Page 68 of Liars and Liaisons

My cock stiffens, just thinking about it—the look on her face, something between awe and determination, grit and satisfaction. As if she knows she isn’t supposed to want me, but can’t help the fact that she does.

Desperately.

That’s what I’m banking on. It’s the only reason I let Nathaniel stay—as soon as he realizes she’s here, hell will break loose.

I just haven’t decided yet when that should happen.

“Surprised you haven’t thrown a single party since I started staying here,” Nathaniel says after he swallows, taking a drink of his coffee. “I thought that was your whole shtick.”

“Forgive me for not being eager to include you in the festivities.” I lower my chin. “I tend to reserve them for the people I like.”

“And the ones you don’t? They the ones who end up missing?”

His tone grates against some distant piece of me. Like he’s asking questions he thinks he already knows the answers to.

“I don’t know, Nathaniel. Why don’t you attend and find out?”

Leaning forward, he cuts off another piece of pancake. The sound of his butter knife scraping against the porcelain plate is loud in the otherwise silent room.

“You’ve done a lot to the place,” he says after a moment, chewing with a thoughtful look on his face. “More than any of us realized, I think. It’s creepy, even with all the people you’ve hired to keep the halls occupied.”

“One man’s trash is another’s treasure.”

He snorts. “If you believe that, I have several ex-girlfriends I could pitch to you.”

My blood heats at the insult, but I don’t take the bait. “That’s all anyone has ever been to you, isn’t it? Disposable.”

“I don’t think you, of all people, should be lecturing me—”

“Oh, I’m not. Most people have to pay good money or go into severe debt for that experience from me.”

Micah and Willow enter the room, expertly avoiding eye contact as they clear a few of his empty dishes from the table and refill the mug at his elbow.

“How much did Sydney have to pay again? Or were her lessons free? I can’t remember what your agreement was after she started warming your bed.”

I smile, the gesture made of teeth and malice. My fingers flex on the table tugging at the dark green linen covering it. “You know nothing about Sydney or my relationship with her.”

He dabs at his mouth with a napkin. “As you know nothing of mine. Yet you’ve passed judgment all the same.”

“I only judge those who are culpable.”

“But I didn’t—”

He’s cut off by a sudden crash from upstairs, and the fact that the only other people in the estate that he knows of are in the immediate vicinity doesn’t escape him. I see the moment it dawns on him that there is company elsewhere. Information he hasn’t been privy to.

He leans back in his seat, placing his utensils on top of his plate. “The east wing guest room. Who’s in it?”

I stand up from the table, heart twisting in my chest. “Nobody.”

Those eyes, dark and filled with contempt, narrow. “Is it her?”

“Only if you believe in ghosts.”

That’s as much confirmation as I’m willing to give, because I don’t need him telling people in the outside world that I’m insane, thinking my home is actually haunted. They already have their minds made up about me, which is why I’m never interested in going out and proving them right.

Then, like we’ve conjured her from our thoughts alone, Violet appears in the doorway, wearing a white knit sundress, panting like she’s just run a marathon. Her doe eyes widen as she takes in the two of us, volleying so quickly that they could fall out of her head at any moment.

“Violet?” Nathaniel stammers, immediately shoving back his seat and getting to his feet. “What—what the hell are you doing here?”

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