The Villain

“Bingo.” I tugged a skin-soothing ointment tube from the diamond-studded Hermès. I scrubbed the lotion on my skin, pleased with my drunken self, when the door behind me flung open.

“Five minutes, Belle.” My eyes were still glued to my blemished arms. “And yeah, I remember, Hunter’s ring…”

I looked up. My jaw slacked as the rest of my words shriveled back into my throat. The ointment slipped between my fingers.

Cillian “Kill” Fitzpatrick stood at the door.

Hunter Fitzpatrick’s older brother.

The most eligible bachelor in America.

A stonehearted heir with a face sculpted from marble.

Attainable as the moon, and just as cold and wavering.

Most important of all: the man I’d loved in secret since the first day I’d laid eyes on him.

His auburn hair was slicked back, his eyes a pair of smoky ambers. Honey-rimmed yet lacking any warmth. He wore an Edwardian tux, a chunky Rolex, and the slight frown of a man who regarded anyone he couldn’t screw or make money out of as an inconvenience.

He was always calm, quiet, and reserved, never drawing attention to himself yet owning every room he entered.

Unlike his siblings, Cillian wasn’t beautiful.

Not in the conventional sense, anyway. His face was too sharp, his features too bold, his sneer too mocking. His strong jaw and hooded eyes didn’t harmonize together in a symphony of flawless strokes. But there was something decadent about him that I found more alluring than the straightforwardness in Hunter’s Apollo-like perfection or the Aisling’s Snow White beauty.

Cillian was a dirty lullaby, inviting me to sink into his claws and nestle in his darkness.

And I, aptly named after the goddess of spring, longed for the ground to crack open and suck me in. To fall into his underworld and never emerge.

Whoa. That last mimosa really killed whatever was left of my brain cells.

“Cillian,” I choked out. “Hello. Hey. Hi.”

So eloquent, Pers.

I peppered my greeting by scratching my neck. It was just my luck to be alone with him in a room for the first time ever while looking and feeling like a ball of lava.

Cillian ambled toward the safe with the indolent elegance of a big cat, oozing raw danger that made my toes curl. His indifference often made me wonder if I was even in the room with him.

“Three minutes until the limo leaves, Penrose.”

So I did exist.

“Thank you.”

My breathing became labored, slow, and I was starting to realize I might need to call an ambulance.

“Are you excited?” I managed.

No response.

The metal door of the safe clicked mechanically, unlocking. He took out the black velvet box of Hunter’s ring, pausing to look at me, his eyes sliding from my red face and arms to the pink and white flowers crowning my head. Something passed across his features—a moment of hesitation—before he shook his head, then made his way back to the door.

“Wait!” I cried.

He stopped but didn’t turn to face me.

“I need…I need…” A better vocabulary, obviously. “I need you to call an ambulance. I think I’m having an allergic reaction.”

He swiveled on his heel, assessing me. Every second under his scrutiny dropped my temperature by ten degrees. Sharing a space with Cillian Fitzpatrick was an experience. Like sitting in an obscure, vacant cathedral.

At that moment, I wished I were my sister, Emmabelle.

She would tell him to stick his attitude where the sun don’t shine. Then drag him into one of the private gardens after the ceremony and ride his face.

But I wasn’t Belle. I was Persephone.

Timid, nice, Goody Two-shoes Persy.

Missionary-sex-with-the-lights-off Pers.

The awkward romantic.

The people-pleaser.

The boring one.

There was a beat of silence before he took a step back into the room, closing the door after him.

“Not much going on inside that pretty head, huh?”

He sighed, discarding his blazer on the bed, then unbuttoning his cuff links. Hiking his dress shirt up his muscled forearms, he stared me down with dissatisfaction.

My body had decided this was a great time as any to collapse on the floor, so it did just that. I crashed on the carpet, heaving as I tried to draw my next breath.

So that’s how Auntie Tilda felt.

Unaffected by my fall, Cillian flicked the faucet of the claw-foot bath in the middle of the room, turning the tap to the blue side, so the water would be ice-cold.

Satisfied with the water temperature, he stepped toward me, rolled me over on my stomach with the tip of his loafers—like I was a sandbag—and leaned down, pressing his palm to the base of my spine.

“What are you—” I gasped.

“Don’t worry.” He tore the corseted dress from my body with one long movement. The violent sound of fabric ripping and buttons popping sliced through the air. “My tastes don’t run to little girls.”

There was an age different between us. Twelve years weren’t something you could easily disregard. It never bothered me, though.

What did bother me was my new state of nakedness. I shivered like a leaf beneath him.

“What the hell did you do?” I shrieked.

“You’re poisoned,” he announced matter-of-factly.

That made me sober up.

“I’m what?”

He kicked the pink flowers next to me in answer. They careened to the other side of the room.

My breath became shallower, more labored. The vitality seeped out of my body. The echo of gurgling water pouring into the tub was monotone and soothing, and suddenly, I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep.

“I found them in the garden outside the suite,” I murmured, my lips heavy. My eyes widened as I realized something.

“I tasted them, too.”

“Of course you would.” His voice dripped sarcasm. He hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me to the restroom. Dumping my limp body by the toilet, he lifted my head by fisting my hair. My knees screamed in pain. He wasn’t gentle.

“I’m going to make you throw up,” he announced, and without any further intro, he stuck two of his large fingers down my throat. Deep. I gagged, vomiting immediately while he held my head.

In the words of Joe Exotic, I am never going to recover from this. Cillian holding my hair while he is making me puke.

I emptied my stomach until Cillian was sure everything was gone. Only then did he wipe my face with his bare hand, undeterred by the puke residue.