“Was it her?”
“No,” I bark, wishing I never showed them. “She never even touched me!”
She takes a step back, rubbing her lips together. “So it’s your dad.”
I don’t respond. I don’t see the point.
“It’s okay to be mad.”
“I have to stay strong,” I reply, fighting the anger. “That’s what my father always says.”
“And sometimes parents lie,” she says. “Mine told me they’d always come back to me, but they never did.” She steps forward again and grabs both my hands. “I think you just need a friend.”
I lick my lips and hide the tears forming in my eyes, forcing them to stay at bay. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Yes, you do,” she says. “We all need someone to talk to. To hug.”
And she steps forward and wraps her arms around me. My whole body begins to tremble. This girl, who is almost half my age, makes my legs almost cave in on me. And her sudden attachment moves me, stripping me bare of all I thought I knew.
“It’ll be okay.”
At this moment in time, when the world I thought I knew crumbles before me, she is there to keep me grounded and tell me things will be okay. Even if they won’t, even if they never can … a tiny sliver of me wants to believe because she says so.
Because she’s here for me when no one else is.
“Amelia!”
She suddenly lets go of me and turns around to look at a lady with gray hair tucked in a bun, the skin around her cheeks sagging so much she reminds me of a bulldog. I recognize the woman from the news. Wife to a very powerful man, one who plays politics. A friend of my father’s. Did they raise her after her parents died?
“Are you coming?” the lady calls.
I guess that’s a yes.
She nods and then turns to face me one last time. “Hate is a sin. Did you know?” She smiles. “My grandma told me. Sins never do anyone any good.”
“Your grandma is right,” I reply, and even though I don’t want it to, a smile still tugs at my lips. “But I’m not here to be good.”
“Sure you are,” she replies, grabbing my hand one last time. “Everyone is. You just have to believe in yourself.”
When she lets go, it feels as though the light leaves with her.
And for the first time in my life, I feel like chasing that very same light until it blinds me from the darkness in this world.
Chapter 8
Amelia
Present
My hand still tingles from his kiss. All I can do is stare at the skin on the top of my hand, wondering when the sensation will disappear. But the longer I look, the heavier it feels, as though his very essence penetrates my skin.
Enraged, I rub my hand against my dress in an effort to erase his mark. Why would he kiss me? Why would he confuse me like that?
He’s my captor, a man who took me without asking me if I wanted to be here. And I couldn’t even fight him. In fact, when his lips touched my skin, for a moment, a spark of lightning surged through my body, heating me up from within.
And I hate it. I hate it more than anything, more than the wealth in this room, more than these opulent dresses, the expensive furniture, and the diamond earrings and necklaces hanging from the boudoir.
None of this is real. It just can’t be.
I pace around the room while my mind swirls with turbulence, and I lash out at anything and everything around me. I rip apart the bedding, tip over the dressing table, and pull everything out of the wardrobe.
When my rage subsides, all that’s left is ragged breaths and salty tears streaming down my face. I stare at myself in the mirror, at the broken girl in the nude dress, doing what her captor wants just so she’ll be treated right.
Why didn’t I fight? Why didn’t I try to escape?
The door was open. I could’ve run.
But who knows what lies beyond this room. How many guards are stationed outside, waiting to grab me?
This man must be rich and powerful beyond my imagination for him to be able to afford all of this luxury for a mere prisoner.
But I don’t understand why he set his eyes on me. Why he made me the target of his obsession.
I thought if I mulled about it long enough, it would come to me. That I would be able to dig into my own brain and find out why I said those words … why I asked him to punish me.
But the longer I think about it, the less I understand my own motives, let alone his.
None of this makes sense.
It’s like I’m in the middle of a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
A nightmare that began the first time I saw him.