Page 194 of Sinful Desires
Victoria followed, and together we crushed him until he laughed and shoved us off.
We crashed on the couch, watched trashy TV, and gossiped like teenagers.
Théo stayed in the kitchen, working on his laptop.
Every now and then, his eyes found me and softened when I let out some stupid laugh.
They left, but not before Nicholas said he’d prefer to sleep at Victoria’s place because her guest room was comfier.
I went straight to Théo’s room and found him already asleep, shirtless, stretched out on his back, my gold necklace flat against his chest.
I opened a drawer to grab one of his shirts, but instead, I found a shrine.
My red satin scarf. A photo of me as a kid after an equestrian competition, still blonde, standing next to Spirit. The star-shaped pasties I wore at my dad’s mansion dinner, and the mic I’d used to?…?I blushed when I saw it.
And at the very bottom, my thong. The one I’d given him in that club, the night he’d kissed me.
He’d kept everything.
Some might call it stalking. I called it devotion. Quiet, relentless, a kind of love that never needed to be seen to be real.
And honestly? I liked it a little too much.
This was the kind of obsession people whispered about in warnings, in cautionary tales wrapped in fear.
But my heart didn’t race from fear. It ached.
There was something devastating about being loved like this, so completely, so silently, for so long. And something even more devastating about how much I needed it.
I had begged the universe to heal me from my loneliness, but I never truly was alone.
He had been there for me, always.
I closed the drawer, heart pounding like I’d touched something sacred.I stripped, leaving my clothes in a trail and slid beneath the sheets, the warmth of his skin already drawing me in.
He didn’t wake up.
But his arms wrapped around me, like they’d been waiting all night long.
Chapter
Forty-Seven
“Revenge proves its own executioner.”
? John Ford
Théo
A procession of pale phantoms swept through the Harper mansion, every guest draped in white like marble statues brought to life.
The halls bled roses, ivory petals spilling across the floors, as if the estate had been dressed for a fucking funeral held in a cathedral of gold.
I stayed in the corner silently, watching her dance. That white silk dress hugged her waist perfectly. Her red hair was twisted up, neck bare, spine straight.
She looked so beautiful it made my chest ache.
But tonight wasn’t about her. It was about finding the bastard who had been lurking in her shadow for two fucking years.
