Page 112 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
What a fucking idiot I am.
A bell jingles over the front door. Someone’s come into the shop.
“Shit,” whispers Kimber, panicking. “Someone’s here!”
“Hello?” a man’s voice calls out.
Son of a bitch. It’s Dominic. I’d recognize that bastard’s voice anywhere.
When a growl of anger rumbles through my chest, Kimber smacks me on the arm and puts a finger to her lips. I scowl at her, ready to rip open the curtain and stride out, but she pushes me back, shaking her head, her eyes blazing.
“Hello?” The sound of Dominic’s voice grows fainter. He must have wandered into the back room.
“Stay here until I get rid of him.”
“What? You’re joking!” I’m red with anger at being forced to cower in the dressing room like a bad little boy, but she’s already gone, whipping the curtain back in place and calling out in a cheerful voice.
“I’m here! Hello!”
I stand there in shock and disbelief as Dominic and Kimber share friendly greetings and start to chat.
She’s hiding me in the fucking dressing room! She’s ashamed to be seen with me!
I’ve never been this humiliated in my life.
“How are you, tesoro? I’ve been so worried about you, living up there with the barracuda.”
My body stiffens with outrage. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to separate all his limbs from his body. No one calls my mother an ugly savage fish and gets away with it. We have our problems, but I won’t allow her to be disrespected.
I reach for the curtain, but freeze when I hear Kimber’s voice.
“You don’t have to worry. Things are okay.”
“Really?” Dominic sounds dubious.
Kimber laughs. It’s a nervous laugh, and completely insincere. “Well, one of her dogs destroyed my entire wardrobe, but that’s been the only skirmish so far.”
“You need to be careful, Kimber. I didn’t want to speak of it earlier. Things were already so upsetting with your father’s passing . . .” His voice drops. “But you can’t trust that woman for a moment. The son, either. They’re a pair of real slick operators, those two. You should get rid of her before she figures out how to get the house.”
There’s a long silence. I have to fight myself from bursting out of the dressing room, but I need to hear what Kimber’s going to say in response to this outrageous lie.
Tell him to go to hell. Tell him you don’t believe it for a minute. Stand up for me, if not for her.
Instead, she says in a strange tone, “Why do you say that?”
It’s like a dagger plunged straight through my heart.
Dominic scoffs. “Because I know them! He’s vicious, and she’s money hungry. The only reason she married your father is because she thought he had wealth. The house, the business—that’s what she fell in love with. Not your father. Believe me, I saw how she bled him. And once she found out there wasn’t much money to be had, she started pestering him to sell the business. Of course she had a buyer in mind.”
Kimber says faintly, “Of course she did.”
She believes him.
It hits me with the force of an avalanche. Just as suffocating. Just as cold.
She believes every word coming out of that bastard’s mouth.
Hope surges through me when she pushes back, her tone brisk.
