My first night in Royce’s bed didn’t lend itself toward decent, restful sleep. I was a light sleeper, but he wasn’t, and although his snores were relatively soft, I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable or keep my mind quiet.
It amazed me how quickly he drifted off after turning off the light, totally relaxed to share a bed with someone else, even when he’d said he’d never done it before. If anything, I should have been the one more familiar with it. Emily and I had been close growing up, and I’d often snuck into her room and climbed into her bed. We’d stayed up late to whisper about cute boys and gossip.
There’d always been plenty of both to come by in Cape Hill.
But tonight, there was no whispered gossip with Royce. We didn’t cuddle. He stuck to his side of the enormous bed and me to mine, and after a quick goodnight kiss, he’d snapped off the light and gone right to sleep.
I turned away from him and mashed my pillow beneath my head.
Earlier, when I’d changed and prepared for bed in my room, I’d discovered the chess set Macalister had given me—where the pieces were from the Greek myths—had been set up on my coffee table. A white pawn was placed forward two squares, as if Macalister were playing the white side of the board now and had made his opening move.
Instead, I put the piece back on its home space in the starting position.
I’d told him no more games, and I’d meant it, no matter how beautiful the chess pieces were or that I’d begrudgingly come to enjoy the strategy of it. What was he thinking, anyway? That I’d invite him into my room to play?
Fuck that.
The only time we’d used this set, the pieces had been flung across the room, and his mouth had smothered mine while he’d pushed me against the bookcase.
It irritated me how he was already trying to bend the rules when we’d only made the deal two days ago, although I wasn’t that surprised. He liked to push. He was happiest when the people around him weren’t.
And I was still upset from earlier, when he hadn’t listened when I’d told him I didn’t want to talk about it. What Royce had said was likely right. His stepmother wasn’t interested in my forgiveness, only pleasing her husband.
I rolled back over to face my fiancé, doing it noisily to try to wake him, but it didn’t work. His face was peaceful, and although he looked gorgeous like that, resentment itched across my skin. I was exhausted, but he made sleeping impossible. The least he could do was wake up and keep me company.
My mind kept going back to the chess set.
It was foolish, but I was becoming desperate. Maybe I’d be able to sleep if the set was gone, out of my room. I tossed back the covers and climbed out of bed. Royce didn’t even stir as I padded on bare feet to the door and slipped out.
The hallway was dark; the only source of light came from the arched window at the end. The moonlight cast panes of silver over the rich red carpet, which looked like a swath of blood flowing to fill every corner. It was incessantly cold in the house, and I shivered in my cotton tank top and shorts.
When a black shadow stepped into my path, my lungs seized. It was a full second before my heart came back to life.
“Lucifer,” I scolded the cat in a whisper. “You scared me.”
He was unconcerned. He brushed against my leg and meowed softly, happy to see another soul awake at this hour, and he didn’t care who it was. I let out my tight breath, reached down, and scratched him behind his ears. His deep purr was . . . satisfying.
The only pets I’d had growing up were fish, and they hadn’t really been mine. For a while, Emily had wanted to be a marine biologist, so my parents had bought her a huge saltwater tank, complete with living coral and tropical fish, and hired a man who came twice a week to do all the things needed to keep everything alive.
My sister had let me name some of the shrimp and one of the purple-yellow fish. He’d been Poseidon, of course. The shrimp were Oceanids—sea nymphs in Greek mythology. The tank had been gorgeous, but as I thought back on it, all I could see was the frivolous money behind it. By the time it was set up, Emily had begun to move on to the next thing. My parents didn’t care. They loved us fiercely and gave my sister and me anything we wanted.
But if they had exercised a little restraint, it was possible I wouldn’t have been wandering the halls of the Hale mansion right now at two in the morning.
I scowled at myself. That wasn’t fair to blame them for my situation. No one had forced me. No one had made me agree to the life I now lived except me.
Lucifer followed me optimistically as I went into my bedroom, hoping for more attention, but my focus had already moved to the chessboard. I pushed the pieces to the center of the board and carefully picked it up. He meowed quietly while I carried it down the hall and into the library.
As I stepped inside, my gaze flew to the imposing figure looming at the window. The board tilted in my hands, pieces slid off the side, and clattered noisily to the floor.
My heart lurched to a stop.
FIVE
THE CHESS PIECES CRASHED LIKE STONES against the hardwood, some with a loud bang and others with barely a ping, but the noise was enough to startle Lucifer and send the cat running.
Macalister turned at the sound, and pale moonlight cast across his face. It made him look even less human. Like he was a statue of unmovable granite. Helping that idea was the fact he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Only a pair of loose black lounge pants that hugged his hips.
Not that he was ever the type of man to ‘lounge.’
It was the most casual and undressed I’d ever seen him, and I found it terrifying.
Beneath the dusting of dark hair on his chest, his muscles were toned, and his waist was trim. It didn’t look like the typical body of a fifty-one-year-old man, but one much younger. He obviously worked hard to maintain his physique. I’d been told he exercised religiously with weights, ate a strict diet and jogged on the treadmill most evenings after dinner, catching up on emails and watching the opening of the Japanese stock markets.
And he sometimes ran on the treadmill in the middle of the night because, unlike his son who was dead asleep down the hall, Macalister suffered from insomnia.
“Marist.” He looked as surprised to see me as I was him, but that was where our similarity stopped. He gazed at me as an unexpected gift, and I viewed him like I was the prey caught in his trap.
I didn’t want him to see the fear he caused in me, so I used a harsh tone. “You scared the shit out of me.”
He didn’t apologize. He simply watched me as I bent down and began to collect the scattered chess pieces. Hopefully, he didn’t see the nervous tremble working its way up my spine. It was impossible not to feel the danger that still lingered in the library. The memory of what had happened just three days ago clung to the air like sickly-sweet perfume. It hadn’t had enough time to air out.
“Did you come to play?” he asked.
“No.” I set one of the rooks—a Greek column—down on the board with too much force. “I wanted this out of my room.”
“You don’t like it?” It was impossible to tell if he was hurt or angry or offended.
“No, it’s just—” I put my hands on my knees, sat back on my heels, and gave him a hard look. “I don’t like the memories that goes with it.”