Page 99 of Feed Your Fiends

“Besides, her sister cut her off. What’s abnormal about her craving a reconnection?”

“That’s just it. It was acraving,and too much of anything is a bad thing.”

I lift my brow.

“She was obsessed with you. You saw the newspaper clippings. She wanted a connection with a little boy, but I was right there. Actually, no, I wasn’t. I was at boarding school from the time I was six.”

Interesting.

“Is that why you’re so jealous of me?”

Sylo snorts. “I’ve never been jealous of you.”

“Yes, you have. I thought it was because I’m so handsome and you’re so…translucent.”

“Some girls find that appealing. Your girl would know—”

“Say Elle’s name and I’ll shove your tongue down your throat and string it through your intestines and out your fucking asshole.”

“She’s just a girl.”

“I’mjustyour cousin, but you hated me like I did you wrong.”

“You did!”

“After.At first, I thought it was because I’m a better dancer than you. Your mother wasn’t a prima, but she was close. She trained you. When you showed up at Beaulieu, I thought you had some weird one-sided competition in your mind since our mothers were rivals in their later years.”

“That rivalry was one-sided. Your mother hated mine. Mine wanted to be her little sister again, her confidant.”

“Too much? You said she was obsessed.”

“Yeah,” he snorts. “To the point of wanting to be her, and if she were Marisol, what do you think that’d make you to her?”

All the paparazzi photos. The constant calls over the years. Even Sylo’s enrollment into Beaulieu. Was it all to get to me because while my mother is gone, I’m still here? And Delphine could still try to make it right. She could just pretend.

I suddenly see Sylo in a new light that has nothing to do with the star I’m projecting onto his face.

“Your parents, are they still in love? If my mother was so jealous that Delpine married for love when she couldn’t, then it must have been a whirlwind romance.”

“There’s no one in the world my mother loves more than my father,” Sylo says, but I hear what he doesn’t say.Including me.

“This was enlightening,” I say, flickering my light off and on in Sylo’s face.

“Are you satisfied?” he eyes the spider set. “Can you get the fuck out now?”

“Not quite. I want to face my fears tonight,” I say, touching a little car above my heart. “Before I go back to Beaulieu.”

Sylo looks at me, puzzled.

“You have cars here, don’t you?”

“So?”

He doesn’t know.He really doesn’t know.

“I want to deepen my immersion by sitting in one,” I say, getting to my feet. “Let’s go to the garage.”

“You can go, and take those fuck ass pyjamas with you.” He shudders. “You’re just as creepy as that friend of yours.”

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