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Another step. “Without the contempt of your heated gaze, what could hope to keep me warm?”
“A bonfire.”
He slips.
I lunge forward just in time for his foot to plant on the stable platform of the next stair. In a cruel twist of fate, he catches me, leaving me staring speechless into his eyes.
Wordlessly, he ascertains that I’m stable on my feet, then he turns like he didn’t just do anything on purpose.
I watch him descend the rest of the steps, get into the backseat of his limo, and drive off the property. When he’s no longer in sight, I take myself to my room, adjust the thermostat so it’s freezing, and begin sorting through the bags on my floor.
Chapter 10
It’s not exactly a moat…but I’ll accept drowning here.
– Marcella
“I must admit,” Brigid, sprawled atop a plastic pink float in the massive pool outside my and Penny’s castle mansion, murmurs, “it is difficult to argue with the benefits.”
“Try harder,” I mutter.
Paddling adorably in her floral swim cap, Penny does her laps around the deep end, AKA the only part of the entire pool where she can’t touch the bottom. “He’s told you he doesn’t even need the husband and wife stuff. Can we abandon all our morals and just go through with it, for the perks?”
Seated on the shallow end steps, head just above the water, I glare at my friends. Who suck, by the way. “Clearly, you can.”
“While I was growing up, my sister said she was going to sell me to the prince of a foreign country for oil shares. This is totally a better deal than that.” Penny beams, catching all the sunlight.
“Marsh only wants company,” Brigid says, lamely kicking her way over to the side where a tray of treats and drinks rest in the shade. Without any prompting at all, the housemaid Teresa set us up a little buffet, smiled, and went back inside to make sure I would never see dust again. Plucking a strawberry, Brigid takes a bite. “If you’re adamantly against this, let me ask Cody if he’s okay with letting me be a billionaire’s special friend.”
“I don’t think Cody’s the type to share.”
“Never mind asking, then. He’s a firefighter. Long shifts. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Oh. Okay. I get it. Screw morals. We no longer have consciences, period.
Must’ve missed that memo.
Leaning back, I let my legs float while I hold onto the metal railing that cuts down the center of the steps. “Nobody cares about my emotions anymore. Not now that they have access to a pool.”
“A pool in Georgia is a very important thing.” Brigid lifts one of the martini glasses, sniffs the contents, and takes a sip. “Hey, Pens. I don’t think this is alcoholic. It seems to be frozen lemonade.”
Gasping, Penny flippers her way over. “Yay! Juice.”
Non-alcoholic martinis…
Probably because F-man’s worried what other billionaire wife positions I’ll apply for if I get drunk again. Jokes on him. I now have PTSD whenever I so much as look at a form.
“I’ve been keeping a horrible secret from you both,” I begin, pitifully.
My friends, sipping their martinis, glance my way.
As dramatic as humanly possible, I face the pool wall. “When he stole me away from my beloved home and dumped me off here…he told me to bring only the necessities.”
“That makes logical sense. He also then immediately bought you everything you would ever need, so letting you take anything with you from that molded-over apartment was merciful. He could have wrapped you up in a towel like a stressed dog and wrangled you into the back of his limo.” Brigid does not sound sympathetic to my immense struggles at all.
But I have barely scratched the surface.
“You don’t understand. He insulted the penguin pebbles.”
