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Paisley takes three tries to utter a shaky, “Thank you.” She gulps in air for another few seconds before asking, “Can I go now?”
“Of course.” I reach out to touch the back of her hand and I get those tingles from the other night, the same energy flowing between us. The thing I can’t ever remember feeling when I touched my wife, despite my protestations of love, my firm commitment. “Sorry to keep you so long.”
She nods and turns, ready to make her escape.
“Hey,” I say as she reaches the door, partly just for the joy of her turning back. For seeing the spark of curiosity in her eyes.
She’s off limits but a man can look, can’t he?
“Happy birthday, Paisley.”
Her eyes shimmer and for a moment, I’m afraid she’s about to cry. Instead, that same shy smile reappears, widening. “Thank you, Mr Bradley.”
“Call me Ivan.”
A frown twists her forehead. “I thought your name was Conner.”
And I have no idea where she found that out. It certainly didn’t come from me and it’s yet another sign that this is a bad idea. My brother would already have killed her and be cleaning the mess away before it could cause further damage.
But the idea now horrifies me. I’d rather tie her up and toss her in the basement for the next few months than let Creighton’s men clean her away. “I thought your name was Emilia.”
She wrinkles her nose and gives a small laugh before escaping the room. As she goes, my eyes dart to the flip of her skirt as she turns into the corridor, enjoying the flash of her bare inner thigh.
Yeah.
The less Creighton knows, the better.
CHAPTERSEVEN
PAISLEY
The momentthe class door closes behind me, I run to my room, locking myself in before I flop onto my bed. When I close my eyes, the bruises on my teacher’s hands float into view. Those and the blemish at the inside corner of his eye, the mark on his forehead.
Marks he got from hurting the man who drugged me. The assault that landed the bartender in the neuro ward. A beating that means he won’t spike another girl’s drink, ever again.
He did it for me.
The reality checker in my brain tries to pull me up on that one, insisting I only have his word for it and a man who’d shag someone barely conscious outside against a wall probably isn’t Prince Charming, but I fight back.
He’s the one who was there, after all. He said so and I believe him.
Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me before. Nobody’s ever doled out punishment for daring to hurt me.
I think of him saying goodbye to me, letting me know how long he’d be, leaving me alone in his bed in his fabulous home, trusting me there, even on such short notice.
He made sure I knew where my phone was. Made sure it was charged.
The memories send a flutter across my stomach, making my head so light I’m dizzy.
Today, he’s the only one who wished me a happy birthday. The only person to remember.
My thoughts circle back to the bartender.
If I’d told my uncle the story about the bartender, he’d probably grunt and say, ‘Sluts get what sluts deserve.’ One of his favourite phrases, even when we had company. I remember my first boyfriend’s mortification when my uncle rolled that one out, and his favourite sayings didn’t stop there.
That relationship ended abruptly. It was also the last time I brought a boy anywhere near my relatives.
My heart hums with gratitude that no matter what’s going on at this school, at least I don’t go home to that every night. The pursed lips, the sucking on his teeth, the penetrating gaze as he looked me up and down and always found me wanting. The way I was expected to wait on him and my cousins, hand and foot. None of them knowing how to operate the washing machine, the drier, the vacuum, the mop.
