Chapter 8
May
L eah was waiting up for me when I climbed back in through the balcony doors.
I gave her a rundown of the evening, leaving out huge chunks of information because I'm pretending some of it didn't happen.
My panties are still wet. He's still on me everywhere.
Now it's nearly 5 a.m. and sleep won't come.
I took a bath, counted sheep, but it's useless.
Lying here in my ivory tower, I'm thinking that maybe my plan is stupid and ridiculous.
Maybe I'm stupid and ridiculous. I mean, what does it matter, even if I do save enough to get an apartment and go to culinary school?
Either way, I'm just going to end up right back here in a few months with Victor.
I guess in my little fantasy world, if I got out, maybe they would delay the wedding, give me a year to live on my own.
A year to be free and have fun, and not screw up all the weird demands and requirements of my parents' will.
I loved my dad, and he loved me and Leah. But he had some backward ideas about women, that's for sure. And in his world, I guess he figured he was doing what was best for us.
Get married, make a baby, and then everyone is bound together for life. Safe and sound, all squared away.
I want all your firsts, Pink. His voice cuts in. I close my eyes.
So when those things fall into place, that's when my inheritance passes out of Simon's hands.
But it doesn't go to me. It goes to my husband, who is supposed to take care of me. If we ever get divorced, he doesn't have any rights to the money, though, so when Victor and I do tie the knot, it's until death us do part for real. Proper old school stuff.
And I have to produce an heir. I have to be pregnant and married for the terms of the trust to be fulfilled. Otherwise, it stays in the conservatorship, which has limited power.
I still shake my head at my dad. He loved us so much, but he was so old-fashioned. Didn't realize we may have a different version of our lives in mind.
My hand slips under the blanket. Down. I press two fingers where his were a few hours ago and try to make it feel the same.
It doesn't.
He took something with him when he left. The trick of it. The magic. Whatever it is that turns regular touching into the thing he did to me on his desk.
I shiver under the blankets as the grandfather clock chimes in the downstairs parlor. I count the number of chimes. Six o'clock. I haven't slept a wink, and I don't see that changing until I fall over, exhausted, tonight.
Tonight.
It dawns on me that Deck hired me, and I have a job.
I think of all the reasons it doesn't matter, and I've already decided I won't go back. Leah was right. I need to grow up and stop with my crazy schemes.
Besides, what happened with Deck can never happen again.
It felt too good. Too right. And I know if I ever see him again, I will never want to come back here.
I'll never be able to marry Victor, let alone think of him doing the same things that Deck did to me.
Just thinking about Victor touching me like that sends a very different kind of shiver through my body.
You would think that of the two of them, I would be more attracted to Victor. After all, he's closer to my age. And he looks like a slick advertisement in GQ. His helmet of dark hair, never a strand out of place. His cold, dark eyes feel as real as a model in the pages of a magazine.
His hands are small. Smaller than mine, almost. I noticed it the day he put the ring on me.
I should feel lucky. Lucky that someone with those looks would even want to marry someone who looks like me. But I don't. I don't feel lucky at all. I feel sick, and I have to shake away thoughts of Deck's mouth. His fingers. The taste of my orgasm on his kiss.
As I curl into a ball, trying to shake the chill, I think of how other parts of Deck would have tasted if my mouth got to give him what his gave me.
Salt, probably. Salt and skin and that sharp, sweet smell he had at his neck.
I'd want to taste him slow. Like the way I taste a new recipe — a little, then more, then everything.
And the tears seep out, because I'll never know.