Page 41 of Liars and Liaisons

“I suppose it’s also difficult to hide away when you’ve not made new music in so long.” Finally, he swings his gaze to me, and those eyes ripple with something I can’t place, illuminated by the tea candles lining the walls around us. “According to rumor, that is.”

My jaw tightens. “Ah, yes. The rumor mill in Duris certainly enjoys working overtime when it comes to us. Good thing we know better than to pay it any mind.” I cock my head to one side. “Isn’t that right?”

Stone walls erect in his irises. “Depends on the rumor.”

Resentment sings an angry melody in my chest. I reach up with one hand, brushing it over my heart, as if I could feel it cracking in real time.

“Indeed.” A flash of bright red catches my eye in the corner of the room, and I extend an arm and fake smile as Priya flounces in, her dark hair twisted into two buns and resting above the gold jester mask she favors at these things.

She clutches a tray of wineglasses, filled with a Bordeaux from the cellar, and little ceramic trinket boxes. “Boys,” she says, shimmying her shoulders as she extends the tray. “It’s not a party until the hosts are belligerent.”

“I’m not a host,” Nathaniel says.

The woman before him pops his cock from her mouth, swallowing as she gives him a dirty look. He doesn’t even react, as if the very act of coming does nothing to sate the monster that lives within him.

In a huff, she scurries away. Off to score more blow, I’m sure. It’s what most of these people come for.

“Your host status is honorary,” Priya tells my brother, shoving a glass into his hand as he works his pants back up, somehow without actually removing himself from the seat. “Perks of being a member of the James family.”

Nathaniel scoffs, but downs the drink anyway. “Perks, sure. Do I get to rot in the estate, too, or is that something reserved for Grayson only?”

I shrug. “I can have that arranged.”

He stares at me, gripping the glass so tight that I see it crack under his thumb. All around us, the smell of sex and booze and unholiness presses in like a suffocating fog, and I shift on my feet, sneaking a quick peek at the exits as anxiety suddenly assaults my senses.

Fear, or something akin to it, clogs my airways, making it difficult to breathe. I’m incredibly aware of the fact that there are hundreds of people in my home, touching my things, and that the only way to get them to leave is to see the party through.

That melody crescendos like a wave between my ears, and I flatten my palms against my thighs, doing my best to ride it out.

Nathaniel can’t grow more suspicious of my mental state. He’ll tell my mother or our father, and they’ll file some legal motion that will have me removed. My father would likely have the mansion condemned and razed to the ground with me in it if he thought I was a threat to his reputation.

They don’t know about the forbidden woman upstairs—yet. Or the damage I plan on doing.

I can’t have Nathaniel ruining that before I’ve finished.

“Why don’t you take one of these?” Priya says after an uncomfortable stretch of silence. She places one of the ceramic boxes in the palm of his hand, pulling the lid back to reveal a handful of little white pills tucked into the velvet. “It’ll help take the edge off, and clearly, you need it.”

He frowns. “I don’t do drugs.”

Lifting one bare shoulder, Priya reaches for him. Seduction drips from her smile and those long, feline fingernails. “Maybe you should. Would make your little reunion a lot more fun.”

“I shouldn’t have to come here to speak to my brother in the first place.”

My brows arch. “I was unaware you wished for a private audience. Were you or were you not just getting your dick sucked by one of my guests?”

“She propositioned me. Didn’t even know who the hell I was.”

“And that just ate at you, didn’t it?”

Priya shoots me a dirty, warning look, but I ignore it, taking a step closer to him.

“Poor little Nathaniel has to spend a couple of hours unrecognized in a sea of people. How ever will he satisfy his own vanity?”

He jumps to his feet, shoving me. Rage glitters in his eyes, though there’s something else there too. Something hidden behind the anger that I don’t care to decipher.

“Oh, yeah? What about the pathetic professor who had abreakdownbecause he couldn’t write a decent score anymore? The one who ran to the goddamn mountains after the pupil he spent so much effort on wound up dead, all because he’d pushed her too far?”

The music in this room comes to a sudden halt, and the people around us stop what they’re doing to gawk.

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