Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
ARIANA
W ith Obsidian out of the house, I finally have the opportunity to confront Uma.
What game is she playing? During dinner last night, she was perfectly pleasant, giving no indication as to what or who she truly is. But I was nearly frozen in fear the whole time that she’d blurt out that she knew me, knew I’d been stealing from the Vosses. The entire dream of a life here with Obsidian will crumble.
I can’t take the tension anymore.
Can’t take the waiting for the ticking bomb to explode.
I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.
And so, I go in search of her and find her lounging in one of the many living areas in the east wing. She doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me.
“Hello, Ariana, how are you this evening?”
“Cut the shit, Uma. What are you doing here?”
She grins like a tiger playing with a boar. I hate that she knows she has me. “What do you mean? You know why I’m here.” She flicks her black hair off her shoulder and leans back in the seat, arms spread wide and looking for all the world as though she’s as relaxed as can be.
I step closer to her. “I want to know why you’re really here.”
“I’m not going to tell you. Not yet anyway.”
“Is this a game to you?” I raise my voice.
“Nothing about this is a game, Ariana, you know that. And if it were, I only play to win. Something to keep in mind.”
My hands fist at my sides. God, I want to straddle her and strangle her, watching her take her last breath. “Isn’t it enough that you’re forcing my family to pay you so much money plus a ridiculous amount of interest? Now you’re here to what, fuck with my life?”
Amusement glints in her eyes. “Maybe I’ll just fuck Obsidian instead. I bet he’s like a wolf in bed.” She arches a dark eyebrow.
“Over my dead body.”
Uma smirks. “Oh, really?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but you need to leave. Now. You’ll get your money. This wasn’t part of the deal.”
She chuckles deep in her throat, but it lacks any humor. “Now, now, Ariana. What would Obsidian think if he heard you talking to me like this?” She clucks her tongue, and her hand covers my necklace around her neck. She rubs her finger and thumb around it. “The woman who saved his life.”
Hearing her refer to him as Obsidian over and over grates on me. Almost everyone calls him Sid or Mr. Voss except me.
“If he knew who you really were and what you were capable of…”
“The same could be said of you.” She narrows her eyes, her face hardening into her usual criminal killer one.
“I want you gone by the morning, or I’m telling him who you really are.”
She shakes her head. “We both know you won’t do that. Too much to lose. Guess you’re stuck with me.”
A frustrated scream releases from me, and I stomp across the massive room toward the exit. This got me nowhere. Now she knows she has me underfoot.
Racing out of the room into the hallway, I pull up short, finding Obsidian. His face is drained of color, and the love that is usually overflowing from his face is gone, replaced with horror.
“How much of that did you hear?” I whisper, tears welling.
He doesn’t say a word before he gives me his back and stalks down the hallway. I race after him, almost having to run to keep pace.
“Obsidian, wait. Please.” I grab hold of his suit jacket, but he yanks his arm out of my grasp.
Unshed tears burn my eyes as I follow him into his bedroom. Twenty paces in, he whips around to face me. Devastation is all I see reflected back, and I have never loathed myself more than in this moment.
“Let me explain,” I beg, stepping closer, but he holds up his hand and steps back.
“I didn’t catch much of your conversation, but enough to know that you and Leah know each other.” He shakes his head as if he can’t make the words make sense. “Enough to know that you’ve been lying to me!”
I cringe at the sound of his anger and disdain, yet I know I deserve it.
It was always going to come to this. I couldn’t continue lying to him anyway.
Sucking in a deep breath, I decide to lay the truth all out there. At this point, it’s over anyway, and he deserves to know that I’m the fucked-up one between us. “Her name is Uma.”
He blinks several times as though he doesn’t know what I’m saying, can’t comprehend that Leah isn’t Leah.
“She’s not the one who saved you on that beach. I am.”
His face pales, and he pushes a hand through his thick hair, tugging on the strands. “But the necklace…”
“It’s my necklace. Correction. It was my mother’s, and it’s the only thing she left for me before she took off. I was forced to give it to Uma as collateral for a large debt my father owes her.”
His face twists, and he doesn’t say anything for a second. “You’ve been stealing from me to pay a debt?”
My throat squeezes painfully around the truth that tries to rise up out of it. I blink and a single tear topples down my cheek. “Yes,” I whisper.
I don’t know how he knows I’ve been stealing from him, but that’s not my biggest worry at the moment.
“There’s so much you don’t know about me. That I haven’t told you.” I walk over to the sitting area, my legs unable to hold me up any longer. “My dad isn’t a good guy. Not the worst kind of guy by any means, but my entire life, my dad has never had a real job. He’s a grifter, always running some kind of scheme on someone.”
Obsidian stands in front of where I’m sitting. I look away from him, not wanting to see the revulsion in his eyes.
“From the time I was little, he taught me how to run cons on people. When I was a kid, he used my youth and innocence against people’s naiveté. When I was a teenager, he used my beauty against men’s lust for the forbidden. The only reason I became a lifeguard after high school was because my dad wanted me to work at a country club so I could steal from the rich people or act as a honey trap.” I shake my head, feeling disgust at myself for ever going along with any of my dad’s plans. “Bast isn’t even my real brother. My dad took him in when he ran away from home because even as a kid, Bast was good at hustling on the streets. That’s my dad though. He’s always been an opportunist.”
“Why are you here?” His voice is hard, and I chance a glance up at him, finding the disgust I expected.
“My dad got mixed up with Uma and owed her a lot of money, an amount we couldn’t have possibly paid off in the three months she demanded. After I saved you on the beach, I ran away because I was taught to never have anything to do with the cops. Even something good like saving a billionaire’s life could mean a lot of media attention I didn’t want and lead to people prying into my past. When I found out who I’d saved, my brother and dad wanted me to reach out and demand money from you.” I shake my head. “It didn’t feel right. Besides, I had no way to prove it was me.”
Obsidian lets a sadistic chuckle loose. “That didn’t feel right, but stealing from me does?”
“Of course not!” I plead with my eyes for him to believe me, but he shakes his head and looks at me like he did that first day I came to the manor. “I applied for the job, and when I got it, my brother and I planned that I would steal things, then pass them off to him to fence and get the money to Uma. At first, I told myself that you wouldn’t even notice anything was gone, you have so much here, who was I really hurting? But as I got to know you… fell in love with you… I felt such guilt about it. I told Bast that I couldn’t do it anymore.” My head falls into my hands. “I know that doesn’t make it okay.”
Tears leak onto my palms, and I sob for a minute, but Obsidian remains quiet. When I finally raise my head and look at him, the rage lining his features frightens me.
“Was this all just some game, then? Keep me distracted so I wouldn’t figure out what you were up to? Make me easy to deal with, pliable in case you were discovered? Maybe you hoped I’d never believe it if you were accused.”
I bolt up off the couch. “No! My feelings for you are real. I love you!”
He sneers. “Enough with your lies. I can’t even stomach looking at you.” He prowls to the door and leaves without another word.
It feels as though he dropped the cracked heart I thought I was piecing back together in my lap.