Page 50 of The Beast's Heart

The parlor is not styled to my taste. It’s far too… French. And it feels a little like the Dowager Countess of Grantham is going to walk in and chastise me. But it’s private and I like the way the sunset paints the white furniture the color of flame.

I pour myself another drink and stare out of the huge window at my estate. The tree line is nothing but a smudge of shadow now. I’ve been drinking for the past two hours and I’m finally starting to feel a bit smudgy myself.

I close my eyes and let my mind drift. Belle in that shirt that was springtime itself. The way he looked at me. The sunlight catching his hair.

How he froze up when I touched him and couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

What the hell did I think I was doing? There are so many power dynamics at play here. I’m older, I’m a celebrity, I’m larger, stronger and I’m paying his salary…

I can see the headlines now:

Attacked by The Beast: Teacher accuses De Villeneuve of sexual assault.

Inside The Beast’s Lair: Draconian rules and steamy scandal.

Beastly appetites: Teacher tells all.

I toss back another drink. It burns all the way down.

There’s a noise behind me. In the second it takes me to turn on my stool, I hope that it’s Lloyd. That Lily-Iris and the kids are right. That he’s still somehow really here and not just in my head. He’d walk in with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.What’s become of you, mon cher? This isn’t like you at all.

But it’s only Geoff. He gives me a lopsided grin. “Thought I might find you here.”

“Really?” I pour myself another drink.

“Well you weren’t in your office,” he steps closer, “or in the gym”, he fetches himself a glass, “and Ray says he?—”

“They.”

“Theyhaven’t seen you since breakfast.”

He reaches for the bottle of Johnnie Walker. I grasp his wrist to stop him. I’m not entirely sure why. What I say is, “New delivery only comes in Thursday.”

“Jeez, Beast. You really are getting miserly in your old age.” He helps himself to a different bottle. Tanqueray. Hate that stuff. That bottle’s probably been here since Lloyd’s time. I don’t even thinkhedrank it. No, for Lloyd it was always wine. Reds in fall and winter. White in summer and spring.

And champagne all year round, I hear his voice echo in my head again.

“Been a while since I caught you drinking alone.” Geoff invites himself to sit beside me. “Why now?”

Instead of answering, I tilt my glass to the empty bar. “I’m not alone.”

A vision of The Shining flashes before me — Jack Nicholson’s character slowly going mad in that big, isolated house.

Geoff scowls. “You really have to stop this.”

I know he means the grief, as he always does, but I picture Lloyd leaning against the bar, mocking him.Yes, you really have to stop this. The poor man is terrified of me, don’t you know? I was scary enough when I was alive.

It makes me smile.

“Did you hear me?” Geoff asks.

“You think I need to stop grieving. My grief bores you.”

He said that once. He was irritated that we had to stop mid-sex because I was suddenly overwhelmed.“This is getting boring!”

Geoff reaches for the Scotch again and tops me up. “I think you need to stop moping in dark rooms, drinking with ghosts. What’s a ghost gonna do for you besides rattling some windows?”

I turn slowly on my stool to look at him. He throws back his remaining gin. “What?”

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