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“You have no choice, my dear. You’re representing me. Do you think Giulia likes the uniform she wears for cleaning?”

“No.”

“On weekends and after hours, you’re welcome to wear what you like. While you’re serving as my companion? You’ll wear what I like. Are we clear?”

Ugh. I can’t even look in the mirror. I feel like a fraud. Like a child trying on high heels for the first time and stumbling about in them. It’s unnaturally feminine. “Yes, of course.”

“What is that on your arm there? A tattoo?” The disapproval in Laura’s tone sounds like she said it around a mouthful of worms.

“Yes.” She’s not the first, oddly enough. Hard to believe anyone still scoffs at tattoos, as common as they are these days, but that’s Tempest Cove.

“What does that even mean, invulnerable?”

I glance at Amy, whose curious expression tells me she’s just as interested in my explanation as Laura. “Nothing, really,” I lie.

“In my day, we called those tramp stamps.” Laura chuckles, running her finger over her top lip. “I always wanted one, though.” Her unexpected remark at the end caps the snarky response cocked at the back of my throat. Not bothering to elaborate, she waves her hand in dismissal. “What shoes do you have to go with this dress, Amy?”

For the next hour, I stand before the mirror, like one of the many dolls encased in the other room, until I have an entire wardrobe of clothes I’d have never chosen myself. Not that I’m complaining, since the entire cost of it was courtesy of the Blackthornes.

By the time Amy leaves, I find myself stuck in the white dress again--at Laura’s request.

“It really is flattering on you. I’m not one to admit such things so freely, as you know.”

“Thank you.”

“Do me a favor, will you?”

“Sure.” Anything to get the hell out of this room.

“Go to the library and fetch me some books. A good selection of them. I’ve already read these at least twice in the last two months.” She points to a stack of books beside the bed that ranges from thrillers to bodice rippers. “Take those ones back.”

“You like historical and thrillers?” I gather the dozen, or so books, into my arms, my muscles twitching to keep from dropping them.

“Griffin used to call my romance novels ridiculous. I find it interesting, the one thing our marriage lacked was the one thing he found ridiculous.” Her comment brings a smile to my face.

“If it makes you feel better, my aunt thought they were ridiculous, too. Frivolous reading, she called it.”

“Was your aunt ever married?”

“Once. He cheated on her.”

Scoffing, she turns her head toward the window. “It’s the nature of men to cheat. What else would we hate them for, if they didn’t?”

“I’ll grab the books.” Taking the elevator to the first floor, I hurry toward the library that I remembered from the tour with Rand. My hope is that no one will see me in this absurd dress and the strappy sandals she insisted I wear with it. At least they don’t have a heel and cover my unpainted toes.

Once in the library, a familiar curtain of relief passes over me, as if I stepped into another world. It’s always been that way for me, a source of escape when things became too stressful. As a child, I’d get lost in worlds and fairy tales that were far from where I lived. Magical stories of princesses and princes, knights and maidens. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized life didn’t imitate fiction, at all. In fact, if I wanted a more accurate account, I should’ve been looking through the memoirs of broken children and homes, because not even Cinderella, who had a pretty shitty home life, had to wake up with a junkie for a mom.

I stare up at the levels upon levels of books that stretch all the way to the ceiling and smile at the possibilities. An endless selection of stories that line shelves upon shelves. Anxious to begin, I spin around, and as I crash into a wall, the handful of books in my arms tumble to the floor. “Oh, shit!”

Turns out, the wall is actually a body. The same body I ran into the night before, with the solid arms and a smattering of chest hair peeking through his unbuttoned shirt.

Without bothering to look at his undoubtedly pissed-off face this time, I kneel to the floor and gather the fallen books. “I’m so sorry.”

“Can’t seem to avoid you,” he says, with an edge of annoyance.

I frown at that, slightly offended.

Shiny patent leather shoes become knees, as he drops down beside me and picks up a few of the novels that have landed on their pages, splayed in such a way that makes me cringe. “My mother’s choice of literature hasn’t changed, I see. Unless this belongs to you.”