‘And kill if they lose,’ Lycos heard Arielle mutter,sotto voce.He could hear the anger in her voice. The outrage.
It irritated him.
And out of nowhere, the afternoon had ceased to be enjoyable.
Arielle perched on the edge of the bed in their hotel room, careful not to crease her evening gown. She heard the sound of the shower from the bathroom where Lycos was freshening up for the evening ahead—the private party dedicated to gaming that had been discussed at the racecourse a few days ago. She wasn’t looking forward to it. Presumably, the same people who’d been at the races, or others like them, would be there tonight as well.
She’d disliked the lot of them. The men were repellent, especially that vile man who was going to kill an innocent horse for losing and the others who were self-satisfied and condescending. The women were clearly there as trophies for their looks alone.
A sudden chill went through her.
Is that how Lycos sees me?
She shook the acid thought from her head, rejecting it. She wasn’t just some kind of trophy to Lycos any more than the stunning Tara was to her husband.
She was glad that Lycos found her beautiful, and she was honest enough to admit in return how his looks could make her melt with a single glance, but that wasn’t all there was between them. There was so much more.
I like being with him. I like his company. It’s enjoyable to be with him and spend time with him.
Though very different from the peace of their weeks at themas, this fortnight in Paris had been wonderful. Her disquiet at Lycos buying her beautiful clothes had eased, and she was getting all too used to fine dining and high living.
But it was not that that she valued. Of course not. It was being with Lycos. They could have been staying in a modestpension, eating in cheap cafes and bars, seeing Paris on a budget, and she’d have been just as happy. Just as content.
Until he finishes with me.
The familiar clenching of her heart came. The one that always came when she thought about the future with Lycos.
The absence of it…
They were living day by day, as they had at themas. Taking each day as it came, with no discussion as to how long this time they were having together would last.
Sometimes she desperately wanted to ask him what she meant to him. But she never dared.
An old saying of her mother’s came into her head. Something about how, in love, there was always one who kissed and one who merely offered the cheek to be kissed.
Is that Lycos and me? With me doing the kissing and Lycos just letting me?
But it had been he who’d made clear to her his desire for her.
Yes, but I have no guarantee how long that will last.
Oh, it was burning fiercely still, his desire for her. Every passionate night in his arms told her that. But would it not burn itself out one day? For him at least…
And for me? Will it burn out for me?
Desire and everything else he meant to her. But what was that? What did Lycos mean to her?
The questions went round in her head and she did not know the answer to any of them. Maybe, she sighed inwardly, Lycos was right just to live as they were doing—taking each day as it came.
Including this evening, which she was not looking forward to. She got to her feet, heading to the dressing table. The shower had cut out and Lycos would be emerging any moment, getting himself dressed in his tuxedo, setting out with her. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She was in full make-up with hair up-styled elaborately. Her evening gown, yet another one that Lycos had bought for her that morning, was ineau-de-nilsilk with a low cut draped decolletage. Exquisitely beautiful, but it had been terrifyingly expensive.
He’d insisted on adding a necklace as well, a diamond drop, with matching drop earrings. She hadn’t wanted him to. It made her uneasy. And even though she told herself, as she had when he’d first wanted to buy her expensive clothes, that she was doing it to please him by wearing something so valuable so that he could triumph over memories of his miserable, impoverished childhood, it did not assuage her unease.
I’m getting too used to this luxury lifestyle with him.
It was a disturbing thought.
Even if, painfully rather than disturbingly, she knew it could not and would not last.
