Page 23 of This Bitter Sweet Temptation
Then I’m gone, pushing past him out the door and marching up to my old guest room. It’s only when I shut the door that I let the tears come, slumping on the bed, grateful it’s still there.
Outside, it’s getting dark.
My reflection looks watery against the glass, a miserable portrait in the black night.
People don’t change, but the rest?
Time is brutal.
I look around, scanning empty walls once plastered in grand paintings, the bare spot in the corner that once held a comfy lounge chair.
Almost everything I loved here is gone.
Just like Gramps himself.
Everything except for this secret I never wanted.
I drop my head into my hands, fingers pressed deep into my eyes.
I never asked for any of this.
TheHera Egg. This is the kind of thing that turns the art world on its head and rocks historians.
And by some insane twist of fate, it’smine.
I’m one little fit away from hysteria.
But I won’t break.
I won’t fail my grandfather’s last wish.
I won’t strangle Holden before he protects me from whatever big, bad messy stuff I have coming my way.
So I take a deep breath and wipe my face with my hand.
This isn’t some weird challenge, I’m sure.
PopPop left a gift so heavy because he loves me. Because he knows I’ll get it like no one else in the family. Because he trusts me to find it a home, wherever that may be.
He did this forme.
He wanted to show me beyond any doubt that I was always his cherished granddaughter, no different from my cousins. So much more than my father.
Now, I just need the will to see this through and treasure the journey he’s dropped on my head.
4
BURIED TREASURE (HOLDEN)
Idon’t bother staying up late.
After my one-way screaming match with a girl who still leaves me seeing red, I head to the room that’s always been mine when I’ve done overnight stints in this house.
Like everything else here, it’s been stripped down, just barely more bare and utilitarian than I kept it when Leonidas was alive.
Why the fuck did I take her bait?
I should’ve handled it better, knowing she’d be packing venom.
