Six weeks later...

Thornton Manor greeted me with the same cold, calculating emptiness it always had. Its columns of ivory, it’s gleaming windows, and marble floors remained an elusive, and bitter friend I could never fully convince I wasn’t a traitor. Standing at its steps, head tilted up to embrace its grander, I was still struck by its intimidating force, by the shame that quickly followed. It knew, like the people dwelling within, that I did not belong there. That I was an outsider, a weasel in the hen house. I was not wanted and yet I continued to return like a loyal dog.

As the youngest of three, one would think the attention would be kind, loving even as I was the baby. That I would get all the support and leniency. But everyone knew the bastard child of infidelity seldom received compassion in the betrayed’s family.

My mother had had an affair. She’d admitted it to David and he had forgiven her.

I was another matter entirely.

I had soiled the Thornton name.

I had tainted the royal blood.

I had forced myself into a place I did not belong, a weed amongst a valley of roses, and I hadn’t had the courage to abort myself before being pushed into the world.

All sins I would forever be condemned for.

“Gabrielle.” The sultry purr with the musky potency of red wine bled through the late October breeze, equally brittle, equally dismissive. “You came.”

Cordelia, the second born, the golden goose of her father’s eye, the greatest replacement for a son any man could ever ask for, unfurled miles of legs and supermodel grace from her sleek Lamborghini — a gift from David. Her platinum mane glinted like the fine threads of corn silk in the sharp sun, each glossy strand was twisted expertly into a French knot to compliment the oval structure of her face. She wore Mother’s pearl earrings, I noted with some dejection. I’d always loved those.

“Hello Cordelia.”

She sashayed towards me as if she were in the middle of a Paris photoshoot. Every willowy limb moved and swayed in time with the crack of heels across stone.

“Has Eric arrived?”

Eric, the first born, was the only male heir and the love of their mother’s entire existence. There wasn’t a single drug charge, speeding ticket, or assault charge she hadn’t made vanish for him. All lies, in her eyes. Fabricated stories to ruin her precious son’s reputation. But Eric’s most recent vehicle, the one he had yet to demolish in some drunken rage, wasn’t parked in the cul-de-sac.

“I don’t think so,” I told my sister.

I couldn’t make out Cordelia’s icy blue eyes behind her Gucci sunglasses, but I could feel them slip away from me and linger on my 97’ Honda Civic parked discreetly off to one side. I knew it, because the one corner of her mouth quirked upwards the way only pretty girls knew how to do when they were silently laughing at someone. I braced myself for the comments, for the sly little jabs I should have been fairly used to at that point.

Instead, she made this little tittering sound at the back of her throat and started around me. I waited a full heartbeat before pivoting on my sensible three-inch heels and following.

Jameson, my father’s butler for what felt like the last eight hundred years, opened the door before we reached the top.

He inclined his graying head to Cordelia.

“Ms. Thornton.”

Then brushed aside to let us in.

Cordelia swept in, dainty hands already unfastening the fat, ivory buttons on her beige coat. She shrugged free and Jameson immediately accepted it when she practically tossed the article at him.

“Where is Father?” she asked, fluidly removing her glasses and scanning the grand foyer.

As if on cue, David Thornton descended the graceful sweep of the staircase, his strides sprinkled with just a hint of quickness a Thornton should never show, because Thornton’s never hurried for anyone. But he hit the bottom landing and made a beeline for his daughter.

“Cordy.”

I looked away as he embraced her and brushed her perfectly rosy cheeks with kisses. I focused on removing my own coat and handing it to Jameson with a quiet murmur of thanks.

“Gabrielle.”

David had released Cordelia and had finally noticed me, but the appraisal he gave me was nothing like the one he’d given her. There was nothing fatherly about his once over. There never was. Instead, it left me feeling violated and dirty. The long-sleeved dress that went nearly to my ankles wasn’t enough fabric to protect me from his dark, soulless eyes. I had to resist the urge to cross my arms, knowing any attempts to cover myself from him would result in repercussions much worse later. All I could do was offer him my best smile, just the way he liked it, ignoring the slimy sensation in the pit of my stomach as if I’d consumed a nest of snakes. It took all my senses to maintain eye contact the whole time.

David had always been a ruggedly handsome man. He’d gone from being a wealthy, athletic lady’s man in school, to a cunning businessman later on. He’d always been the ideal candidate for any gold digger. Even in his later years, he stubbornly kept to his fit figure and took monthly trips to touch up any undesirable blemishes that came with age. He forever remained that arrogantly smug lacrosse hero from his youth, the one with dazzling blue eyes and a head full of perfect hair. The only thing he’d allowed to change was the graceful graying in the strands. He considered it his greatest feature, the ability to keep all his hair, unlike his counterparts.

“Hello Father.”

The corner of David’s mouth bunched as it always did when I used the F word, a fleeting wince that contradicted the very strict instructions he’d given me my entire life to always call him Father. Never David. Never Dad. Father. Yet, he flinched every time I did, as if I’d cussed. Now was no exception, except it was followed by his focus reverting to the driveway through the open door behind me.

“Jameson, did one of the maids leave their car in front again?”

I turned as well, not entirely sure why, but secretly hoping there was another car he was referring to. But no.

“That’s mine,” I said.

To his credit, David almost didn’t make a face. It was more of a subtle little tick just above his right eye.

“Of course.” He drew in a breath and turned away, turned back to Cordelia where his flourishing smile returned. He offered her his arm. “Come. I have instructed the new cook to make all your favorites.”

“New cook?” Cordelia chuckled and slipped her slender hand through the crook of his elbow. “What happened to that fellow from the Mediterranean?”

The two of them glided away, leaving me no choice but to follow. I checked my watch and timed my departure exactly one hour from the moment I set foot in the parlor.

Sunday dinners were a mandatory affair. All Thornton’s, legitimate or not, were required to attend. Sundays were days for rich, lavish meals and talk of their many successes that past week. It was filled with chatter about politics, charity events, and me. But never directly. Always with an added little barb too underhanded to actually address.

Cordelia was the queen of underhanded insults.

“So, of course, I boarded the plane straight away and got to Paris just in time to save the entire magazine before it was an absolute disaster,” Cordelia was saying when I took a corner seat out of the way.

David, for Cordelia’s twenty-fifth birthday, had bought her a magazine. Not simply a glossy booklet, but the actual company. And not just any company, Le Fever, a pristine and highly popular fashion magazine that had once humiliated her for wearing fall shoes in the spring. The first thing she’d done upon accepting her new CEO role, was to fire the columnist who had written that article. Then she’d taken to the business like a true daughter of David Thornton.

The magazine was thriving, much to most people’s surprise.

“I hope you fired the editor,” David reprimanded, from the drink cart where he poured one glass of whiskey and a martini with extra olives. The martini was pressed into Cordelia’s perfectly manicured hands. “That’s inexcusable.”

I didn’t get myself a drink.

Everything, including the water, came with a price I literally could not afford. And I knew if I so much as looked at it, Cordelia would make some pithy remark about scraps and beggars, because nothing in that house was mine.

I was an unwanted freeloader, an unwelcome leech sucking the family dry. My only purpose was to be present, be quiet, and leave as quickly as possible.

The front doors blew open. The resounding bang of heavy wood creating a dent in the plaster resonated through the entire manor. It was followed by the riotous laughter of too many male voices.

I instinctively rose from my seat and tucked myself away by the picture window, the one nearly out of view of the doors when the small crowd barged in.

Eric strolled in with the strides of a king. He was followed by two of his obedient friends, Alton Grant and Knox Laird, the spoiled sons of an oil tycoon and an investment banker. Judging from the crimson in their cheeks and the touch of unsteadiness in their stance, I wagered they’d had their own party before arriving.

“Eric.” David’s disapproval silenced the cackling. It was nice to see that look aimed at someone else for a change. “I was not made aware that you would be inviting guests this evening.”

“Just a few school friends, Father.” Eric grinned. “We’ve always got plenty.”

School friends was stretching it when none of them had seen the inside of a school in seven years, and barely even before that. But to be fair, Eric had gone to university with the pair. They’d spent the majority of it partying and sleeping with every girl that crossed their path. It was a wonder any of them graduated. I had a suspicion the school had been properly convinced to make sure they did.

David pursed his lips, but we all knew he couldn’t say a damn. “Of course.”

Eric and his hoard of idiots stampeded into the parlor, dragging mud and filth across Mother’s antique rug. They took the entire length of the sofa I’d been sitting on. But no sooner had Eric’s backside touched the cushion when he sprung right back up and made a path to the drink cart. The clink of glasses being filled interrupted the silence that had unfolded since Eric’s arrival. The drinks were brought over and distributed.

“So,” Eric took a slurping sip and smacked his lips. “What did we miss?”

“Just waiting on your mother,” was David’s curt reply.

But it wasn’t Marcella Thornton who stalked into the room after nearly five rigid minutes of Eric and his friends making inappropriate jokes about the co-ed they’d tag teamed the night before. It wasn’t her stubbornly kept figure occupying the threshold, or her floral scent washing into the room.

Instead, the shadow was of a man who meant everything and absolutely nothing to me. The mere sight of him propelled my lungs to promptly forget their purpose. They sat in my chest, confused while my heart struggled to make up for their inadequacy. My stomach jittered, a frantic little dance that made my nerves tingle and my skin prickle. I was aware of him in a way I had absolutely no right to, in a way that mortified me, shamed me into folding myself deeper in my tiny corner.

The chill from outside bit through the cotton fabric of my dress and burned the bony curve of my spine where it flattened against the glass, but I didn’t dare pull away.

I didn’t dare move in fear that he might notice me.

“I hope I’m not too late.”

His baritone hum vibrated through the room, masculine dominance swaddled in silk. The sheer force of it was like the perfect tease of a lover’s fingertips gliding over exposed skin. Not that I had any knowledge of that, but my skin never failed to prickle when he spoke.

“Kieran, my boy!” David sprung to his feet and closed the distance to shake the other man’s hand with a vigor he never showed anyone. “You’re right on time. We were just having drinks before dinner.”

Kieran Kincaid.

He’d walked into my life one balmy, July afternoon seven years before dressed in torn jeans and a leather jacket, and I was never the same. He no longer dressed with reckless disregard, but the form fitting suits were no better at keeping at bay the seductive pull of the man beneath. He still made my heart jump at the mere sight of him, which was every Sunday like clockwork.

I wasn’t the only one.

The Thornton family adored him, and not just because David and Kieran’s father had been close friends before Walter Kincaid’s untimely passing. The Kincaid’s were influential, wealthy beyond reason, and one foot away from being practically royalty. Kieran was David’s wet dream. With ties like the Kincaids, David could run for world leader and win.

My needs for Kieran were far more complicated. I was almost certain they were borderline immoral. I just wasn’t sure how exactly. But everything about my feelings for him felt wrong, dirty even. Not out of anything he’d ever done, but because of who I was; someone like Kieran deserved someone better. Someone not tainted by things out of their control. Someone who wouldn’t embarrass him to be seen with.

I was not that person.

I never would be.

Kieran was directed to the high back armchair while David went to get him a drink. Long hands with tapered fingers undid the glossy button holding the dark blazer closed over his crisp, white dress shirt and the soft material parted. The silver buckle of his belt winked once before he bent at the waist and accepted the cushion.

“Hello Cordelia,” he said politely. “You look lovely this evening.”

The second martini in Cordelia’s dainty grasp was lifted to her lips and drained before she answered, “You’re looking quite charming yourself, Mr. Kincaid.”

Eric said something to his friends and the trio snickered like teenage delinquents.

The sound redirected warm, amber eyes over the coffee table to the grown men in the opposite sofa.

“Eric.” Kieran fixed the man in the middle with his full attention, a terrifying place to be when that stare had the power to look straight into your soul. “How’s life?”

It was an odd sort of question given that we’d all been sitting in that exact room, in those exact seats only a week before. At the same time, it really wasn’t that strange. Eric lived life the way I always imagined a man with not a care in the world would, with abundance and extravagance. I’d always envied him that ability. He’d been everywhere, seen everything. Minus the drugs, booze, and women, he lived the way I’d always wanted. So, for Eric, a week was practically a year in the life of a normal person.

My half-brother scoffed. “You’d know if you hadn’t gone all upstanding citizen on me.”

Kieran offered him the ghost of a smile that tipped higher on the right side, reminding me of the old Kieran, the one Eric was talking about. That Kieran had been nothing but trouble in all the ways that mattered. That Kieran probably scared me more than the Kieran seated before me now, because the old Kieran could melt the panties off a girl from a hundred paces with that grin alone. I’d never been on the receiving end of it, but I’d felt the brush of it from a distance, the backwash as it homed in on someone else like a laser.

The old Kieran had been a lot like Eric back then. They’d been identical, best friends. Practically inseparable, but that Kieran had been gone for years. I never got the chance to know him, but I’m not so sure I missed him when left with the now Kieran. 

“Perhaps next time.”

Eric snorted, believing Kieran nearly as much as I did. “You’ve washed out. We used to have some crazy times. We’re too young to be tied down.”

There was a hard edge to Kieran’s firm mouth now, even while it curved in a passable show of amusement. “Thirty-five is hardly that young and we all have to grow up eventually.”

I almost laughed at the idea of Eric ever growing up. So long as he had Mother paying to get him out of every problem and David’s money to ease the way, he would squander everything life handed him. I doubted anything would ever make him change his way.

It was a shame, really. He was the eldest, the heir to the Thornton fortune. After David’s death, it would all go to him, not that David was stupid enough to do such a thing. Odds were, everything would be left to Cordelia, and it would be up to her to decide where and who had access. Eric would most likely wind up with nothing, except maybe liver problems, and a coke addiction.

I would get nothing. Not even a paperclip. The illegitimate bastard didn’t deserve any more of David’s family money. He’d already spent enough the last eighteen years just by keeping me, of which I was to be eternally grateful.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t want his money. I didn’t even want to be in that family. Had I been allowed a choice, I would have stayed in my little apartment, as far away from that place and those people as possible.

But appearances were everything. What would people say if I didn’t make the mandatory weekend dinners? Never mind that there was only the one person who would actually witness my absence and it wouldn’t do for Kieran to know I wasn’t a Thornton, especially not with the plans David had for him. My bloodline was a secret that needed to go to our graves with us.

“I’m sorry!” Mother clacked into the room in her black wrap dress and velvet pumps. Her hair bounced around slender shoulders in a wave of silky sunshine. Her blue eyes shone just a little too brightly against the heart shaped contours of her face. “I’ve been on the phone this entire time. I hate that I kept everyone waiting.”

That may have been true, I mused, but it was unlikely. Mom didn’t have any friends. It was unclear if that was a personal choice, or something David insisted on. Most likely the latter. After all, I was never allowed to make friends. It was an unspoken warning growing up.

But Mom always needed an extra few minutes before making her way down, medicated and mildly intoxicated. It was never at the point anyone would notice, but I’d spent the majority of my life watching this family that should have been mine as the fly on their wall. I saw shimmers of imperfection in an otherwise flawless masterpiece. This world, the one I’d been dumped into with no regard, was a picture hidden within a picture. Nothing the first picture said was true. That one was the polish, the veneer that kept people from seeing the truth.

My world was a lie baked on top of a lie.

My mother was part of that lie. Marcella Thornton hadn’t been lucid a day in her life. She wouldn’t know what to do with the demons living in her head.

I sometimes wondered if David didn’t prefer her drugged and subdued, easily controlled. Granted, my mother had never been a strong woman and needed constant reassurance to her worth, so it must have worked for them both.

David and Kieran rose at her arrival. Eric’s friends attempted to do the same, but wound up teetering into each other and tumbling back laughing.

No one paid them any mind.

“Kieran.” Marcella beamed. “I’m so happy you could join us.”

The way my parents went on, one would think Kieran rarely visited when in fact, he was there every weekend for as far back as I could remember. He even had his own stocking at Christmas.

“It’s always a pleasure,” he told her with an inclination of his head.

“Is it time to eat?” Eric sounded from the sofa. “I’m starving.”

“Maybe you should have a few more bottles of vodka,” Cordelia snipped. “You’re clearly too coherent.”

Eric flipped her off, which earned a hiss from their mother and a sharp bark from their father.

“Enough!” David warned. “Everyone to the dining room.”

Eric and his friends got to their feet with a lot of shoving and tittering, and ambled out before anyone else. David offered Marcella his elbow and allowed her to lean into him as they followed the pack.

Then it was just me, Cordelia, and Kieran in the parlor alone. I remained perfectly still. So far, no one had noticed me and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible until I could leave.

Cordelia waited until the footsteps had faded down the corridor before getting fluidly to her feet. The movement was a beautiful dance of slender limbs unfurling and straightening. She could have easily been a ballerina on a brightly lit stage, a performer acting out the role given to her from birth. She stepped around the coffee table to Kieran’s side, her blue eyes pinning him in place.

“Walk a lady in?”

Even her voice was sultry and seductive, the husky purr of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and made no apologies about doing whatever it took to get it. And Cordy wanted Kieran. He’d been her goal for years. Not just her goal, but David’s as well.

I sometimes wondered if she wanted him because she wanted him, or because it was what David wanted. Kieran certainly wasn’t hard to look at. He had money. He had the position and power. He was the perfect catch for any woman. But I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t yet another desperate act to earn more love from her father, which I never understood. David loved Cordelia more than anyone, including his wife.

Kieran pushed to his feet with a whisper of expensive fabric, startling me out of my reverie. I blinked and focused as he offered my half-sister a smile I would have given anything to be alone in a room with.

“I would be delighted.”

Cordelia flushed, and I didn’t blame her. I’d have been a puddle at his feet. Her ability to remain upright was impressive.

But neither paid me a single glance as Kieran held his arm out to her. The pair made a striking set, a play of her light to his darkness, her softness to his raw masculinity. They were perfect. The prince and his princess. A modern fairy tale of class and elegance. Cordelia was exactly the type of woman Kieran deserved. She was everything I never could be, beautiful, graceful, sophisticated ... wanted.

I was none of those things.

I waited until they’d left and I was alone before pushing off the cushion and smoothing down my skirt. I checked my watch and calculated fifteen minutes to eat, then five to leave if my luck held up. It all depended on whether or not Cordelia was occupied when I arrived. That seldom happened. Cordelia deliberately sat facing the door. Sneaking in would require jumper cables and a catsuit.

But I crept out of the parlor, a thief in what should have been my home and rounded the corner at an almost tiptoe. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until a shadow lurched into my path and I choked on the wedge of air caught in my lungs. I staggered to a stop, my body automatically tensing for the blow. My arms crossed over my face even as my whole torso twisted in defense.

“Hey.” It wasn’t David’s voice.

That much I was nearly certain of over the roar of my own terror throbbing between my ears. But that only meant it was someone worse.

Kieran’s golden gaze found mine between the fingers I spread. Their concern was like acid dribbling onto my face, burning away skin and muscle until there was nothing left but my shame. I wanted to snap my fingers closed and keep covered until he went away, but I knew it didn’t work like that. There was nothing left to do, except lower my hands and pray he wouldn’t ask.

“Kieran.” I snuck a peek behind him, half expecting Cordelia to be watching, disgusted, and finding only the empty corridor. I returned to his perfectly poetic features. “What are you doing?”

“I forgot my phone.” That hint of a grin appeared in the subtle lifting of his lips, as if we were sharing a secret. “At least, that’s what I told them.”

I swallowed, and it seemed to echo throughout the entire house. “Why?”

“Because I never got to say hello to you.” Those predatory eyes paralyzed me to the spot. I could almost taste my own heartbeats. “You seemed so intent on blending in with that window. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

I felt warmth in my cheeks. “I wasn’t. I was just...” There was no excuse for my rudeness. Despite the dependency of surviving the evening, I should have said something. “I’m sorry.”

His head cocked to one side. “Why?”

Guilt lowered my chin until my gaze was level with the milky white swirl of his top button. “I should have said hello. It was rude of me.”

“I didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to get you alone.”

I hated that my heart actually missed a beat. I hated that my head got foggy and my thoughts scattered. I hated that he always stood too close, and that he always seemed to know exactly what to say to tip my world into chaos.

“You should go,” I whispered. “They’ll wonder where you are.”

“Come in with me.”

The very idea was grounds for immediate beheading. I couldn’t imagine what possessed him to even suggest such a thing. He had clearly lost his mind.

“No, I can’t.” I flinched when he reached for me. “Please.” I snatched my hand out of the way of his extended fingers and stuffed them behind my back. “Don’t.”

He had absolutely no idea what he was asking. He didn’t understand what a simple act like walking into a room together could mean for me.

The questions.

The consequences.

“Very well.”

I watched him with my lip stapled between my teeth as he turned and left me in the corridor. I counted each erratic heartbeat until his clipped footsteps had faded to nothing.

Only when enough time had passed did I inch my way forward. The doors stood open to the sounds of the family settling down for dinner. They chattered about their day while tugging their chairs under their usual place settings. With only eight spots filled, one half of the table remained morbidly unclaimed, a daunting scenery of crystals and china to a barren wasteland of dark wood.

My spot was at the very end of the lavish display, just before the buttery cloth ended. I was placed next to Alton, who barely glanced up when I slipped into my seat.

“I almost forgot you were still here, Gabrielle.” Cordelia’s purr drifted over the table and smothered the conversation. “Should someone check the silverware?”

All eyes were on me now. I was the center of attention, a frozen deer in headlights. My flight reflexes misfired, torn between running from the room and throwing the bowl of floating tea lights at her face. But I could only sit there, careful not to react.

“When did you arrive, sweetheart?” Mom asked.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear her from a mile down the road,” Cordelia chimed in for me. “Honestly, isn’t it time for an upgrade?”

My parents didn’t buy me a car for my sixteenth birthday, or ever. My parents didn’t get me a condo after high school. My parents have never given me a platinum, unlimited credit card. Everything I owned from the time I had to sell part of my soul for freedom were things I bought with money I earned. My piece of crap Honda may have been a sore sight next to the glossy sheen of the Bentley and Lamborghini, but it had never failed me.

“My car is fine,” I said evenly.

“Is that pile of rust your car?” Eric broke out in a fit of cackles that his friends quickly followed. “I thought the maid forgot to park in the back again. Does it run?”

“It probably runs better than the six cars you’ve destroyed.”

Kieran’s smooth delivery distracted the crowd. With those few words, everyone forgot about me and went on to talk about Eric’s many misadventures with cars. I knew he’d done it on purpose. I knew I should thank him. But I couldn’t even look at him.

I couldn’t bring myself to see the pity in his eyes.

“Leaving already?”

Cordelia caught me as I was pulling on my coat exactly fifteen minutes later. I don’t know how I missed her approach with the ice picks strapped to her feet, but she was there, standing behind me with her arms folded over her flat belly.

“It’s getting late,” I lied.

She hummed quietly, her eyes shrewd and calculating.

For one panicked moment, I wondered if she knew about Kieran’s earlier lie. I wondered if she was going to strike out and remind me he belonged to her, and I needed to stay away. But she remained loose in her posture. Her eyes were cutting, not cold.

“Pity,” she mused. “I feel like you never stay long enough, except to eat like this is some soup kitchen.”

I fought against the heat rising in my cheeks. “I work Mondays,” was the only lie I could give her that she would understand.

The truth was that I had a training session and that was more important than sitting around hearing about how awful and pathetic I was.

“Yes, well,” she brought her hands together once, shattering the silence of the foyer with the clap. “Why don’t I see if the kitchen can pack you some leftovers? No one here will eat them, and you’re looking a bit thin.”

I’d had a backbone once. I even fought back. I made the mistake of telling Cordelia exactly what I thought of her. It had felt amazing, the best sort of liberation.

A week later, I’d been sent a letter to evict my apartment within the week due to being late on rent three months in a row, breaking my contract. It wasn’t until later that I found out that David had bought the building. I fought against it, but the court sided with him and I’d spent Christmas in my car, parked behind a strip mall with every piece of clothing I owned pulled on. It was a lesson learned the hard way. It was easier to let Cordelia get it all off her chest. It was one hour out of one day. It wasn’t worth fighting back, especially since David owned my new apartment.

“I’m okay. Thank you.”

“Are you leaving, Gabrielle?” Mom appeared behind Cordelia, only mildly tipsy from the four glasses of wine she’d consumed over the course of the meal. “We barely got to talk to you.”

I never knew what to make of Marcella, except that she was young and beautiful, and damaged. I might have been the only one to see that part. Maybe because I was broken myself. But I saw the pain in her eyes when she thought no one was watching. I saw longing I never understood. She claimed to love David, and maybe she did. She definitely loved him a whole lot more than she loved me. And I was okay with that. He had the money. I didn’t. All she had to do was remain young, beautiful, and oblivious.

“The food was delicious, Mom.” I gave her a small smile. “Thank you, but I have work—”

“Right on time.” David stepped into view, sucking every ounce of warmth from the air. “We can almost set our watches to you, Gabrielle.”

“Supper’s over when Gabrielle makes her big escape attempt,” Cordelia chimed in, her smile reminding me of a shark.

“Both of you stop it,” Mom scolded. “If Gabrielle wants to leave...”

“It’s just convenient she always leaves right after we’ve finished feeding her,” David interrupted. “I can’t help feeling used, like I’m giving her something she hasn’t earned.”

I wanted to vomit.

It was rising up into my throat with every second that passed and he didn’t blink. His threat hung in the air, a demon visible only to me as it reached into my chest and squeezed my heart.

Earned.

It was fouler than the word rape and degrading in a way that bordered on sinister. Such a simple, harmless phrase and yet the mere whisper of it tore the very ground out from beneath me.

My whole life was based on that word, based on whether or not I earned new clothes, earned the right to the bathroom, earned my meals. David liked making me work for my basic human rights. He liked reminding me that I had nothing that he did not allow. That I was nothing.

“What matters is that she came,” Mom protested.

“I actually have to go as well.” Kieran stepped out of the parlor and joined the growing group in the foyer, already in his coat. “I have to get to the office.”

While the family immediately forgot all about me and argued with him to stay, I slipped out without them noticing. I got to my car at an unsteady sprint and practically threw myself behind the wheel. Metal jingled wildly with my reckless stabbing at the ignition. I choked on a sob when I couldn’t find the insert for the key. Everything kept wavering behind the wall of tears I couldn’t blink back.

“Please!” I pleaded with the inanimate object.

Victory arrived when I found the slot and twisted the engine to life. I caught a glimpse of the front door opening and Kieran emerging, but I was already ripping out of the driveway as if Satan himself were descending on me.

All the way home, I replayed David’s words, his close handed comment and wondered what it meant. Would he start making me earn Sunday nights? Nights I didn’t even want. What would he ask for? How much would it cost me? The sad part was that he didn’t want money. The price was usually me, or some part of me that he wanted. He’d already taken everything, except one.

The one thing I had always refused to give.

The thing I would never give.

I drove to my apartment in a state of paralyzed daze and let myself in. The cramped one bedroom overlooking a dead field was the best I could afford. It wasn’t too bad once the crack heads, hookers, dealers, and pimps were ignored. I kept to myself and kept my head down, which had so far worked for everyone.

I tossed my keys into the chipped fruit bowl that hadn’t seen fruit in a damn long time and stepped deeper into my little corner of the world, my piece of sanctuary. It definitely wasn’t much to look at with its mismatched furniture I’d found in thrift shops and street corners and its single window. The solitary pullout sofa took up most of the living room and inched into what was supposed to be the dining area. It faced the multitude of various bookshelves taking up the walls. There were no computers, no TV. I had a record player set up on one shelf next to a whole row of records that I couldn’t play; the walls were paper thin, and crackheads hated being disturbed at any hour.

But I seldom had time for music anyway. If I wasn’t working, I was at school. But with the gallery closed, I was at the Black Lotus getting trained on how to properly please men by some of the top paid escorts in the service.

They didn’t use the word escorts or prostitutes. Men and women weren’t paid to sleep with clients, because even in this century, it was illegal. We were paid to provide companion services. What we did during that hour was entirely up to us, but the implication was clear — men paid extremely well to be ... comforted. And we were paid to make sure they kept coming back.

Louisa, my trainer, was a stunning woman in her sixties who always reminded me of a black and white starlet. Every time I met her, she was draped in diamonds and silk, and her hair was immaculately styled around a face painted with a heavy hand of someone fighting back the clock. I think it was because of this reason she was unable to fully open her eyelids, why they always seemed to be half-mast like she was seconds away from drifting off. But she would sweep into the room the way theater people swept onto the stage, with a dramatic poise that would have been eyeroll worthy if it didn’t suit her.

She was all drama and flare.

But she knew her stuff. She’d been in the business since the age of eighteen and retired at thirty-five with enough of a nest egg to live comfortably for the remainder of her life. The training, she said, was her way of not getting rusty. I think it was because it was all she knew and she missed it. Nevertheless, she’d become invaluable to my learning, which consisted mainly of posture. She refused to teach me any of the sex moves, because men want their virgins inexperienced.

I hated that. I hated going into a strange room with a strange person blind. I tried to do my own research at the campus library, but all the positions and techniques made my insides hurt. They terrified me enough to almost want to back out.

But I needed the money. The loan Hans had given me six weeks ago was nearly gone, most of it spent on rent and bills. I would need more if I wanted to keep living and going to school. But more than both, I needed that money to escape.

I would run straight after graduation, before I had to fulfill the remainder of my promise. That money would set me up somewhere nice, somewhere David couldn’t find me. It would cover my new identity and a plane ticket to the furthest corner of the world.

That was the plan nothing would deter me from. Not even Kieran Kincaid.

I undressed and neatly hung my dress up in the closet. Everything else was tossed into the hamper. Naked, I padded into the bathroom, disgusted with how that place always left my skin feeling dirty. Touched. Violated to the point where only scalding hot water was my salvation.

The tub filled while I watched. Steam coiled off the clear surface in thick tendrils. It was every drop of hot water the boilers in the building contained. It barely filled halfway, but it would suffice. I added just enough cold not to scar my skin. Then I set the timer on my phone and stepped inside.

The pain was astronomical, but the nerves beneath were too accustomed to the ritual to properly bypass the numbness. I nearly felt nothing, but the soothing relief that quickly followed as every speckle of David and that prison burned off me, washed out of me. I would have set myself on fire if I could stomach that level of pain just to be free.

I closed my eyes and counted every heartbeat, every breath as my brain sent warnings sparking through the rest of me to get out. Needles prickled along every inch of me, red, hot daggers cutting and stabbing. I just had to wait two minutes. The exact length of time to properly disinfect.

The alarm jingled exactly two minutes in. I let it buzz for several more seconds before pushing to my feet. Water droplets drizzled off me back into the tub, little raindrops that sounded almost melodious in the muggy silence. They stopped when I stepped out. The drops were muffled hitting the mat.

Swaddled in a towel, I made my way back into the bedroom. I redressed in a long t-shirt, checked the nightlight next to my bed, and climbed beneath the sheets. The cool fabric was agony rubbing my agitated flesh, but I burrowed in and closed my eyes.

MORNING CAME WITH AN abruptness I could never understand. It always seemed to pop up out of nowhere after only mere seconds of me closing my eyes. There never seemed to be enough night, even though the darkness terrified me and was the reason I needed a nightlight at the age of twenty-two.

No, not the darkness. It was what would creep into my room, into my bed that I couldn’t handle. It was being blind, powerless when the door creaked open in the wee hours of the night, but it was better than being in the light, being awake, seeing everything. It was a double-edged sword that threatened to destroy me either way.

But I wasn’t a child anymore and I wasn’t in that house. I only had eight more months of my darkness. Eight more months and it would all be over. I survived this long. I could survive a bit more.

Resolved in my decision, I pushed out of bed and prepared for the day. I gathered my things, grabbed my keys, and left the apartment.

The training house was a warehouse in the middle of nowhere with plenty of parking spots. It was never full so I wasn’t sure if that was because there weren’t many girls, or if we were all given different times. During my six weeks, I hadn’t encountered anyone other than Hans and Louisa. Maybe it was an anonymity thing. If it was, I certainly appreciated it. I wasn’t sure I could meet another person’s eye in that place.

The entry had been crafted into multiple rooms and stages, each one catering to a different type of training. There were a few I flat out refused when Hans originally gave me the tour. The ones with the red walls and medieval contraptions sitting like hulking monsters in the corners. There were others painted pink with frilly beds and stuffed animals. Some were concrete walls and a drain in the middle of the floor. Mine was simpler than all that. Mine was a bed and a cushioned bench. Nothing ominous or terrifying about it. 

Hans met me just inside the doors with his clipboard. He mutely looked me over and scribbled something down.

“Your auction day is coming up,” he told me simply, lowering his arms. “Our page has gotten a lot of views so I know it will be a big hit.” He offered me a crooked grin. “Not many virgins volunteer.”

I’d forgotten all about my page. The one online with a bit of made up information and scantily clad photos I’d been forced to sit for in a silk slip. I hadn’t seen it, or the photos. I didn’t want to.

“So, what happens now?” I asked.

Hans motioned me forward through the first set of doors. “Now we get you ready. Louisa will handle your wardrobe, hair, and makeup the night of the auction. You will be taken to the house—”

“What house?”

He scowled at me for interrupting. “The auction house.”

“I thought it happened here,” I said honestly.

“This is the training house,” he stated slowly like I was an idiot. “The auction is a different place. You will be taken there and placed on the stage.”

“How long does that take?” The dryness in my throat was stealing my voice.

Hans shrugged. “Five, ten minutes, sometimes less, depending on the crowd. If lots of people are voting, it takes longer. Sometimes they fight. Bidding wars,” he explained when I looked at him horrified. “That’s what you want. Bidding wars always gets the most money.”

“Do you get those often?”

“Occasionally, if the girl does it properly.”

“Does what properly?”

“Her acting.” Hans peered at me. “Play your role. That’s why the men are there, for the fantasy. Give them what they want. Haven’t you learned anything in your training?”

We arrived at my door. Its simple, wooden surface seemed out of place amongst all the other darker, more sinister ones.

“Louisa is waiting inside,” Hans told me, turning the knob.

Louisa was indeed inside. She’d made herself at home on the bed, a vision in an emerald gown. She lifted her head when I slipped in.

“There you are, darling,” she breathed. “Close the door.”

I did as I was instructed and went to the bench. I set my bag down and fished out my notebook.

“No, we will not need that today.” Louisa waved the booklet away with her gem studded hand. “Today, we will discuss strategy.”

“Shouldn’t I write that—?”

“No! This is your strategy, what you will do when you get on that stage.”

“My role,” I ventured, remembering Hans’s speech.

“Yes, precisely. Your role. Your gimmick.”

I was certain now that I should be taking notes. There was no way I was going to remember this. But I sat on the corner of the bench and waited. 

“You are the virgin,” Louisa breathed in a sultry, seductive purr that made my cheeks hot. “Untouched. Unsoiled. You are a dazzling, white unicorn and everyone wants you. Men want to be in the place no other man has ever been. They want to conquer and plant their flag. And that is what you’re offering. You are giving them the chance to have something most of them probably never had, because, sweetheart, virgins don’t exist anymore. In this day and age, if you’re still a virgin at sixteen, there’s something wrong with you. But here you are, a stunning vision of grace, beauty ... and virtue.”

I wasn’t so sure about the grace and beauty, but Louisa seemed to be in her element.

She swung herself off the bed and stood before me. One long, spidery hand was offered and I accepted it.

“Get into character, my sweet.”

In character was me pulling on the slip. There were no bathrooms in the training rooms, so I was forced to disrobe while my trainer watched, silently assessing my frame.

“Stop.”

Naked with the slip in my hand, I stopped. It wasn’t my first time being naked in front of the woman. She’d seen parts of me even I had yet to explore.

Louisa placed one finger to her chin and looked me over. “You will visit my girl tomorrow, Gabrielle. She will pump, pluck, and soften every inch of you. We must have you presentable for Friday.”

“Is that when the auction is?”

She nodded and motioned with a twirling finger for me to turn. “Ah, to have a twenty-two year old’s ass again,” she sighed at long last. “Enjoy it. Gravity will steal it all away one day.”

I bit back a chuckle as I faced her once more.

“We have a lot of work to do before your grand debut. Are you ready?”

That was the question.