Page 77 of The Curse of Indy Moore
“Look at me,” he demanded. I did so, caught in the heat of his gaze. “Keep your eyes on me. You know I do so love attention, but most of all yours.”
I released a strangled laugh.
“She’s here because she is scared,” he said.
“I am here because you are wasting your time. You needn’t suffer any longer. Come home, and all will be well for the both of us,” Carline countered.
“This is a sign that we are on the right track. You are beating her.” Mr. Hawthorne took us down another street. We were surrounded by a world unknowing of the demon trailing us, a shadow to me alone.
“He is a cocky one, isn’t he?” Carline laughed, her voice right next to me. I saw her out of my peripheral vision, a threatening shape. “You have thought the same. He is playing you for a fool—all this flirting, all this talk—but what happens when the contract ends? What are you if you are no longer the project? In the end, he loses nothing from this, but you? You will lose so much more.”
My gaze drifted. Mr. Hawthorne tugged me closer. I leaned against his side, giving in to the desire of feeling him.
“Eyes on me,” he said softly. “It is just us today. I require your full attention, and you shall, as always, have every dose of mine.”
“Always is a bit of an exaggeration,” I said, hating how defeated I sounded.
“Not at all. From the moment you came to Ivory House, I have been nothing if not entranced by you, in one way or the other.”
“What a sweet talker,” Carline snapped, but nothing she said could ruin this, even with her telling me he was a liar, that my time was up, that I could ignore her all I wanted, but it wouldn’t change the truth.
I kept a firm hold on Mr. Hawthorne, a foundation too sturdy for even Carline to break, and gave my attention entirely to him. She barked her cruelties until the next shop, where she disappeared. I knew she wouldn’t be gone long, that she would come again and again in hopes of breaking me.
For the time being, I could enjoy rummaging through salts, oils, and balms with Mr. Hawthorne. One of which I recognized by smell, the foam paste he had on that morning. While he stashed a handful in a bag, I said, “Oh, you need more of your gunk.”
“Face cream,”he repeated.
I took the bag off him to smell. “Looks like gunk. Smells like gunk. Must be gunk.”
The owner spotted us and waltzed over to speak to me. While they had my attention, Mr. Hawthorne went into the meditation room at the back to scream into a pillow. He thought I wouldn’t notice, but these senses of mine were keen. We left with Mr. Hawthorne’s face care products that could not be delivered, unlike the plethora of other items he purchased.
“Are you never concerned about your shopping habits? At the very least, is your bank account… stable?” I asked while he wandered through the streets. I managed to travel through an alley without shops, letting us take a break to munch on sweets he had purchased earlier. They were little pies full of cream that exploded with strawberry and vanilla flavoring.
“I wouldn’t make such purchases if I couldn’t afford them.” Mr. Hawthorne picked the edges of the treat off to feed to Slate, who had returned from his adventures with a gold earring—I hoped it wasn’t real—and a faux flower. Both had been dropped into one of Mr. Hawthorne’s bags.
“What will you do when the day comes that Ivory House is too full?”
Slate cawed when he shrugged. “I will add on another room, I suppose.”
“When the island is too small?”
“Make it bigger.”
I gave him a stern look that likely meant nothing with me licking the cream from my fingers. He caught me doing so, and I hesitated while he cleared his throat. “You are worried over nothing.”
Blushing, I used a napkin from our bag of treats to clean my hands. “Greed starts simple and grows too much to bear. At times, I fear for you, Mr. Hawthorne.”
He pursed his lips, glancing this way and that. Slate cawed, and Mr. Hawthorne reached up to pet him. “Has Carline settled down?”
“She left a while back. I haven’t seen or heard from her.”
“Good. Then, what shall we do next?”
“I want to see the ocean.” The words were the truth, and Mr. Hawthorne ensured I could not hide from that truth.
“Then, you will see it.” He hailed a carriage once we stepped onto a main street. Slate flew off again. He had more opportunities to steal.
When Mr. Hawthorne and I sat side by side, my toes curled, and I kept my hands in my lap, bound tightly together. Though the ocean was not visible from the carriage window, the scent carried through. My heart raced, though I knew not what for: the ocean or…
