Page 61 of Provocation
They’re off-camera at her desk, clearly working. Bennet is chatting a lot and Daisy is quiet. She sounds friendly when she does add anything to the conversation, but that’s all I hear. General politeness. In fact, when they’re finished and move intothe camera’s view, they talk for a minute. She looks toward the door more than once, like she wants him to leave. He stands too close to her and every time he brushes against her, it’s clearly on purpose. Each time, she moves further away from him and he follows. She doesn’t even look like she realizes he’s doing it intentionally.
‘Looks to me like they have about as much chemistry as potassium and water,’ I murmur, my eyes fixed to the screen, watching how Daisy creates distance every time his arm touches her.
And he touches her a lot.
I wait for thesomething, watching for the moment where she clearly gives him the wrong idea. But it doesn’t come. She just smiles awkwardly and moves closer to the door. And when she turns away, his eyes turn predatory and move down to her ass and he licks his lips. His hands even move as if to grab her, but then he looks at the camera lens. He must see the glint of it as he passes it. Fear passes over his face, and he moves back, getting himself under control.
I close my eyes, imagining all the painful ways I’m going to end him.
‘That sonofabitch,’ Blake snarls.
‘I hate that she thinks this was her fault,’ I mutter, wrenching my hands through my hair. ‘She didn’t do anything to make him think she was interested. The shit he said to her… We don’t need to see anymore. Whatever he thinks, it’s all in his mind. He told her she’d been flirting with him, that she made him think she wanted it. She didn’t.’
Shade swears under his breath.
‘She thought the same thing after Halloween,’ Shade points out. ‘She always thinks shedidsomething to give the wrong impression. Have you noticed that? She believes it’s her fault when she’s treated like shit. It’s where she goes first. Every time.’
‘What are we going to do about him?’
‘I’ll make him pay,’ Blake snarls.
I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We’llmake that weak little fuck pay.’
‘I need to go to the lab,’ Daisy says in a quiet voice.
We all turn around to look at her standing in the doorway. Her arms are curled around her middle and she’s not looking at us.
‘We want you to look at something first,’ Shade says, holding out his hand.
She comes into the room slowly, like she’s going to a funeral. She doesn’t take Shade’s hand and when she stands next to him, she doesn’t touch him.
‘I cleaned up your room,’ he says.
She looks stricken. ‘You went in? You saw it?’
Her lip trembles. ‘I’m sorry. I was upset and angry and so— Please don’t tell your dad! He’ll send me back. He’ll tell the Bandervilles. He’ll?—’
Shade steps close to her and pulls her into a hug. ‘I cleaned it up, Daisy,’ he whispers. ‘No one will know. Even the mirror has already been replaced. It’s like it never happened.’
She lets out a shuddering breath. ‘But it proves I’m not…cured,’ she whispers brokenly.
‘Maybe you don’t need to be cured,’ Shade says to her, cupping her chin so that she looks at him. ‘Maybe you’re perfect the way you are.’
She scoffs loudly but doesn’t argue.
‘You need to see something.’
Shade puts his arm around her shoulders and draws her closer to Blake’s desk. ‘Watch.’
Blake starts the video at the point that Daisy and Bennet enter the room.
We watch the entire thing together with us pointing out all the times Bennet touches her and she doesn’t like it, all the times she looks annoyed. She watches with a frown and, at the end she gasps when she sees him look at the camera.
‘He didn’t look like my friend at all just then,’ she murmurs. ‘He looked like he wanted to…’ Her eyes widen. ‘I really didn’t do anything, did I?’
I shake my head and see the others doing the same.
‘I can see it so clearly in the video.’ She sighs wistfully. ‘I wish I could see real life in playback like that all the time.’
