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“I have to do this,” she said, and her fingers landed softly on mine.
Shy, yet brave.
“Why do you?” I asked. “Why is your fate so dependent on hers?”
Her eyes were the fiercest I’d seen them.
“Because I love her. She’s my sister.”
And that’s when I said it. Just fucking said it.
“Love doesn’t exist, sweetheart. It’s a sorry fucking illusion and nothing more.”
“Love does exist. It’s the only thing that matters,” she whispered. “What point is there to anything if you don’t have love?”
“And do you have it? Where is your fucking sister if love is real? Why isn’t she here with you, trying to save you from selling your own fucking soul on her behalf?”
“I don’t know!” she hissed, and pulled away with such force I actually let her go.
She could take that one little victory. She wouldn’t be taking another.
Her shoulders hunched. Eyes filled to flowing.
I took a swig of scotch.
“Spit it out,” I said. “Such definite opinions should stand up to scrutiny if they count for shit.”
She held up a hand, but the gesture wasn’t rude. It was broken.
“Speak,” I ordered. “You believe in love, I’m asking you where it is. I’m asking you why the sister you’d go to the ends of the earth for hasn’t even called you back to let you know she’s still breathing.”
“She might not be… breathing…” she managed. “She’s in trouble. Serious trouble!”
“She was breathing this morning,” I hissed. “Stumbling back to her shit hole apartment off her fucking tits with her prick of a boyfriend in tow.”
Her hand was at her mouth in a heartbeat. “You saw her?! Today? She was ok today?!”
“Please,” I sneered. “Do I look like the kind of guy who goes traipsing down druggie street to scope out someone’s skanky fucking sister? I had her watched. They saw plenty enough.”
She dropped her hand to the table. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank you. I was worried sick.”
My frustration was rattling through my fucking spine.
Frustration at her fucking selflessness. Frustration at her fucking naivety.
Frustration at my own fucking unwillingness to laugh her off as a silly little girl caring for her fuck-up of a sister and move on happily with destroying her on webcam.
“You’re really going to take whatever pain and fucking punishment I dish out to you for sixty days straight, just to bail out your waster of a sister?”
She tipped back another sip of cocktail, and that fake facade came back strong enough that I wanted to belt it out of her.
“Who’s to say that’s the only reason I’m signing up for sixty days?” she challenged.
I forced myself to go along with her ridiculous line of reason.
“So tell me, what other pressing motives have you signing up for sixty days of utter depravity?”
Another one of those little shrugs. “Rebecca Lane has done pretty well for herself. Maybe I want that too. Maybe I want designer clothes and shoes and enough money to buy myself an apartment.”
I laughed out loud.
A proper belly laugh.
Cutting and cold and without fucking restraint.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I said. “Your attempts at bullshit are nothing short of hilarious. I’d leave the bullshit at college when you step into my world, little girl. Beating it out of you will be my pleasure, but I doubt you’ll enjoy the process.”
Her eyes crawled up to mine slowly. So fucking slowly.
And there it was again. That quality that had my laughter drying up in my fucking throat.
That need in her eyes that called my name. That craving for the fucking darkness.
Fuck it.
I had a craving of my fucking own.
“Drink up,” I said. “We’re going.”
“Going?” she asked, looking to her almost full glass and back again. “Going where?”
I downed my drink and dumped another few notes on the table.
I stood up as she was still glugging hers.
“You want money,” I said. “Come show me how fucking much.”Chapter Twenty-ThreePaigeI followed him. I didn’t even question where as I grabbed my bag and stepped out after him.
The pier was still alive with tourists. They moved out of his way. He didn’t alter his path, not once, not all the way to the front.
I hadn’t eaten. Not for hours.
The alcohol on an empty stomach made my legs bandy, my head swimming as I concentrated on keeping up with him.
He didn’t say a word when we arrived on the beach front. Didn’t make a sound as he crossed the main street and paced along the string of restaurants on the other side.
I wasn’t prepared for him taking a hard left. I stumbled a little as I pulled up sharp and followed him to the door of a hotel with a vacancies sign out front. He opened the door and stepped aside for me. A surprising gentleman.
The heat of the reception foyer brought me out in a hot flush. I tried to stay calm and steady as he paced right up to the front desk and jammed his hand on the service bell.
