Page 34 of Wild (Chicago Underground 4)
“What do you care about, exactly? His penchant for singing show tunes in the shower? Or maybe it’s the way he cuddles with you after sex. No, wait, you guys don’t have sex. And you don’t know anything at all about him.”
Righteous anger flooded me, a relief really, because what the hell? “And I suppose you knew every secret of Colin’s life before you fell in love with him.”
“I didn’t pretend to love him when he barely gave me the time of day.”
I suppressed my gasp of pain with ruthless efficiency. I could control my breath, my body, the goddamned spasms in my cunt to fake an orgasm. That was why every man wanted me, everyone except for Luke. “I want it to be real,” he’d said. Except I’d faked it for so long I didn’t know how to stop. If I wasn’t pretending, wasn’t modeling every word, every turn of my head to elicit the proper reaction, what would I do? If I stripped away the sultry sexpot and the ruthless working girl and even the doting godmother, what would be left?
“Then tell me.” I swallowed hard, willing to beg. “Tell me what I have to do to make him want me.”
Her laugh was harsh, metal on metal. “You’re like some sort of man whisperer. You know what they’re thinking, what they want. You know how to be around them so that they all fall at your feet. With Luke, you’re dumb as a rock. And maybe that’s the best argument I’ve ever heard for you two getting together.”
“I’ll make him want me,” I said grimly. “And you’ll eat your words.”
Allie stared straight ahead, her expression closed, her body rigid. It was clear she didn’t understand me. We used to see men the same way. They used us, and we used them right back. But she was in love now, happy now, and I guess she didn’t have the black heart to keep up the charade.
Tiredly, she said, “I’m not going to argue with you.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” I hated the nasty turn in my voice; I reveled in it. “You think you’ve got me figured out? Because you landed yourself a man, the only one in the city who was willing to put up with your bullshit?”
Shock widened her eyes, parted her lips.
“I bet you repay him nicely too. Do you give him shit if he stays out late? Nag him to put the toilet seat down? That’s what wives do, but you’ll make it up to him at night. Make him forget about all the trouble you cause, because hell, I told you what to do with your mouth.”
Once upon a time, she would have called me a bitch. She would have put me in my place.
She turned to me, her frown slight, more thoughtful than hurt. “You went too far.”
The quiet words stung more than epithets. “So leave.”
“I will,” she said, and I held my breath. “But I’ll come back. You’ll keep pushing me, and I’ll keep coming back, because I owe you my life. You saved me a hundred times over, and nothing you could ever say or do to me will be enough to repay that.”
She turned back at the door. “You know, if it was a pride thing, I wouldn’t mind at all. The one man who could resist you, so you have to bring him to his knees. That would be fine. But I don’t think that’s it. You seek him because you know it’s impossible. You’re setting yourself up for failure, just so it won’t be your fault when you’re alone. So you can be alone and blame every asshole john and every uptight cop instead of yourself.”
Chapter Seventeen
Inheritances are funny things. They aren’t earned, except by being born; we get them whether we deserve them or not. But I had learned long ago that everything came at a price.
On the first day my father came to my room, he didn’t touch me.
He sat on my bed and told me that my mother had abandoned us both. She was weak, and he was strong. He hoped I would be strong too.
He left a small velvet bag of rocks on the bed. Mostly diamonds but other types of gems too, rubies and emeralds all beautifully cut and glittering by my bedside lamp. He explained that he had melted down my mother’s jewelry after she left. It was rightfully mine, considering I would take her place.
Only years later, when I left the house with them in my possession, did I realize that she would have taken her jewelry with her. Which meant her leaving had been an unplanned escape or that she hadn’t left at all—at least not willingly. Part of me preferred this rendition, since it meant my mother hadn’t abandoned me to a monster. But these were all stories, part of the Laurent family legacy.
I hadn’t sold the jewels, even when Allie and I had desperately needed the money. I had preferred to sell my skin than part with them, for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. I set out in the world with both my dignity and my inheritance intact, and now I only had the latter.
My dependence on those stones was fading, though. I could feel the weight of them lifting, their manacles unlatched. Their worth to me was measured not in blood but money—what I could buy with them. A new life for Ella, maybe. And if I bestowed the money upon her, like our own makeshift inheritance, what price would she pay?
The large sitting room and wet bar were usually empty unless Philip was entertaining. I slipped along the wall, trailing my finger over a lesser-known Matisse. In his private rooms, Philip’s taste was spare and masculine. However, he spent a small fortune decorating the public rooms with artwork and bric-a-brac. The only style was expensive, and that was the point. I had once teased him about being so obvious. He replied that he had to be—people often didn’t see what was in front of their eyes.
I had taken this lesson to heart.
Nestled in a bookshelf was an abstract sculpture of a rainbow with metal rays jutting from an unpolished block of concrete. Without the muted colors on each thin pipe, this would just be a piece of construction refuse. Maybe it had been once, though Philip had paid five figures in an auction at Christie’s in New York to acquire it. I loved the way the artist had taken something ugly and made it valuable and unique—but without hiding its true nature. I also loved the way it stored my gemstones, which filled a dip in the concrete. I assumed that no one would look twice at the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Hiding in plain sight. Isn’t that what I did every day, every trick? Even if the maid had dared to steal from Philip, the rainbow statuette hardly seemed like the most valuable trinket in the room. It looked like Swarovski had thrown up on a brick.
I had brought the stones with me when I lived with Philip. My departure had been abrupt, and I’d never gotten to retrieve them. That turned out to be a good thing. If this had been at my apartment, it would have been stuck there along with the rest of my belongings.
I scooped them out, a handful of glittering color, my own tainted rainbow that I had been following for years, a hopeless quest for treasure at the end. An emerald sparkled against my palm, the same green that had gazed at me with heat and passion and distrust, endless facets of light and dark, of blind hope and a long tumble to fathomless depths. It mesmerized me against my will, held me in its thrall so that I’d never be able to let it go.
