Chapter Eighteen #2
She listened for movement on the lower floor.
Heard nothing. Maybe he was upstairs. Her gaze tilted upward.
What if he was in his bedroom? She thought of the Jaguar parked out front and remembered her hurt and anger at the sight of Rhett lying across Delia, her manicured nails scrabbling at his broad naked back.
Could I manage this twice?
She took a deep fortifying breath.
Hells bells, yes! I have to know. Once and for all.
“Rhett?” she called again.
“Well. Well. Well,” a female voice sneered from the deep shadows of the great room. “What do we have here?”
Lily wheeled around.
Delia Armstead slithered up to the top step and into the light of the foyer. Clad in a tight snakeskin jumpsuit with her dark hair pinned up in a wild mass of curls, she looked like a rattlesnake coiled to strike. Her cold-blooded eyes glittered while gauging the distance between them.
Lily remembered her childhood fairy tales, and the evil witches who could take almost any form, and she almost smiled. Almost.
At least Delia wasn’t in Rhett’s bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” Delia demanded. “You’re trespassing.”
“And you’re not?” Lily retorted, though Delia’s accusation smacked of possessiveness.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m more than welcome, been coming and going here for years.” She crept forward, one slow step at a time, like a pit viper cornering prey. “I asked you what you’re doing here.”
Lily tilted her chin defiantly. “I came to see Rhett.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to see you,” Delia snapped. “He’s tired of you. I’m surprised he was with you at all.”
Had Rhett told her that? Or was Delia just being nasty? The woman was back here at the mansion for the second time in as many days, Lily reminded herself uneasily.
“Rhett and I are none of your business,” she fired back.
Delia’s mouth curved in a reptilian smile to match those stalking eyes. “Think so? He told me all about you. We laughed over your na?ve little interlude.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lily cried. “Rhett wouldn’t do that.”
“Then you don’t know Rhett very well.” The witch batted her eyelashes provocatively. “Not like I do.”
Damn her.
Lily did know Rhett. She had felt a riveting connection with him. Delia had to be lying for spite. But the witch had said na?ve interlude, and Rhett had called Lily na?ve more than once.
“I do know Rhett,” she declared, her hands balling into fists. She refused to concede the upper hand to this witch.
“No, you only see what you want to see.” Delia slinked forward two more steps, shaking her head. “You can’t see the truth. Rhett can’t love you. You cannot possibly fit into his world. You don’t belong there.” The witch smirked. “I do. He’s realized that now.”
Lily didn’t want to believe Delia, but the witch’s spiteful words ripped at her heart, like pieces were being torn away.
She had worried about fitting into Rhett’s glamorous world from the moment she met him.
She was Cinderella on the outside looking in.
Yet, the thought of her world without Rhett in it hurt too much to let go.
“Where’s Rhett?” she cried, hating the tears she could feel stinging the backs of her eyelids. “I want to hear that from him, not you.”
Delia’s eyes danced gleefully at the sight of her prey’s weakening resolve. “Rhett went for a walk. I was just about to join him. He’s waiting for me at the beach, and he doesn’t want to see you. You have caused him nothing but trouble. He said he doesn’t have time for your tantrums.”
Ouch! That held a ring of truth.
She thought of the flowers and skywriting and other ploys she had so cavalierly waved off when Rhett tried hard to see her and make up. Her heartache sliced again. Soon, she would have no heart left. She took a deep breath. What now?
Save your pride. Walk out with your head high. Do not look whipped.
Lily took another deep breath to steady her voice. The lancing pains at her heart would have to wait.
She turned and started up the stairs. “I’ll just go and get my things, then I’ll leave.”
“You’re not going up there!” Delia shouted after her.
“My clothes are up there,” she said with not a little satisfaction.
She continued up the steps and heard the speedy clackety-clack of Italian sandals on the foyer’s marble tile. Lily picked up her pace.
“I need my clothes. They’re all I have after my cottage burned.”
Why had she said that? Delia didn’t possess an ounce of compassion and wouldn’t care.
“I said no!” The witch started up the stairs after her.
Lily kept marching—one foot after the other, one step at a time.
She wasn’t leaving here without her clothes.
She may have lost Rhett, but she wanted those clothes.
She shut her eyes, hesitated on the step, and savored the wisp of memory—Rhett helping her pick out everything at the mall, the two of them laughing over his choices.
“Stop right there, damn you!” Delia shrieked, losing her cool. “Rhett doesn’t want you in his house. You’ll probably try to lock yourself in the bedroom until he comes back like the little gold digger you are!”
The gold digger comment held her in place. Had Rhett told Delia that? He had said as much to Lily. Maybe Delia was telling the truth. Rhett had gone back to the witch fast enough after he had thrown Lily out of his house.
She suddenly hated Delia. She twisted around on the step, surprised to see how far Delia had climbed up the staircase and even more surprised to see the witch so close.
“What are you so afraid of?” Lily lashed out, wanting the witch to hurt too. “Afraid Rhett might change his mind?”
“Not a chance. He will never get tired of me.” Delia’s smile turned vicious. “Rhett and I are too fabulous in bed . . . or the shower . . . or the floor.”
Each picture the witch painted of her and Rhett’s lovemaking sliced at Lily’s heart, and the images carried the tint and hue of truth. Fresh pain squeezed her lungs and eked out an involuntary whimper.
Delia heard and pounced joyfully. “You know I’m right. You saw the proof yourself just yesterday. Rhett couldn’t even wait to get me on the bed.”
One practiced jab too many. Lily saw red with the last bit of evil spewing from Delia’s mouth. Her heart pounded with the same fury she had suffered yesterday at the sight of Rhett’s almost naked body sprawled across Delia. If the witch didn’t want Lily upstairs, then up the stairs she would go.
She wheeled around and marched determinedly up the remaining steps. “This isn’t your house, and I’m getting my clothes. If Rhett wants me thrown out, he can do it himself. He’s fully capable as he has already proved.”
Quicker than Lily would have believed possible, Delia scampered up and around her, blocking access to the last couple steps before the landing.
“You’re not coming up here,” the witch snarled and pointed down at the door. “Now get out.”
The two women were evenly matched in size though Delia won on viciousness. Lily needed to be careful.
“Step aside,” she ordered. “I’m getting my clothes, and then I’ll leave.”
She eased toward the middle of the stair as though to go around Delia, but the witch shifted with her.
“I don’t know what you thought you could gain by coming here, but Rhett doesn’t want you.
He came running back to me. You saw for yourself yesterday afternoon.
The way I see it, you have two choices. You can try to ambush Rhett and make him tell you himself—hurt you to your face—or you can believe me and get out of his life with your pride still intact. ”
Delia’s words stung. Lily had seen Rhett and the witch wrapped together, with her own eyes, though Tammy insisted that she believe something altogether different.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Lily scrunched her eyes to shut out the horrible image of Rhett lying across Delia.
“Closing your eyes won’t make it go away,” Delia taunted. “Rhett wants me. No one can make love to him like I can.”
Lily’s eyes flew open. “Shut up!”
“You saw him on top of me—naked—right where he wanted to be.”
Lily pressed her hands to her ears. “Shut up!”
Delia came down a step and yanked her hands away.
“You were nothing but a game to him, to see if he could seduce the little gardener. He forgot you like that.” She snapped her fingers in Lily’s face, then knocked her sideways against the banister.
“Playtime is over, you little bitch! You can’t win. Give it up.”
Delia’s words shredded Lily’s heart into dozens of pieces. Had Rhett played with her? Was it all a game to him? Had he really discussed their affair with Delia?
Something inside Lily snapped. Her anger flared—anger at the adulterous betrayal she had witnessed with her own eyes. She refused to let Delia win this little skirmish even if she had won the war.
“I’m getting my clothes.” She snarled each word. “So get out of my way.”
Delia’s eyes slitted to icy shards. “You can’t win. If you try to go after Rhett, I’ll make you sorry you ever met him.”
She dropped down to Lily’s step and grabbed her arm.
“Let me go!” Lily shouted and tried to yank her arm free.
Delia’s long nails dug in, and Lily cried out with the pain. She fought for leverage, gripped at the banister with her free hand, but Delia had compromised her balance, and her body swayed dangerously.
“Let go of me!” she shouted again.
“You were supposed to be in that cottage,” Delia grunted as she used her free hand to tear Lily’s grip loose from the banister.
Lily gasped. “You’re the one who sabotaged my propane tank?”
The witch cackled wildly. “Yes, it was me, and I hope this breaks your skinny neck.” She gave Lily a hard two-handed shove.