19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Emma
“Emma.” Olivia’s using her aggravated voice with me, and it’s only seven in the morning.
“What? He was being nice.”
She doesn’t appreciate any conversation that mentions Dacre’s name.
Her arm is snug around mine as we walk down the castle hallway at, I dare say, a leisurely pace. I can’t believe I got a moment alone with her. When there’s an upcoming show, she gets obsessive.
She’s scary when she’s in go mode. I would consider myself a dedicated individual, but when I’m standing next to Olivia, she makes me look small.
“What is it about him that makes you lose all sense?”
“I didn’t. I was fully in control. We’re not all certified man haters, Olivia.”
“I’m not.”
“You used to be before your mate made you soft. Speaking of, tell me you’re going to see him.”
“Yeah, he convinced me to take the day off. Why?”
“You’re leaving bruises on my arm.”
“I’m sorry. I’m—”
“Stressed, I know.” I place my hand on hers. “That’s why my problems aren’t your problems.”
“I just want you to be careful. There’s more to this than he’s letting on, with the way he’s acting.”
“That’s why I have to get closer to him, to figure out what it is.”
The warm sun greets us as we walk out of the castle doors and onto the Central Lawn, right into a gathering of reporters and flashing cameras.
“Olivia, any word on the wedding plans?”
“Tell us about how you and Parker are dealing with the linked mate bond.”
“There is talk of moving the next Doxlothia ballet production to an event center in the city, due to the public outcry to see you perform. How does that feel after years of hard work?”
Olivia grabs my hand, nearly taking us both to the ground in her retreat. Guess we both forgot today is a reporter day. There is only one day a week when the reporters are allowed on campus for a short amount of time, and now they basically only want to talk to her and Parker.
In a few months of being here, she got all the fame I craved as a child. A memory surfaces of all three of us in our room late at night.
“Imagine . . . We get famous. Buy a big house. Party in the city,” I say.
“I don’t want to be famous,” Olivia says.
“Me neither.” Evangeline jostles my bed.
Evangeline’s answer doesn’t surprise me, but Olivia’s . . .
I grab Olivia’s arm. “So you want to be a ballerina no one knows? What are you talking about? You want to be a principal dancer in the IBCE!”
“Why do we need to be famous?”
“Because! Don’t you want everyone to love you for your talent and praise you? Think about it . . . The Osborne name up in lights.” I snatch a hairbrush from the nightstand and speak into it like a microphone. “Olivia Osborne, principal dancer, please bow for a standing ovation.”
“They don’t make announcements like that.”
“But for you, they might. Come on, think about it, your name on the dressing room door, fifty bouquets thrown at your feet, autographs. Admit it . . . You want it like I do.”
She rolls her eyes, grabbing nail polish from the nightstand.
Evangeline snatches the brush from my hand to brush her hair. “Promise me that you both will at least write to me from your luxury apartments in the city.”
“You’re thinking too small. We’ll have enough. We can buy a private plane and fly out to see you.” I turn toward Olivia. “The Osborne name will be a powerhouse. Forget the suite. We’ll own the building.”
“I just want to dance.”
“You’ll do that and more. You’ll sell out every show, and I’ll own my own restaurants. We’re not creating careers here. We’re creating an empire. Think about how happy Mom would be.”
I snap out of my daydream with the squeeze of my sister’s hand and the shutter of a camera. We’re surrounded and Olivia freezes as the cascade of questions piles higher.
“Please save all your questions for her publicists,” I say.
I grab a piece of paper from my bag and scribble on it to hand to them before hooking my arm around Olivia’s to steer her back toward her house.
“We’ve got to get you one of those,” I whisper.
“What number did you give them?”
“Mine. I’ll help you till we find you someone we can trust.”
Her eyes soften. “You’re going to get a million calls a day.”
“I know. It’s okay. I can handle it.”
She squeezes me tighter. “Thank you.”
I always imagined it would be me, but maybe it’s better if it’s her.
Olivia handles it all with grace, and I can’t imagine adding any more attention to my professional and personal life.
If I fail, there’s no tabloid detailing the gory details or picking apart my every word.
Fame doesn’t look like my childhood fantasies.
It’s intrusive and all consuming, but if anyone deserves recognition for her talent, it’s Olivia.
It used to bother me. Olivia always seems to grab all the attention in the room, but as we walk along, the familiar tightness in my chest wanes, and any lingering envy I have for my sister melts with the vibration of my phone in my pocket.
My eyes are heavy as I drag my feet into the culinary lounge.
I must have left my door key here in my locker because it was not in my bag when I got to my room after the longest day ever.
Tonight, my astrology class took us out into the woods to map stars and talk about predicting the future through charts. My neck hurts from looking up.
I struggle with the heaviness of the kitchen door and stop when I spot Dacre and someone else standing in the blue light of the kitchen. The smell of burning oil permeates the air, and I hear a sink running.
There’s something lost in his eyes. His gaze stays locked on the floor.
There’s a large man standing in front of him, who looks to be much older.
Silver hair, but patchy. He’s not wearing a suit or a white jacket.
I don’t think he’s a chef. The dim light hides any defining details on his face, but he doesn’t feel familiar.
“You know why I’m here.”
“No. Enlighten me,” Dacre says casually.
“Don’t bullshit me. I know what you’re doing.”
“Did my grandfather send you?”
“No . . . If he knew . . . Well, it would break his heart. I thought I’d try to convince you to come to your senses first.”
The man shrugs off his jacket and tosses it onto the stainless steel counter. Crossing the room, he turns on the radio and turns the volume up till there’s a loud violin echoing accompanied by a piano shaking my eardrums.
Dacre shifts uneasily.
Thankfully, I’m close enough that I can still hear him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve known you since you were in diapers, boy. Do you think you can lie to me that easily? That I can’t see what’s happening here?”
Dacre doesn’t look up.
There’s a clamoring of steel as the man reaches for the stove and throws a pan that narrowly misses Dacre’s head.
I place my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp as I peek through the cracked door.
“Do you think I want to do this? That I like hurting you? You’re like a son to me.”
“No, sir. I’m not hiding anything.”
There’s another thrashing of a pan.
“It’s insulting to see you lie to my face. You’re so close to getting everything you want. You need to stay focused.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Yes, sir.”
The click of a burner on the stove echoes in the room, and I place my other hand over my mouth when the man grabs a knife and holds it over the fire.
“I thought you’d be more careful, what with everything you have at stake. You know how easy it would be for me to find your little sister.”
Sister?
Dacre straightens. “This has nothing to do with Florence.”
“It has everything to do with her.”
“I wouldn’t do anything to put my sister in danger.”
The man lifts the glowing red knife. “Hold out your hands.”
Dacre doesn’t hesitate to pull his hands from his pockets and place them on the counter.
“Use this as your reminder to focus. Discipline your emotions.”
I don’t want to see, but I can’t look away.
Dacre grits his teeth as the man slashes his hands with the hot blade. I’m frozen. I should not be here witnessing this. I should get help—
My leg gives out from under me. I bump the door, making its hinges squeak as I fall to the floor.
Oh shit.
“What was that?” The man’s voice accompanies the clatter of the knife on the counter.
“I didn’t hear anything.” Dacre’s voice is oddly calm.
“Check over there.”
There’s no way I will make it out of the lounge without them catching me, so I hide, rushing toward the first door I see.
I close the door and squeeze myself below a shelf between the paper towels and cleaning supplies.
Seconds later, the door opens and the light turns on. I cower, backing up till my back is against the wall.
Footsteps sound closer, and I place my hands over my ears.
I’m being pulled from my hiding spot—then smothered. I recognize his scent before I see him. Dacre and I are chest to chest. I squirm while he places a hand over my mouth. Every attempt to struggle stops when I look into his eyes. Fear.
He hugs me till I’m flush with his body, then rubs his cheek across mine. I’m lost in a frozen daze for seconds.
Wait. He’s . . . trying to hide my scent.
“Nothing over here,” the man calls. “I know I saw the door move.”
“I was just checking the cleaning closet. I don’t see anything,” Dacre calls.
When I try to squirm from his grip, he rubs the back of my head. It’s enough to calm me while his lips graze my skin. It’s all business, and I know that logically. But a simmering heat gathers in my belly when his warm tongue glides over my neck, then my wrists.
I’m hot all over with the feeling of his tongue on my skin. It’s frantic. Panicked. A desperate attempt to mask my scent with his because of this psychotic mystery man. Dacre’s lips move below my jaw, and I shudder as he carefully sucks at the skin there.
He reminds me to keep quiet with eye contact every few seconds, and I dig my fingernails into his forearm as his thumb rubs over every area where his saliva lingers.
It’s . . . not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and unfortunately, that just adds to my mounting confusion and fear. What will this man do if he finds me here? If he’s willing to do that to someone he considers a son, I’m sure I don’t want to see my fate.
Something in Dacre’s touch eases me into compliance.
The space between us is filled with our breath when he pulls away.
“I didn’t find anything. Let’s go,” the man says.
“I’ll be right there. I just have to clean up my station,” Dacre says, his green eyes boring into mine.
The footsteps draw in closer, and he places a hand back over my mouth, nervously rubbing my neck with the other.
Dacre rests his chin over my head, squeezing me tighter, and we wait for the footsteps to pass and leave. My cheek is pressed to his chest, and any whiff of my scent that he catches, he smothers it with his mouth: the top of my head, my ear—
The footsteps finally dissipate, and the sound of the lounge door follows.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
His blood is all over me. All over my face and my jacket.
“Don’t do that again.”
“Okay . . .”
“Don’t do that again,” he repeats unsteadily, his eyes brimming with more emotion than I’ve ever seen him muster. “I’m serious. If he had caught you . . . Emma, he’ll hurt you.”
That I gathered.
“Let me see your hands,” I say. There are two red X’s on the back of Dacre’s hands that are struggling to heal. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It’s . . . It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t go with him.”
“I have to. Just forget this. Go straight back to Luxxia, okay? Can you do that? We just pretend this never happened, like we always do.”
“No, I don’t want to do that anymore. Who is that guy?”
He grabs my face in his hands. “Emma, please. Just this once, do what I say.”
“But I want to help—”
“This never happened. Help me by going to your room. Please do that for me.”
My resolve breaks at the pleading in his voice.
“Okay.”
He leaves me no room to argue as he disappears, leaving nothing but quiet behind.
I sit in the closet for a few more minutes, trying to wrap my head around everything I just witnessed.
I feel his lips all over me and the soft graze of his tongue. My fingers drift across my collarbones where his breath warmed my skin, then over my wrists where his tongue licked desperately.
“Please, do that for me.”
For him.
He wanted me to be safe for him.