But when Betsy came back in, she was alone. She had a glass of wine in her hand. She sat on Arthur’s seat and studied me. “So,” she said, after a few strained minutes. “You’re her.” It wasn’t a question, rather a statement of fact.
“Her?” I asked, swallowing the shiver of unease that stirred inside me at the strange comment.
Betsy’s lip kicked up at the side. “The one who keeps a morsel of red in Arthur’s constant shroud of darkness. At least that’s how Vinnie puts it. As out-there as it is, I thought it was pretty fucking poetic.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
Betsy sipped her red wine. “I know you don’t. Because he would never tell you. Because my stubborn, self-sacrificing cousin would never take what he needed or wanted. Instead, he’d allow himself to be consumed by evil, day by day, to spare you, until there’s nothing left of him but a soulless ghost of who he once was, filled with only sin and murder and death.”
“Arthur?” I asked, trying to decipher the riddles she was speaking in.
The door opened, cutting me off, and I held my breath. But a blond-haired woman came through, closely followed by a stunning Afro-Caribbean woman holding her hand. They were both dressed in black three-piece suits, both wearing high heels. Even through my disappointment, I couldn’t help but think how striking they were together.
They stopped at the end of the bed. “Vera,” Betsy said, indicating the blonde. “And her girlfriend, Ronnie.”
“Hello,” I said, wondering who they were and why they had come in to see me.
“Well, you’re even prettier in person, and that’s with your face being in this sorry state,” Vera said.
Ronnie shrugged. “I get why he’s so hung up on her,” she said to Vera, placing her chin on Vera’s shoulder to study me some more.
Vera smirked, then looked at Betsy. “So? What are we thinking?”
“I think by the way she keeps staring at the door and holding her breath every time someone steps through, it looks promising.”
“What are you talking about?” An edge of anger crept through my heavy head-fog, igniting the numbness in my heart.
Betsy leaned forward on her chair. Vera crossed her arms over her chest. “Why were you getting married?” Betsy asked.
I tensed and stared at Betsy in shock. “What?” I whispered, refusing to picture Hugo on that chair, pleading for his life, only to get a bullet through his head for the pleasure.
“Why were you getting married?” Vera echoed, and I met her ice-blue eyes that were coldly fixed on mine. Ronnie’s expression was blank, but her attention was on me too.
“B-because I loved him.” The half-lie felt sinful as it slipped off my tongue.
Betsy sat back in her chair, seeming bored. “You loved him? Hugo Harrington?”
I glanced down at the ring on my finger and felt the energy drain from me, the pretence. I thought back to Hugo, on his knees, asking me to marry him a year ago, and the way my heart and stomach fell because he wasn’t who I wanted. Of how only one face came to mind when he did.
Arthur. Always Arthur.
“It was expected of me.” I slid the ring off. My finger felt light without it. I hated myself for thinking it, but it felt like a burden falling away. I held the four-carat diamond ring in my hand, the stone projecting spears of light from the lamp beside me onto the bed linen. “My father … he wouldn’t have allowed me to refuse.”
I blinked back the tears and the residual ache I felt in my chest at the fact that my father hadn’t ever really cared about my happiness. He’d needed the marriage to happen for Hugo to have rights to the business as my father’s heir. So that society would see us as a worthy match. He’d wanted all his ducks in a neat little row.
“Did you love him?” Vera asked. I looked up at her, shocked at the direct question coming from someone I didn’t know. “Hugo. Did you love him? And don’t lie. I can’t fucking stand liars.”
It felt like a betrayal to the newly dead, but I eventually shook my head and whispered, “Not like that, no.” I laughed without mirth. “But I think he loved me, if that matters.” I sighed. “I’d been with him for years. And it’s not like I had anyone else clamouring for my hand.”
“You sure about that?” Ronnie asked.
I frowned. “More than.”
“Do you love Arthur?” Betsy asked, just as directly as Vera. I whipped my head to her and felt the blood drain from my face. I shook my head, but unlike the truth that fought to escape when I was asked if I loved Hugo, the lie about not loving Arthur was less forthcoming.
A triumphant smile spread across Betsy’s mouth. She turned back to Vera and Ronnie, and an unspoken conversation was shared between them. “He doesn’t love me,” I eventually said, breaking their odd silent communication. That got their attention. “What does it matter if I love him if it isn’t reciprocated?” I straightened my shoulders and gathered all the fight I had left inside me. “I was his fuck buddy for five years, that’s all. He would fuck me and leave me. He wouldn’t let me into his life, tell me anything about it.” I laughed, and even to me it sounded bitter. “I was the posh bit of pussy he shagged because he could. Love didn’t even enter the equation for him.”