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“She didn’t leave a note?”
“She left a note. I didn’t read it.”
Of course, Willow could be lying. If I were to discover that Willow was lying, not only about the note but about the suicide too, I wouldn’t even be surprised. Willow once told me that all there is inside her is a big, dark nothing, and she wasn’t lying then.
Only—she’s not lying now either.
I don’t know how I know this, I just do.
“Why not?” I ask.
I’ve placed my hands on her arms without quite meaning to, the warmth from her skin radiating through the fabric of her dress. The smell of her is dense in the narrow space of the corridor. Dark flowers and sweet smoke.
“I didn’t care,” she says.
“Liar.”
Willow answers my accusation by flattening her palms against my chest. The length of her body is pressed to mine. Those upturned eyes of hers are dark, oily pits, as if I might slip and fall into the depths of them and never find my way back out. My back hits something hard, and I realise I’m now the one being pinned to the tapestried wall.
“I didn’t need to read it.” Willow’s voice is low and dreamy, just like it was back when she had the fever, when I had her burning and molten and blurry with codeine. “Iknewwhy she did it. I was there, I saw it all. Maybe I knew she would do it, too, even before she did. I suppose I always knew. How else was it supposed to end?” Her fingers curl into my shirt, crumpling the fabric in her fists. Her mouth is a querulous wound. “And so what if I’m broken, Luca? Don’t youlikethat I’m broken? Don’t you want to fix me?”
You don’t need to be fixed, I think, surprising myself.
“You can’t be fixed,” I say out loud.
“Don’t you want to try? Don’t you want to get your hands bloody trying to make all those shattered pieces of me fit?” Hervoice is a rough whisper, more suggestive than a moan. Her body trembles against mine like a bow string fully drawn, ready to loose or else snap. “Wouldn’t it feel so good, just like it did when you saved my life?” Her mouth touches my jaw, my neck, warm and soft. She slips her fingers into the gap between the buttons of my shirt, brushing her fingertips over the skin of my chest. “Luca, my saviour, my salvation. Wouldn’t I besograteful to you?” she whispers against my neck. “Wouldn’t I owe you forever? Do anything you ever asked?”
She rolls her hips into mine, and my dick, now horribly, achingly hard, pushes against the softness of her. Wanting to fuck Willow is like wanting to fuck a pit of snakes: the dangeristhe pleasure.
“Fix me, Luca.” Willow speaks against my ear, a command and an entreaty. Her hands trail down my chest, tug at the waistband of my trousers. “Please. Fix me. Mend me. Make me whole again.”
She reaches into my trousers, palms the hard length of my cock. It twitches at her touch, and I make no attempt to stop her. My eyes roll back in my head; I close them just because I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to ever remember Willow Lynch begging me to fix her while she caresses my cock.
And then the warmth of Willow’s body is gone, and I open my eyes only to be blinded by a flash of light and the artificial sound of a phone camera shutter. Willow inspects the photograph she’s just taken on her phone and looks up with a smirk.
“Congratulations, Luca,” she says, voice dripping with arrogance. “You have a very photogenic dick.”
And then she throws her phone back into her purse, taps her index finger to the tip of my nose, and exits the corridor without a backwards glance.
42
Made in Hell
Willow
According to the programme,I don’t have much time left before the formal dinner and charity auction. I make my way back to the atrium, where guests are still mingling over expensive champagne.
As much as it’s fun punishing Luca for trying to parade me to his little world as his girlfriend, I’m not here for my own amusement. I came here with one mission: finding Richard Thornton. Luca was right when he said everyone who’s anyone would be present tonight. If I don’t find Richard here, I might as well accept that he’s no longer in the country.
Looking around, this is exactly the kind of event he would have loved—the kind of event my mother got into abject debt to attend. Richard, despite being an abusive piece of shit, happened to be a big fan of charity. And if there’s one thing rich people lovewhen giving to charity, it’s doing so at extravagant parties while stuffing themselves with caviar and Moët.
“Ah, there you are!”
An arm captures mine, and I have to resist the urge to punch whoever it is that’s grabbed me. I turn to find myself looking into an austere face cracked through with a polite smile.
“Dame Fletch.” I greet her mildly, letting her steer me through the crowd.
“Henrietta will do,” she replies with zero warmth.
