Page 89 of A Heart So Haunted
He held his place. “You’re not even going to give me the courtesy of discussing this?”
“No. I have somewhere I need to be. So if you could move along—”
“You’re upset I dumped you. You strung me here, dangled the chance to sell this place in front of me, and now you’re cutting me off just to prove a point, aren’t you?”
I stilled. Turned, robotic, to Ivan.
For the first time, I didn’t feel intimidated looking up at him. I should have. But the dormant frustration morphed into a rabid creature, sprouting claws and spikes and razor-sharp teeth. I leveled him with my most poisonous glare.
“Why did you come here, Ivan? Be honest.”
“The listing—”
Before he even got the words out, a hot flash of hate flooded every crevice of my body.
“You used me,” I snarled. “I didn’t ruin your family. I did nothing—I gave you everything while we were together. I showed you every ugly thing aboutmyfamily, aboutmylife, and all you wantedwas a nice, solid lay. You held me under your thumb, you kept me at your beck and call”—my voice rose, to the point I felt the veins in my neck bulge—“and you enjoyed it, you narcissisticprick. I gave you a chance to prove you’d changed because Emma brought you here.” I started to walk around my chair, then stopped.
I pointed my finger at him, and this time, I was the one that leaned in, teeth bared. “You want to know something? I didn’t tell anyone about the things you said to me. You assaulted me. You tried torape meandnoIdid notenjoyanyof it!”
His cheekbones purpled. “WhatIdid to you, Lan? Really. Get a grip. We were teenagers. Do you know what a tease you were? Making me beg like a dog? Hormones—”
I threw my hands down and roared, “You told me I’d end up pregnant, alone, with no friends, and that I’d never be loved by a man!” My voice broke, garbled—and that’s when I felt it. A chill washed through the room.
Still, I pushed on. I grabbed that last mangled thread inside my chest cavity and yanked it free.
“I said I loved you, and you said I was too ruined by my own daddy issues to ever know how to love you like you needed. You said that the women in my family didn’t know anything about pleasing men andthatwas why my dad had to cheat on my mother all the time.”
Silence.
Wide and expansive, vast and acidic, it stretched between us. The room overflowed with it. Ivan went from staring at me, to staring over my shoulder. His pallor leeched of color.
The sound of three sharp clicks.
I knew those clicks.
“This is absolutely insane. You are insane,” he muttered. He turned to leave. I wanted to give chase. I wanted to shout, I wanted to slam the door in his wake, to be the one to cut him out, but I didn’t. I listened to the whisper of his shoes over carpet, until the front door banged shut. The stained glass rattled before falling silent.
Then, I glanced behind me to see where the clicks had come from.
It was the darkest corner of the room—the opposite side from where the sun usually hit. A corner cabinet, filled with antique crystal, sat behind a stack of taped boxes I hadn’t gotten to yet. There, in the glass door, I saw my reflection—and beside it, Hadrian’s, just as I had the night he’d appeared in the kitchen, but this time it was daylight.
He smiled. It was not a kind smile.
A war of emotions twisted inside me: confusion, relief, and the sharp, tangy taste of fear. Relief, because I’d need to figure out what to do about selling, but—I’d said it. After all these years, I’d saidsomething. I’d stood up for myself.
For once.
I released a shaky breath; gasped to catch it again.
Okay. This was happening. I wasn’t selling the house. At least for right now. That was probably best. It would give me time to finish things up—and find someone I trusted. That loved the house and would help find the right buyer.
But the fear lingered. I clasped my hands on the closest chair back and dropped my head, eyes closed.
“Hadrian?” I whispered. The dining room echoed with his name.
“Yes, dearest?”
My tongue weighed heavy on my next words. “He saw you, didn’t he?”
