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“I haven’t seen him in almost a week,” I murmured.
Kieran nodded like that information was expected. “He’s made his position clear, which was that none of us were to proposition you again.” When his grin widened, it looked feral. Like a wild cat baring its teeth. “But you certainly seem like a woman that knows her own mind. So of course, I had to put my offer on the table.”
A lump rose in my throat, forbidding me from responding.
He held out a slip of paper and I slowly lifted my hand to take it. Our fingers brushed, sparking heat in my blood. Then Kieran stepped closer and pressed a kiss to my forehead. My body went rigid before I found myself leaning into him.
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” he whispered against my hairline.
My eyes shut, the paper pinched between my fingers. Then the warm early afternoon air swirled around me. I opened my eyes, and Kieran was gone.
With a deep breath, I opened the piece of paper, nearly choking at the number written at the top.
Twelve. Million. Dollars. One night.
His phone number was written below it. I stared for a long time, my heart pounding. Didn’t these guys know I wasn’t really a virgin in the technical sense? What did they hope to gain by paying such an insane amount of money for my body?
Despite the heat, I shivered. I folded up the paper, slipped it into my pocket, and headed back inside.
Chapter Fifteen
JULIETTA
Two Years Ago
The night was long. Romero and I went to identify her body. Looking down at the metal slab in the cold, sterile room with an astringent scent coating the air and burning my nose, I didn’t see my mother. There was a woman lying there, grey and so eerily still. It didn’t look like her though. She looked sick. Thin and sunken.
Maybe that had to do with the whole being dead thing, but she just didn’t look like the happy, smiling woman I’d grown accustomed to the past three years. Her hair was a bronze color, but the roots were a dark brown. We didn’t share hair or even eye color. Our jaw shape and a few other facial features were the same, but that was it. When I was little and heard kids at school talking about their dads, I, like any other curious six-year-old, asked my mother who my father was. Perhaps it was him I looked most like. She’d squinted at me, as though studying me before her gaze became unfocused. Like she was recalling an image to mind. After a few moments, she’d shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she’d said before returning to her magazine.
Romero gripped my shoulder. Some might have seen it as a gesture of comfort, but it felt like he was keeping me from slipping away. From sinking into the cold, white tiles beneath my shoes, or from sprinting from the room to hurl up my guts. Or maybe just cry.
I didn’t feel like crying though. At first I was numb. The rest of the night passed in a blur of faces and meaningless words. There was talk of funeral arrangements. Everyone kept saying they wanted to “honor” the woman that abandoned me in favor of snorting and shooting up.
In the end it turned to anger.
I hated her. I hated him.
She just couldn’t fucking let go of the high, and it killed her.
I wasn’t enough.
I was never enough for her.
He was supposed to protect me. He was supposed to protect her. She was his wife for Christ’s sake and he couldn’t stop her from killing herself.
Now I was an orphan.
Alone.
Romero stayed up all night “preparing her funeral,” but when he asked if I wanted to help, I didn’t answer. My gaze found the stupid pizza box and leftover cake that still sat on the coffee table, reminding me that hours ago I’d been happy. Shaking my head slightly, I scoffed.
Don’t you know that you don’t deserve happiness? Only one person ever truly loved me, and she’s long been dead. My own fucking mother hated my existence. She preferred being high to showing me any sort of affection or remembering my goddamn birthday.
“Julietta.” Romero’s voice was warm but firm, snapping me out of my head. My gaze locked with his. He hesitated a moment, as though unsure of what he wanted to say now that he had my attention. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I swallowed hard, blinking back the sudden surge of unbidden tears. Without a word, I carried myself up the stairs to my bedroom—No, this isn’t my house anymore, I reminded myself.
I didn’t bother to change before succumbing to sleep, even though the sun would be up in a matter of hours.
