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Her Pretty Things

Page 119

by Delilah P. Darling

The key is pressing into my stomach beneath my waistband.

“What’s in here?”

I look at the closed door. Oliver glances back at me, waiting.

“I don’t know.”

He studies my face for half a second before standing. Then he turns away from the closet and heads for the hall.

I wait until he’s past me before I move.

He finds the bedroom at the end of the back hall.

I know what it is before he opens the door. Heather goes this way at night when she leaves us upstairs. I’ve heard the floorboard near the office creak enough times to map the distance in my head.

I catch the door before he gets it halfway open. “No.”

He looks at my hand braced against the wood, then at me. “Move.”

I push the door shut another inch. He shoves it back.

The room beyond him is normal. The bed is made perfectly. There’s a dresser, a jewelry tray, and a pair of shoes lined neatly beneath a chair. A pink mushroom lamp sits centered on the nightstand beside a bottle of water and a book turned facedown to save the page.

My eyes catch on the lamp.

He steps inside.

Out of fucking line.

I grab the back of his shirt and pull him hard enough to stop him before he reaches the dresser. “Get out.”

He twists free and yanks open the top drawer. Heather’s clothes shift beneath his hands.

I slam it shut.

He opens the next one.

I catch his wrist. “Stop touching her shit.”

His eyes cut to mine. There’s no triumph in his face. He’s not trying to piss me off. Just touching her panties like he has any right.

Oliver tears his arm out of my grip and moves to the nightstand. The drawer comes open before I reach him. He pushes aside a charger, a bottle of lotion and a small stack of receipts.

I close my hand around his shoulder and drag him backward. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

“She has our phones. Our wallets. Our keys.” He plants one hand on the edge of the bed and catches himself before he falls. “If she keeps anything else useful, it’ll be somewhere she thinks belongs to her.”

I tighten my grip. Everything in this room belongs to her.

He straightens and reaches for the dresser again. I get between him and it. He tries to shoulder past me. I shove him back.

He comes forward harder the second time, and my spine hits the dresser before I manage to catch him across the chest. Something on top rattles. Glass knocks against wood.

I grab his shirt with both hands. “Get the fuck out of her room.”

He drives his forearm into my throat.

My head snaps back against the dresser. Pain flashes behind my eyes. Before I can get air properly, he twists out of my grip and reaches for the drawer again.