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He'd taken one of those silk robes when he left, cramming it into one of his bags of belongings. The alternating textures of slippery silk and rough lace had felt so good wrapped around him while he was getting off, often leaving him breathless. It had been used so roughly over the years that it was starting to come apart.
Rafe wanted to be angry with her. Even after all these years, she didn’t seem to understand how deeply she’d plunged the knife. The fact that she could turn his own father against him and still have the balls to ask him for money was pure fucking hubris. He knew she had chosen the Blue Palm deliberately to avoid being seen in public with him and he had allowed it, thinking he might retaliate by forcing her to take him out to one of the wine bars in Riachuelo dressed in something so revealing that there could be no doubt that she was wearing it for anyone but him.
But his anger had softened when he’d felt how violently she was trembling in his arms; she was clearly expecting him to throw her down and ravish her. And to his shame, part of him had wanted to. It was the part of him that responded best when fear and anticipation were one. He’d put that shadow self in his books and it had flourished, but now he was wondering how thin the lines really were. However tenuous, they had made him push her away when all he wanted was to pull her close.
She had a dark side, too. He’d seen it in her films, and in how easily she could charm and manipulate. Beneath that gothic elegance that she took such care to cultivate, she was a bit of an opportunist. And only someone who came from Hollywood would think that glasses and a bun would make a woman like her unfuckable.
He thought of the tiger lily tucked into her hair and his chest tightened. She had still been wearing it when she had gone into the house.
He wondered what she’d fuck like.
He wondered how soon he would be able to find out.
Another light flicked on, drawing his attention. Her dressing room; once, it had been right next to his own room. The drapes on that window were thinner than the one on the street, throwing a thin square of light on the patch of grass beneath the window.
Frowning, he moved closer, causing the floodlights on the porch to turn on. When he had come by last night, the house had been untouched except for the ghostly red graffiti on the stone. That was still there, but now the grass beneath her window was trampled, the soil slightly sunken-in. Caught in the muddied grass blades was something golden and glinting.
Rafe bent to pick it up, tilting the object towards the porch light an instant before it winked back out. It was a small cheap locket, shaped like a heart, with a skull engraved very lightly in the cheap metal. Like something a young girl would wear.
And indeed, a young girl had worn this necklace. Donni herself had, in her very first movie:Sleepover Fiends.
What was it doing on the ground?
Chapter Four
Death Was Still a Spectacle
Donni nearly overslept. All that inexpensive wine had given her a headache and the Benadryl she’d washed down after brushing her teeth had made her groggy.
Then she looked at her phone and snapped upright. Today was the funeral.
She showered quickly, cursing to herself as she worked curl cream into her hair while holding the comb between her teeth. Her hair was somewhere between 3A and 3B, and she’d learned as a young girl what happened when she went to bed with wet hair and no styling. But showers in the morning were such a pain. After adding mousse and a little oil, she patted her hair dry with an old T-shirt trying to pretend like her hands weren’t shaking.
Two hours later, wearing what she considered a reasonable amount of makeup, she got dressed and grabbed her phone, noticing as she did that she had a text from Angie.
Good luck today, babe xoxo
Thanks!Donni wrote back.I’m going to need it
The funeral was being held at Red Cypress Estates, which was a rather lofty name for a place where only the dead were in residence. Donni had somehow managed to set up everything through her fog of disbelief and shock, but then that was what she did when she was upset: she pushed through and got to work, just like how her parents raised her.
The parking lot was already full and it took Donni several minutes to find a space, even in her tiny Honda. Her nose crinkled when she saw what appeared to be a news van, but she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Marco had been well known in Riachuelo even before the poisonings, and though he’d died hated, his death was still a spectacle.
Donni slid out of her car, straightening the pleats of her dress. It was beautiful—full skirt with a beaded bodice and lace screening around the sweetheart neck and sleeves. She’d paired it with a vintage fascinator that had a half-veil of dotted lace and dyed black ostrich feathers. It had probably come from someone’s old flapper costume, but she liked it.
She checked her lipstick once in the rearview mirror—Graveyard, from Wet N Wild—before grabbing her YSL clutch and locking the car, taking care with her heels as she cut across the graveled path. She glanced uneasily at the wall of cypress that separated the funerary grounds from the street, and thought she saw a spark of light glinting through the branches.
“Hello?” Donni stepped closer. “Is someone there?”
Stupid. It was a big cemetery so of course there were going to be people around. People who might happen to look at her, the wife of the deceased. And the things buried in the ground here no longer had eyes with which to watch at all . . .
She began to chew her lip at that unpleasant thought, then caught herself, whipping out a gold-plated compact to touch up her grey-black lipstick.
The grounds had been designed to be picturesque in all seasons, but it looked particularly lovely on this October day, with the marble statues covered in yellowing ivy and mulberry trees that had already turned gold. Scattered throughout the property were Japanese maples with crimson leaves and more cypress (although no red ones), curated to give the illusion of privacy.
But it was only an illusion, because as soon as people saw her arrive for the visitation, she was bombarded by various acquaintances who wanted to express their condolences and pump her for information, sometimes in the same breath.
Irene managed to corner her after she had just managed to escape from some of Johnathan’s hedge fund manager buddies. “You know,” she said nastily, “Lacey Huang is still in the hospital on dialysis. She had a bottle of your husband’s wine on her counter.”
