Page 24 of Penny
I followed her to the bathroom, not knowing where I was going. Her confident steps told me she had been here before. Folding my arms over my stomach, I stopped at the bathroom, waiting for her to go in.
“You can come in. I don’t bite, and it will give you more time away from everyone looking at you,” she chatted, quirking her eyebrow at me.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t as innocent as I thought if she’d noticed I needed space from everyone. She pulled the door open and waved me in. My eyes rolled at another bathroom larger than my old studio apartment. I could have holed up here at night, hiding in the cabinet under the sink, and no one would have known I was here. Candice approached the mirror, grabbing bath tissue to clean the non-existent smudges under her eyes.
“How long have you been staying with Connor?” she inquired, looking at me through the mirror. I stepped over to stand at the vanity next to her, biting at my lower lip.
“Two days.” I sighed, closing my eyes to block out the image of me in this dress.
The person looking back at me was an imposturous actress, and she was only in scene two of her pathetic play. My attire wasn’t dresses and fancy makeup in sixty-dollar tubes. Even before I was homeless, I liked to wear my overalls covered in paint and black spaghetti-strap tops. I liked makeup, but it was just to hide my hormonal acne. Now, I was a captive dressed in a gown that cost more than four paychecks combined.
“Wow, and he already has you out of the house?” she asked skeptically, applying a new layer of nude lipstick. “Was that Liam’s idea?” She examined me when asking that question. Jeez, I thought this was to give me a moment away from the interviewing surveillance.
“It was definitely Connor’s, but how long have you been with Liam?” I pried, wanting to know about her connection with him.
“Any woman with these men isn’t actually with them. If you think you are, then you are more of a fool than I thought.”
“I’m not a fool,” I snapped, scowling at her in the mirror.
“Well, that’s good to hear, then. I’ve been trapped at Liam’s second house for six months. I just got my freedom, but that was after I allowed a chip to be inserted into me.”
“Can’t you just cut that out?” I asked, wanting to know what the big deal was with them.
“That is what I thought and why I agreed to it. The joke was on me. They inserted five needles into my back at once and three into my leg. Connor said it was his favorite part of his job and that I would never know if I had one or eight inside of me. I can’t reach my back and would have to carve my thigh up to find it.” She tucked the lipstick back into her small clutch and looked down at her well-manicured hands. “They know how to find the broken women.”
My breath was heavy in my lungs, and my skin felt like the needles were already implanting trackers. They did know how to pick women who had nothing to lose if I was one of them.
When Connor fucked me, I wanted to hate it. When I rested my forehead on his and looked into his eyes, all I felt and saw was myself. I didn’t know how his bad luck replicated mine, but he twisted it with his own mixture of cruelty. It was why I needed to scrub him off my skin, purify myself of his lingering touches.
My lips tingled as visions of Liam embracing me in a consuming kiss plagued my mind. Reminding me that I didn’t just have one of them overtaking my senses. The twins had taken siege of my subconscious and were steering me to the depths of the sea.
We left the bathroom without actually using it, and I walked behind Candice as she confidently strode down the hall to the dining room.
“All you do is mess things up. Why should I trust you with someone who could make us a lot of money?” Arthur’s agitated voice drifted down the hall.
I grabbed Candice’s arm, yanking her back, and put my finger over my lips to silence her.
“I found her,” Connor’s low growl echoed, making my toes curl.
“For that, I will give you leniency on your most recent fuck-up, but this has gone on too long. I’ve always known you are weak-minded. For God's sake, you can’t even manage your own money. How can I expect you to manage this girl?”
“I was able to bring in a hundred thousand with that hotel before the pigs—”
“Exactly.Beforeyour fuck-up almost cost us four times that amount. If the police get our names in the system again, guess who pays for that? Me. I’m the one who pays them to look the other way,” Arthur interjected, and dishware rattled as something—most likely his fist—slammed down on the table.
“I’ll go stay at Connor’s penthouse to make sure things run smoothly,” Liam said.
The butler turned the corner into the hall we were standing in, making Candice leap into the air and shriek.
“It isn’t polite to eavesdrop.” His wiry eyebrows were furrowed, and his chapped lips puckered in annoyance. No wonder Connor had shoulder-checked him earlier. Bah humbug to this fucker.
The dining room was quiet, and my throat tightened as I tried to swallow. Candice looked at me with wide eyes and tears forming in the corners. Okay, they couldn’t be that mad. They had no clue how long we were standing there. For all they knew, we were only there for a split second.
The butler scowled deeper, making his wrinkled jowls shake. He turned around and slowly walked back into the room.
“Caught the girls on the CCTV eavesdropping, sir,” he curtly told Arthur as we walked into the room behind him. Well, I guess they could really know we were listening.
Connor’s eyes widened, and Liam’s face went stoic and cold. A ball formed in my stomach and worry etched Connor’s brow.
