Chapter 3
“What the hell was that all about?” I demanded once we were back in our rooms.
Lucian took off his cufflinks slowly, deliberately.
Even though he was attempting to affect his usual demeanor, his hands were shaking as the cufflinks rattled down onto the top of the bureau.
“Tomorrow will be better,” he said. “Once he’s had a chance to calm down.”
“What’s the matter? Why did he have that reaction to me? Does he not want a stepmother?”
Lucian said nothing, running his hands through thick salt and pepper hair.
“This is supposed to be your specialty,” he said. “Can you work on his empathy? If he could only see that other people are important, too. At least for appearance’s sake.”
There was a lot I didn’t like about this speech, but it was weak. Fucking weak.
“Have you never tried to curb Gabriel?” I cried. “Tell him he can’t behave like that? There’s no way I’m going to try to help him now. I’m not going anywhere near him.”
Lucian stilled, watching me carefully.
“I ask you to give him another chance. You didn’t see him at his best.”
“What’s his best? Did you see the way he lunged at me?”
“Just trying to scare you,” Lucian said. “Nothing more, I assure you.”
He reached out to pull me into his arms.
“The boy needs a stepmother,” he said. “Someone to gentle him. If you don’t feel comfortable working with him as a professional, think of him as a stepson.”
But that look in his eyes hadn’t been I need a stepmother.
I didn’t know what it was, but it was something disgusting, depraved, desperately unsettling.
Lucian got into bed with the paper and after I took a shower I tried to settle next to him with some academic reading, but I couldn’t relax enough to concentrate.
Then Lucian was asleep, snoring loudly beside me.
I tried to go to sleep too, but I only tossed and turned.
Why had Gabriel reacted like that to me?
I needed to go pee, but for some strange reason I was afraid.
Of those two long, dark halls to the bathroom.
Haunted
Of course, that was ridiculous!
But something about the very stones of this house at night. . . made me a believer.
At night this manor was a totally different creature, the walls colder, more forbidding. The fire had died into embers and I was too afraid to ask for more wood.
Lucian snored gently beside me.
This was nonsensical. I was going to have to get up and go to the bathroom, so no point in putting it off any longer.
So I got up, the stone floors cold on my toes.
Stop being such a coward, I told myself sternly.
What was I afraid of?
The answer had its claws deep into my brain, but I refused to accept it.
Gabriel?
Oh, he’d be down there in the game room right now, drunk as piss, probably getting his dick sucked by all the college girls.
I opened the door
How strange.
I wasn’t usually this easily frightened, susceptible to suggestions. . .
But tonight. . .
I was afraid.
And never in my therapeutic career had I felt afraid.
The long, dark hall loomed in front of me.
I was being ridiculous.
After all, the bathroom was not that far away. Just down this hall and to the left.
Why were all these lights out? I thought irritably. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Carefully, I turned the lamp on right beside the door so I’d have at least one light to guide my way back.
I didn’t want to get lost, it was fucking freezing out here, and I was only wearing tiny little matching flowered pajama shorts and a pajama top.
My heart was pounding as I hurried down the hall, slipping through the darkness until my hand closed with relief on the bathroom doorknob.
But even the bathroom with its lovely, old-fashioned tiling failed to interest me.
All I could think about was.
What did hand her over to me mean?
What in the world could Gabriel want with me, a professor 15 years older than he was!
I looked anxiously at myself in the mirror.
Long dark brown curls spilled out of my braid, making me look wild and unkempt, my eyes wide like a startled fawn behind my nighttime glasses.
And then something almost moved in the glass, something in the shadows behind me, something I couldn’t quite see, but I felt the danger.
I whirled around and bolted for the door.
And then I was running, my steps almost silent on the thick, plush carpet, the only sounds the jagged panting of my breath.
I rounded the corner, my hands outstretched so I wouldn’t slam into the stone corners or go headfirst out one of the narrow windows.
Where was the light?
I had just turned the old lamp on a few minutes ago!
What had happened to it?
Why was it so dark?
What if I went into the wrong room? Or got so turned around I didn’t know where I was?
But then from the other end of the hallway I saw the edge of my purse peeking out from the crack of the door.
Thank God!
Almost there now.
I felt sticky with sweat.
There was only the little bathroom light behind me to guide my way now, the statues and artwork looming over me as I made my way cautiously down the hallway.
The windows here were wide open, stretching tall and long as the fall air chilled my feet. I didn’t want to miss my footing and somehow stumble headfirst out of one.
Just a few more steps.
And I’d be safe in the room.
And then the last light went out.