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I glanced around us. The sky was heavy with rain-filled clouds, the waves below crashing against the beach loudly. There were endless flowers there, probably dozens of rose bushes.
“Too many to count,” I admitted, and she gave me a triumphant smile.
“Exactly,” she said. “And you know Thorn a little by now, don’t you, Harlow? You know he likes mementos.”
I cocked my head to the side, waiting for her to go on while my heart pounded painfully in my chest. She seemed to notice and drew out the moment until I was in physical pain from the torture.
“Let’s just say,” Pia went on in her too-sweet voice. “Every rose bush here signifies a woman in Thorn’s life. Do you want to take another look around, sweetheart? Do you need a reminder how many there were?”
I didn’t.
I looked at my feet, my arms falling down by my sides defeatedly as Pia came closer, cruelly tugging on the leash on my wrist to make me stumble forward.
“Yes,” she said. “Too many to count, indeed. But there’s another thing…”
I looked up at her, gearing up for another secret that would feel like the ground had been pulled up from under me, but what she gave me instead felt so heartbreaking it couldn’t compare to the previous statement from her lips.
“Where do you think the little roses go once he’s done with them?” she taunted me.
“I… I don’t know,” I whispered. “He sends them back home?”
In truth, I had never imagined Thorn letting me go. I knew that while he was breathing, he’d want me by his side. But what if the unthinkable happened? What if he grew tired of me and escape wasn’t an option anymore? What if he sent me away willingly?
I knew my heart would be broken beyond repair, and I hated myself for it.
Pia stepped closer, viciously whispering in my ear. “They don’t go back, Harlow,” she said. “They stay right here, on the property. And they turn into roses. All the ones around you. Do you smell them in the air, Harlow? I could fucking swear I still sense the scent of the last one…”
I cried out, tearing myself away from her, but she tugged on the leash harder, making me look at her with my eyes brimming with tears.
“You don’t believe me?” she asked sweetly. “Poor stupid little girl. I have nothing to win by lying to you.”
“You-you’re saying…” I whispered, my words trailing off into nothing.
“Go on,” she smiled brightly. “Say it out loud. Maybe it will make it less painful.”
“You’re saying he gets rid of them,” I whispered, the words sinking in and doing the exact opposite of what she’d suggested.
“Indeed,” she said. “Permanently.”
She stomped her foot onto the ground, her high heel digging into the soil, a branch cracking under the shoe as she grinned at me.
“Rose garden, burial ground, whatever you want to call it,” she shrugged. “One day you’ll end up here just like the rest of them.”
I sobbed out loud then, suddenly wishing I were strong enough to push Pia over the abyss, that I could watch her worthless, evil and beautiful body fall down and smash onto the rocks below.
Instead, I mustered all my strength to yank my wrist from her. The chain dropped from her fingers, and she watched in shock as I picked it up. I turned around and walked back towards the Mansion, not caring whether she followed or not. I still knew where my place was.
Unfortunately, now I also knew where I would end up.
Chapter 12
Rose
I had dinner with Thorn every night, but since the revelation with Pia, I kept my distance. I knew he’d noticed.
He’d done everything but call me out on it directly, and a part of me resented him for not acknowledging the growing chasm between us. At first, he was kind and gentle, worried his lovemaking had left me too broken to heal, but when I denied his kindness, he turned angry and disappointed. As much as my heart broke for what he’d had, I couldn’t forgive him for what Pia had told me. The rose garden was a burial ground where inevitably every rose would end up… She’d not only made it clear that there had been plenty before me, but she’d also cleared up the mystery of what happened to the girls after Thorn got sick of them.
The answer was simple – they were disposed of. After all, in the end, they were nothing but his property, and I knew once he broke something beyond repair, he didn’t hang on to it. He simply fucking got rid of it.
I still took dancing lessons with Marchante, who had shifted most of his attention to Amber. I knew that after Thorn’s angry lashing out, he was afraid of so much as to look at me in the wrong way. It was another reason why I started to resent him – he’d given me a teacher, someone to train me in what I loved most – and then intimidated him to the point where he gave me nothing but compliments. To someone like me, who had trained under Madame’s strict baton, it meant a struggle, because I needed critique to get better. Still, it was better than rotting alone in my room, waiting for the inevitable moment when Thorn decided I was useless to him.
