Chapter Twenty
After lunch, Dax’s meetings call him away but not before he gifts me a key to the apartment wing.
I sneak through the hidden door to the boardroom and back to my room, laying down my new laptop and stationery on the bed.
I’m both nervous and excited about setting it up.
I’ve never done it before and don’t want to pick any wrong settings that might screw it up later. I guess, I can only try.
It can wait, though.
First on my list for this afternoon is finding Sylvie and seeing how she’s doing. She might not want to talk, but that’s okay. I just want to say I’m here if she needs me.
Her door is closed and though I knock and wait for longer than might seem appropriate, there’s no answer from Sylvie.
I retreat, vowing to try again later, and am halfway back to my room when a loud creak sounds behind me.
The hiss of shuffling feet has me turning to greet her, but I’m stopped short when I catch a glimpse of her face.
Hatred. Unadulterated hate scrunches her beautiful face. Her eyes glare; low-drawn brows darken her pupils to black pits amid the white. Her skin is sallow. Her lips draw up at the corners into a sneer before she spits venomous words.
“Why the fuck are you here?”
“I came back this morning.”
“Why? Why can’t you just fuck off back to where you belong?
You’re nothing but a low-class whore. Think you’ve got it made here in the big house with all the men running after you like you’re hot shit?
You’re not. You’re scum, and the sooner you realise that, the sooner you can crawl back to your gutter and disappear.
Or better yet, maybe those psychos can finally get rid of you?
You’re clearly earning your way on your back with your legs spread for every no-good bastard in this house.
Why not earn some money hooking for Hanson while you’re at it? ”
“Where the hell has this all come from?” Why does she know details of who is after me? Franz, yeah, but Hanson? Who would have told her Eric sold me to Hanson’s?
“You’ve ruined everything! Everything was perfect until you came along. Things were normal. Happy. Now you are all they all talk about. Juliet. Precious Juliet. Centre of the fucking universe JULIET.”
“Listen, I know it was my fault you were grabbed…”
“God, you’re such a self-absorbed cunt! Even you think it’s all about you.”
“Sylvie—”
“No! I don’t have to listen to your bleating, boring, bullshit! I want you out of my house. I want you so fucking far away, it’d take six lifetimes to make it back here. This is mine. They are mine. You can’t have any of it.”
“Will you just let me speak?”
“No. Do you have any idea of the humiliation I went through? I’ve been prodded, poked, violated, medicated, and spoken to like I’m either insane or an imbecile.
This is my fucking house. I am Sylvie fucking Trevainne!
These people work for me! Now, they’re looking at me like I’m fucking incompetent. You did this.”
Oh, fuck this bitch. I’m done.
“No. You did it!” My tone is controlled fury. Every word, loaded and sharpened for maximum impact. “Fucking take ownership of your own mistakes, you entitled bitch!” Sylvie stumbles back a step. “You blame everyone else…”
“Actually, just you,” she sneers.
I continue as if she hadn’t spoke, “…but you’re the one who runs away, slipping off with whichever bodyguard will indulge you.
You don’t warn anyone where you are going or how long you’ll be away.
You’ve been flouting your safety for way longer than I’ve been here.
So, what’s that about? Hmm? If you’d have been more fucking responsible, then maybe none of that would have happened.
Or maybe it would have happened regardless, but everyone would have noticed sooner. You’re the girl who cried wolf.”
“Want to blame me for what I was wearing too?”
“You mean the lingerie spread out on your case or that little negligee you were wearing when I found you?” I fire back, then regret it instantly.
“I shouldn’t have said that. For what it’s worth, NO ONE has the right to touch you without your consent.
I don’t care if you’re lying in the middle of the road with everything on display, no one has the right to touch you without your permission.
My argument isn’t about that. It’s about you blaming everyone else for a situation you caused.
You set the precedent when you acted like a spoiled child and ran away.
You were supposed to be at the hospital with Tom.
You never showed, and everyone assumed you’d slipped off with your bodyguard for a sly fuck. ”
“Are you seriously slut shaming me?”
“No! Jesus, will you listen? TELL SOMEONE WHERE YOU ARE GOING. Tell them who you are going with, and how long you’ll be gone.
It’s not like they don’t already know how you spend your time, and, for the record, if they were bothered about it, they’d have stopped you long ago.
So just check in. For that matter, why didn’t you call for help?
You had a phone right there. Why didn’t you tell someone? ”
The sneer wipes from her face. Her eyes narrow to slits and I sense she really doesn’t like that I asked.
She delivers her response low and with a twisted confidence that borders more on threat than assurance. “I didn’t have a phone.”
“Bullshit. The room phone was on the bedside table, and your mobile was on the bed.”
“I. DIDN’T. HAVE. A. PHONE!” she emphasises pointedly, but I’m not letting this drop. In fact, a lot of questions rise to the surface.
“Actually, a few things don’t add up. Who paid for the suite? Why were you in the penthouse in the first place? You clearly don’t take all your lovers to the high-class hotels…”
“How dare you!” she spits. Her sneer firmly back on her lips. “Did you stop to think maybe they took us there?”
I’ll give her that as a possibility. “Fine, say I believe you. That would mean they grabbed you between here and the hospital.”
“So?”
So? What an interesting way to reply. Not a confirmation or denial. Not an explanation. Just a stubborn little so.
“Well, we know that you weren’t planning to go to the hospital at all. You were coming to surprise me at my interview,” I ponder as another thought occurs. Something that makes no sense at all. “Which is where I assumed they’d grabbed you.”
“Exactly. They got us there,” she agrees, jumping on my explanation a little too fast.
“Then why did you have a suitcase of clothes, Sylvie? Why would you come to a coffee house with a suitcase of lingerie and negligees?”
Sylvie lunges. She moves at the exact moment that a scream of frustration comes tearing from her mouth.
She hits me full force, and I’m only just able to turn to take the impact on one side instead of letting her barrel me over.
Unfortunately, turning gives her access to my hair, which she grabs and yanks.
My scalp screams the sting of each hair she pulls out before I shove her backward into the wall.
Knocking her against it again and again, I’m fighting to remember it’s Sylvie, not Dad.
I can’t blackout. I can’t hurt her the way I hurt Ben.
But pulling my hair has triggered me and I’m half in this corridor with the pissed off woman-child and half in my head with my abusive father… No. I am a Girard. Not a Feelan.
Fuck this!
As soon as she releases my hair, I pull away, raise my right hand, and slap her straight across her twisted face.
Hard. Just as I expect, Sylvie has no idea how to take a hit.
She rears back, her hands releasing me and clutching at her face.
Her are eyes wide and awash with tears, and her mouth stretches wider as she stares at me in shock.
I’m quite sure this is the first time someone has openly slapped her.
What were those bruises on her arm at the hotel, then?
I watch as the shock transforms to disbelief and then to fury upon her face; her eyes narrowing to accusing slits, but I’m past caring how Little Miss Trevainne feels. No one fucking touches me without my permission either, and especially not to hurt me. Never again.
I ready myself for her next attack only to rear back as she pulls a complete emotional one-eighty.
Wailing fills the corridor. More tears than I’ve ever cried, dredge down her face, ruining the make-up I didn’t know she was wearing.
I’m mesmerised by the dark streaks trailing through her ever so pale foundation despite the way the fury never quite leaves her eyes.
What is this?
“What the fuck is going on here? The whole compound can hear you both!”
Ah. We have an audience. Makes sense. Seems my original assessment of Sylvie was the right one.
Grandmother will be tutting and rolling her eyes at me right now.
‘Never judge a person on a single error. Judge them on the errors they repeat.’ A single error might just be an innocent mistake—a lapse in judgement, but repetition means it is long-learned behaviour. It’s who they are.
And Sylvie Trevainne is a selfish, manipulative bitch, and a liar.
She sobs, great hulking breaths choking down her throat. She’s good at this. I turn to see what I’m dealing with and whether it’s even worth explaining myself, expecting Dax, Aiden or even Cas to be lined up on the stairs, but it’s Frank and Ben.
“Well? Is one of you going to explain, or do I have to drag you both into Dean’s business meeting and shame us all?” Frank’s anger slices through the silence.
I’ve a curious urge to tell him to ‘fuck off, you’re not my father.
’ An urge so ludicrous, I can’t stop the burst of laughter that erupts from my mouth.
Frank’s eyes narrow at me, but he directs his question back to Sylvie.
Of course. She’s the walking wallet in this scenario.
Why would he bother letting me explain first?
God, I’m so done with this afternoon. I should have set up my laptop instead.