“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For—” I’m a ball of tension and nerves and tears and I need to get away from him before he sees me cry. “For saving me from those men. And for making a deal with me.”
“You’re welcome, darling. Now get out of my sight.”
Gerard holds out an arm toward the door and it’s all I can do to keep my footsteps measured. “Thank you,” I whisper to him when we’re out in the hall.
“No need, Miss Constantine.” Gerard has the same tense set to his shoulders that the bodyguard did. There’s worry in his eyes. He looks like he wants to say more, but then he presses his lips together and shakes his head, the movement almost imperceptible. “This way.”
It’s late, but a woman meets us back in the foyer. She takes one of my hands in both of hers. “Mrs. Page,” she says, wearing a smile that’s both soothing and sad. “You must be Haley. Your room is upstairs.”
The foyer, with its sconces and gold-stitched wallpaper, opens onto a grand staircase leading to the second floor. Mrs. Page walks in front of me. Gerard walks a step behind.
At the top of the stairs, the hallway stretches out to either side.
We go left, all the way down to the end, and go past an enormous door set into the wall. “Mr. Morelli’s rooms.” Mrs. Page gestures at the door, then passes by without stopping. It’s obvious now that the house is shaped like a square with a courtyard in the middle. I can see it lit up down below. Windows, everywhere. So much light for such a dark man.
Mrs. Page stops at a door at the opposite end of the hall and opens it. Her smile seems genuine but there’s a pinched look around her eyes. She’s worried, too. About me? I don’t plan to fall to pieces until I’m alone. At home, if I can make it that long. “Thank you,” I tell her. It seems wrong not to say it, even though she’s ushering me into the place I’ll live while I’m Leo Morelli’s prisoner. I can’t help asking the question, now that we’re here. “He said—”
Her expression stays mild while she waits.
“I’m supposed to be with him. In his bed.”
Mrs. Page waves this off. “No one sleeps in his bed. At any rate, he owns every bed under this roof. Go on inside.”
I should feel more relieved, but a separate room doesn’t make him less evil, or me less terrified.
“There are fresh sheets on the bed.” Mrs. Page bustles in behind me and picks up a slim remote from the bedside table. Across from the bed, a fire springs to life in its grate. Another button, and a lamp glows from a corner of the room, bathing the space in more warm light.
Warm light for an impossibly beautiful room.
This guest room is positioned on the corner of the house, so most of the walls are windows looking over a landscape sketched in moonlight. I can’t see much when it’s so dark, but it’s not like being hemmed in by a cage. A four-poster bed has been made up, the rose-colored blankets folded open to clean, white sheets. The colors repeat in the pillows and through the rest of the room. My whole body relaxes.
For a second.
A man like Leo Morelli had nothing to do with this room. He couldn’t have. It’s too inviting. Mrs. Page crosses to the other side and shakes out a blanket that goes on the arm of an armchair by the window. Her eyes meet mine. Oh—she’s been waiting for me to finish staring. “This is beautiful,” I manage.
A pleased smile. “Mr. Morelli’s sister has a good eye.” His sister. Here. Decorating a room? The terrible man in the office and a woman who would make a room like this seem mutually exclusive. “She had the bathroom redone, too.”
This is the start of a brief tour. The room turns the corner and a door opens onto a bathroom that’s the size of my bedroom and Cash’s combined at home. The rose color scheme carries over onto the black floor in dedicated patterns edged in gold. A soaking tub rests beneath another huge window. “This is a guest room?”
“Mr. Morelli has several guest rooms, but only two guest suites.” Mrs. Page opens a linen closet to show me where I can find towels. A robe hangs on a hook near the shower. She pats it with one hand. “For you.”
I follow her back into the main room, where she picks up the remote from the bedside table. “Lights,” she says, pointing to one of the buttons. “Fireplace. Windows.”
“Windows? To open them, you mean?”
“If it’s too bright, or too dark. Don’t have to worry much about privacy. They only look over the grounds.” She shrugs. “Comfort, mainly.”
I laugh at that, and the sad smile on Mrs. Page’s face causes immediate regret. “I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable.”
It’s a lie, but she lets it pass. “And this button is for me. I can bring you any linens you need. I’m not supposed to bring food, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Anything except a ticket back home, to my family. Anything except the reassurance that Leo Morelli isn’t as bad as he seems. She can’t bring that, though half of me wants to beg her to tell me that it’ll be all right.
It will be if my family makes it out of this unscathed.
“Thank you for showing me all this.” I put on my best, most grateful smile. Mrs. Page might be the only woman I see for the next thirty days and a thousand questions crowd the tip of my tongue. My nerves fire, pulling my lungs tight. She’s about to walk out of here, I can tell, and I don’t know what happens after that. Maybe Leo comes in and strips away the illusion that this room is safe. “I was going to ask—”
A knock at the door interrupts me, and Gerard comes through, a rolling suitcase dangling from his hand. He swings it into place in the middle of the room. “Your things, Miss Constantine.”
“Anything you need.” Mrs. Page smiles, and then they’re both headed for the door.
Gerard leaves it open behind him, and they’re gone. I’m alone with my clutch purse and my suitcase, which seems to have gotten here impossibly fast. What did they say to my brother to get him to pack this? It can’t have been my dad. The urge to slam the door closed is so powerful that I can feel the wood under my hands, but I don’t do it.
The door won’t keep Leo Morelli out. Nothing will. So I leave it open. Let him come.
8
Leo
Haley Constantine is crying, but she’s doing a damn good job of pretending she’s not.
From the shadowed hallway I can see inside her room. See her pacing back and forth in front of the door. Her rolling suitcase—a cheap thing, nothing like what another Constantine might own—is open on the floor, and she places her feet carefully to walk by it every time.
She hasn’t noticed me yet because she’s on the phone. I notice her. I came up here to notice her. The phone call is not what I expected. I expected tears, or sullen staring out the window, or any number of things other than a conversation with her daddy. It’s a bit late for that.
“No,” she’s saying, her expression soft. She’s not sniffling or sobbing or doing anything to give away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m safe, Daddy. It’s not—no, this is where I should be.”