Page 55 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
There’s a wary note in her words. It wasn’t there before.
I ignore it. Why would she be wary? We just had the best sex ever, and we’re in a happy, clumsy tangle on the floor—wariness has no place here. “Like, I don’t know, looser and everything. Rougher. It was like you were worked up about something and then took it out on me. Like you were letting me help you. I loved it.”
For a single moment—for one mercilessly short moment—I see something wistful flit through her eyes, like she’s looking at something she’s wanted her entire life and it would cost her everything to reach out and take it.
I love you. I almost say it, unwelcome though it might be, because not saying it feels wrong. It feels like an impiety. It feels like not smiling when the sun is on my face or not drinking when a champagne flute is tipped to my lips.
I love you.
But the words die on my tongue, because Rebecca’s face shutters and her gaze cools. When she speaks, her voice is distant. Not upset or brittle, just . . . distant. Like she’s locked that wild, hungry queen somewhere deep inside of herself, and I’m outside at the gates, not allowed in.
“We should get ready for the gala,” she says, rolling up with the ease of a dancer and getting to her feet. The hand she offers me feels impersonal. Perfunctory. Even though it’s the same hand that was just inside me. The first hand ever to be inside me.
I think I’m going to cry.
“Rebecca,” I say, and I hate that my voice isn’t like hers, that it’s not steady and aloof, that it shakes a little.
She doesn’t look at me as she pulls on her knickers and her pants. “We don’t want to be late. I’ll take you back to the flat now.”
I think I should say something here, I should do something. If someone asked me on a live video for advice, I would tell that person to speak their truth. Set boundaries. All that good stuff my therapist talks about.
But it turns out those nice-sounding self-care maxims don’t apply here. Because what good will crying do? Accusing? Clinging?
No, I have known Rebecca nearly all my life, and I know the worst thing I can do is pull at her hem and beg for attention—or guilt her into more affection. At best, I’d get pity. At worst—well, I don’t even want to think about the worst. I don’t think I’d survive it.
So I nod at my mistress, swallow down my misery, and start to get dressed.
Chapter Thirteen
Delphine
Harcourt + Trask’s annual gala is in the courtyard of Somerset House, a Neoclassical venue and arts center on the Strand—and also a place I know Auden personally likes very much. He used to drag me here in the winter, when the courtyard is turned into an ice skating rink, and we’d skate until our cheeks hurt from laughing and our ears hurt with the cold.
Theoretically the gala is for charity, but in the years since I’ve been going, it’s mainly a chance for the beau monde to show off new frocks and lovers, and I’m no exception. I’ve spent all spring figuring out which dress I want to wear—not to mention the last month or so picking out a dress for Rebecca, since she was planning on wearing something she already had, and that was simply not going to work for me.
And so here we are a few hours later, crammed into a car while Rebecca scowls at her phone and I perch on the edge of my seat so as not to wrinkle my gown (a sculpted off-the-shoulder dress in a vibrant red, which hugs every curve and then pleats artfully at my feet).
My lips are painted in the always-dashing Ruby Woo, and my hair is pulled back at one side with a long, diamond-studded clip I borrowed from my mother. It hangs down in sleek waves, and I’ve caught Rebecca’s eyes lingering on it more than once, like she’s imagining what it would look like wrapped around her fist.
God, I wish she’d do it. Pull my hair. Dirty my dress. Smear my lipstick.
Anything other than the cold reserve that’s settled over her since our time at the club.
Idiot that I am, I keep trying to make small talk. “My parents will be there, you know.”
“Mm,” she says, not lifting her eyes from her phone.
“And it’s the first event we’re doing . . . together. It might get noticed.”
I’m lying. It will get noticed. Enough so that my manager emailed over a publicity kit to Rebecca in anticipation of tonight—specific sound bites she was to give if the press called the next day, the emails and phone numbers of people she was to refer media inquiries to.
We have a solid social media strategy in place: a scheduled post tomorrow morning with a picture of us snuggled together on a library sofa at Thornchapel. Then a gradual integration of her into my stories, and then my manager will start lining up interviews, depending on the interest and available outlets. Because so many fat-friendly brands are also queer friendly, my team feels like my relationship with Rebecca won’t impact my existing business relationships, so most of our plan has focused on wider public perception, safety, and preparation for bullying, trolling, and worse.
“Rebecca? Are you sure you’re still okay with it?”
“With what?” she asks distractedly.
“We’re going to this event together. It might work its way into the press. It will definitely be on social media.”
