
Does her mom seriously care what she does with her hair? What for? Is Alice just expected to cower to the woman’s insistence on picking her apart?
I pick up a wad of socks, then freeze.
I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t expect to find anything in the shoebox.
Let alone the assortment of papers that stare up at me, looking faded and long-forgotten.
What is all of this?
My investigative instincts take over. With care, I lift each piece of paper up, examining closely.
Clippings from wedding magazines and travel articles. Honeymoon packing tips. Lingerie ads. Reception setups. Flowers, candles, cakes. Hawaii, Bermuda, the Bahamas. Baby names.
She has lists, written in a young girl’s handwriting.
They are all hopeful and achingly innocent.
One anthologizes all the things she wishes would happen on her honeymoon.
Most are simple, easy things like ordering room service or watching the sun set.
My heart clenches at the dates in the margins, which place them sometime in her high school years.
A vise tightens around my throat. The most recent ones are from her early college years. I can see a marked difference. They’re more dubious than the childhood lists. Instead of presuming she would eventually get a wedding and honeymoon, they focus on dating in general.
“Romantic Dates,” one reads. Then, a few pages later, “Ideas for Surprises.” But none of them are meant for her. They are all thoughts of things she might do for someone else, should she ever have a partner.
The last few take a darker turn. Dated around the end of her university tenure, they no longer mention love or romance at all. Instead, there are ways she might improve herself or make herself more attractive. One even lists foreplay skills she wants to master.
The final sheet physically pains me. It isn’t dated at all, but it has water stains sprinkled over the lines. Tears.
I don’t see a title, so I start to skim the bullet points. Most are short, just a few words apiece. Holding my own baby, one says. Picking out a wedding dress. Making love.
The floor falls out from under me.
It’s a list of all the things she thinks she’ll never have, things she’s tried to let go of.
All her hopes. She hid them away. From the world. From herself. Because someone convinced her that they were embarrassing. And impossible.
Who the fuck did this to her?
Alice Moore has never hurt anyone in her life. But she must have been hurt badly.
Have I made that pain worse? Should I have left her in peace?
Would I even have been able to?
Deep, true shame cuts me to my marrow, throbbing like an open wound carved into my diaphragm. Tension grips my neck and shoulders while I clutch the papers, unsure how to proceed.
Should I read the lists? Maybe they will give me ideas for how to make her happy. But it would be an invasion of privacy.
Alice’s voice sails down the hall on a cry that lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. “Mama,” she says, her voice underwater, “Can you just listen, p-please? My hair isn’t even d-done right now.”
“Isn’t done?!” the older woman screeches. “It’s hideous. Isn’t your face chubby enough without adding a perpetual cloud of frizz around it?”
She lets her cruel question hang in the air for a moment before layering false woe into her voice.
“Oh, Alice, you have to think about these things! I know your genes didn’t help.
You got your father’s horrible nose, his eyebrows…
and that figure, ugh. There’s no help for any of that, but your hair is another matter entirely!
I try so hard to help you, and you defy me at every turn!
Now, hang up and go brush out those ridiculous curls.
They make you look cheaper than dollar-store hooch. ”
…
I think the fuck not.
This bitch is lucky I can’t shoot her through Alice’s phone.
My rage roars. I quickly fix the lid on the shoebox and slide it into the hamper. Then I muss up all the clothing I folded, putting it back the way I found it. Alice never needs to be embarrassed about me seeing this.
An instant before I rush out into the hall, their call ends with a telltale thud. I stop short on the threshold, surprised to find her seat at the table empty.
A sniffle pricks my ears. I follow it into my bedroom, where my feet fail. Cementing me into place as my lungs heave.
Alice doesn’t see me. She stands in the bathroom where we nearly made love two nights ago, staring into the mirror.
She touches her curls, her lip trembling while fresh tears blaze down the dried tracks on her cheeks.
No trace of her pretty pink glow remains.
Instead, she’s pale and crushed, like a rosebud trampled in the snow.
The dejected slump of her shoulders sends a white-hot burst through my chest. I open my mouth to speak, but her small, sad voice reaches my ears as she picks up my comb and starts to drag it through her loose hair.
“—stupid for me to think this looked better,” she tells herself. “Why do I keep trying to fix it? Nothing ever works. I know that.”
As she speaks, she yanks harder and harder, ripping through her once-glorious curls, leaving a cloud of puffed blonde in her wake.
She speaks through clenched teeth, berating herself. “Marco probably thinks I’m ridiculous. Wearing my hair like this for him… wearing this robe for him. Like he would actually want me?!”
God. It hurts to listen to her. It also pisses me off. And insults me, on some strange level. After all, I do want her. Lust after her. Want to keep her.
The comb starts to look more like an instrument to inflict self-harm. Furious, I stalk across the room and pluck it out of her hand.
Stricken, Alice whirls her blotchy face toward me, blinking in shock. “M-Marco,” she stutters, shrinking down. “H-how long have you b-been here?”
Overwrought, I glare at her, holding the weaponized hair tool out of reach. “Long enough.”
She hiccups. “D-did you h-hear… any of that?”
With her hair half-mangled and her ice-blue eyes bright with tears, she still looks lovely. She still looks like Alice. And even though I’m angry, overcome by a foreign slurry of feelings I have no name for, I suddenly want to kiss her.
Need to kiss her.
So I drop the comb and reach for her wet face. “I always hear you.”