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Urg.
I need to narrow this down.
I type in LeeRoss Industries and my heart flutters when a picture pops up on the screen.
Mr. Ross.
He’s stunning. Young, really young for someone who is so well established.
Why haven’t I Googled him before now?
I expected him to be a middle-aged hard ass, but he’s beautiful.
Dark eyes that peer into me from the screen.
Brown messy hair sitting askew over his forehead. Straight nose. Full lips.
He’s not smiling, and it makes him look so intense my body trembles.
Mr. Ross.
It’s so nice to finally meet you.
Nineteen
Chapter
ERIK
It’s driving me crazy that Alice hasn’t replied to the email I sent her a few days ago.
Does she think she can hide from me? Put me in the dark?
She’s inside me, my elixir, and I’m inside her, too.
You’re mine Alice. You can’t out run me, I can smell your fucking scent. Like a wolf, I’ll hunt you down and devour you.
“Thank you for coming,” Ebony says, taking the hand of one of Richard’s work colleagues. The last place I need to be is here, at this idiot’s funeral.
No one needs to hear hymns or some stranger talk about how wonderful Richard was.
He wasn’t.
He was a piece of shit, and in his death it shows.
The place is barren.
The only thing offering Ebony any solace is the fact that they caught the guy who killed him. Or so they think.
She will never have to know the truth.
She’s free now.
Thanks to me.
Maggie has been lingering like a bad smell.
I hadn’t realized how overpowering her personality can be.
I’ve never actually spent this much time with her before.
She’s become skittish around Ebony, like her sorrow is a disease she may catch.
When Ebony talks about Richard, Maggie sighs, like it’s a burden to listen to her.
It makes me hate her.
Apparently the idiot was so drunk that night, he doesn’t remember not killing someone.
He couldn’t have made it easier for me to frame him.
There’s no wake being held for Richard.
Not enough people to even host one. It’s pitiful, much like his life.
I bring Ebony straight home after she thanks the last person for coming.
She’s been quiet, but coping.
She’s strong and resilient, she’s had to be.
“Do you want me to go out and get something for dinner?” Maggie offers, but Ebony shakes her head and goes straight up to her room.
“Me and you then?” she’s desperate to get back in my good graces despite it being me who upset her in the first place.
How low must her self worth be to be this pathetic?
“I actually have to go out, so if you can stay, just to keep an eye on her…”
Her heads nods repeatedly like she’s one of those dashboard dolls.
“Of course.”
Alice, my little ray of sunshine in a gloomy world.
If only you knew the hell of a week I’ve had.
I know you’d offer me comfort, take me in your embrace and give yourself to me.
I want that more than anything I’ve ever wanted. Why do you consume me so much?
Taking a deep breath I move through her house, inhaling her scent when I pass her room.
I head for the bathroom.
It’s so dingy in here, Alice.
How do you look so beautiful all the time when this is where you have to bathe your smooth, silky skin?
Opening the only bottle of shampoo, I sniff the coconut scent and smile.
Generic products are so beneath you.
When you’re living with me, you will have only the best.
Everything that touches your skin, your hair, will be luxury. You deserve luxury, Alice.
Moving into her room, it smells of her in here. Like clean clothes and cotton candy.
I haven’t had the time to look around before, be present in her existence. Breathe in the air she lives in.
There are photos of colleges on her wall and influential men from our town, red circles around their faces.
There is a list of companies who offer scholarships written on a piece of paper above their names and pictures.
My fist clenches when I see my company with a picture of Lee beneath it and a red cross over it.
Why him and not me, Alice? Do you not know that is my company, and if any man can offer you what you need, it’s me?
Snatching the picture down, I crumple it up and slip it into my pocket.
Fuck Lee.
I take a deep breath allowing my anger to wane.
I can’t stay mad at you, Alice.
It’s not your fault that you haven’t been taught to know who the businessmen are.
You’re just desperate to get help for college.
I will help you with that.
Slipping over to her laundry basket, I grin to see that she’s tidy.
I like that, clutter and mess are for children.
You’re not a child.
Picking through her dirty clothes I come across a pair of pink panties, cream lace around the edges. Innocent but sexy all in the same breath.
Bringing them to my nose, I inhale her.
