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Alone.
Always alone.
Forever…
Chapter Eighteen
………………………….
Ily
I SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON THE curved balcony as the sun sank, slowly committing suicide into the ocean. Its fiery colours of reds, oranges, and gold-gilded peaches extinguished under a cloak of navy as day became night, and Henri still didn’t summon me.
The grounds below slowly vanished as shadows swallowed neat paths, hedges, fountains, and gazebos. The men who’d dotted the lawn with their unfortunate slaves made their way inside, commanding their jewels to follow. As the gardens emptied, the bedroom behind me grew louder as girls and boys returned to wash away cum, blood, and sweat.
Occasionally, someone laughed, somehow finding humour in this cesspit. A part of me wanted to join them, but most of me craved to be alone.
I stayed where I was.
The cool evening air caressed the fine hairs on the back of my arms, making me shiver.
I’d showered and dressed in the only loungewear available in the walk-in wardrobe: another sheer dressing gown like the one I’d worn when Peter took me to the gardens for the first time. Unlike the periwinkle blue of this morning, this one glowed with rose gold, the lace around the hem and collar a gorgeous alabaster white.
What would Sam say if he saw me in something so sensual? He’d often complained of my flannelette pyjamas and demanded I wear G-strings and corsets to sleep in, guilt-tripping me to be dressed for his pleasure at all times.
The red flags had been waving for far longer than I wanted to admit.
I should never have wasted four years of my life on him.
I should never have gone to France.
If I hadn’t, I’d be back in my childhood bedroom, just down the hall from Krish, about to share a lovely family dinner with my beloved parents and sensitive brother.
My chest ached, but no tears formed.
I think I was all cried out—numb after waiting all day to be abused only to reach nighttime untouched.
With nothing else to do all afternoon, my mind had wandered into the past, deliberately refusing to think of the future or present.
What exactly is my ex doing?
Had he gone back to England and left all my luggage at the hotel? Would he get nervous when I never returned home to collect my things? Would he tell my parents and Krish that I’d gone missing?
Is anyone searching for me?
Sighing, I fought the urge to go inside where it was warm and full of company. While I stayed here—high enough to touch the sunset and close enough to feel speckles of splashing surf—I could pretend I was free. But the moment I stepped inside, the truth would slap me, and I honestly didn’t know if I had the courage to keep pretending.
“Dinner is in thirty minutes.” Peter stuck his head out the small glass door, invading my tiny, barred sanctuary. At least he wore the same linen trousers he’d had on when I first met him in the foyer.
The lightness of his clothing and the rich honey of his skin seemed at such odds with the black wrought-iron rungs curved around and above me, forming a birdcage sticking out from the wall of the citadel. In another life—when I’d explored ancient ruins and drifted down carefully restored corridors of castles and strongholds—I’d seen such cages.
Gibbet cages the information plaques called them. Used to hang traitors and criminals until dead, their skin rotting and sun-bleached skeletons swinging from the parapets as warnings to all.
My empty stomach rumbled as I twisted to face Peter. “Dinner for us or for them?”
He smirked at my growling tummy. “Every night is a banquet fit for a king. If your Master is kind and feeling magnanimous, you may eat morsels that he gives you.” Stepping fully onto the balcony, he lowered his voice. “Some of us don’t have Masters who are kind, so we have a smoothie before going down. That way we don’t faint beneath the table.”
“Do we not get our own rations?” I stood slowly. My knees popped from staying cross-legged for so long.
