She was wearing her gold earrings.Chanel.Her favorite brand. Every Friday, without fail, she wore the same perfume. I’d forgotten that small detail—almost as much as I’d forgotten how much I liked it. Her hands, delicate and smooth, ran through her perfectly shiny cinnamon-red hair.
Her full, baby-pink lips parted. I constantly thought about her lips and how they tasted like cherry. I hated that I knew what they tasted like. All that did was make me want to taste them again.
I swallowed. “It’s nice,” I said. I thought she was beautiful. I didn’t give a fuck about the dress, no matter how good she made it look.
She held up her hand. “I think you’ll like the other one more,” she said with excitement. “Can you help me with the zipper?”
My breathing shallowed as I held my hand out, trying to keep her at a distance, but she stepped between my legs anyway, forcing my attention onto her.
My hands felt stiff.
Somehow, the situation had gotten worse.
The confidence I’d had only seconds ago vanished the moment she touched me. What was she doing to me? Did she understand my infatuation with her?
I cleared my throat and lifted my fingertips to her back. She shuddered under my touch before relaxing her shoulders. My free hand fell to her hip, holding her waist steady while I unzipped her dress. My fingers couldn’t help but grab onto her slightly.
Slowly stepping away, she grabbed a dress off the hook. She knew I was looking at her, and she knew I couldn’t stop.
But I needed to.
She had so much control over me, yet this was all a game to Rosalie.Iwas a game. She was messing with my feelings, completely ignorant of how difficult it was for me to remain professional. I knew not to read too much into it—Rosalie had a strong tendency to flirt with everyone, kiss them too. She didn’t have any romantic feelings for me. For all I knew, this was how she spoke to every man.
A kiss from Rosalie could ruin me entirely, while it would be nothing but a greeting to a woman like her. How badly I wanted to be special to her was beyond me.
I slammed my eyes shut, trying to gain any sense of composure I had left. I was hanging on by a fucking thread. She’d been doing this to me for months, and I was so close to snapping.
Where was her self-respect? Where were her morals?
She paraded herself in front of me, teasing me discreetly. I needed to get out of her hold. I could already feel what she was doing to me. It was a feeling that was nearly impossible to break free from.
It took forever to get Rosalie out of my mind. It didn’t even work—the woman lived there rent-free. Trying to get her out of my head was nothing but a waste of my time.
“Okay! Option two. What do you think?” she asked.
I lifted my gaze to hers. She spun in a circle, placing her hands on her hips.
What do I think?
I thought I was about one good look away from losing it entirely. One more second of her standing there looking at me like that, and I’d be done for. She had me tangled up in knots, twisted in ways I didn’t know I could be twisted, and she knew it. She had to know.
I wanted to pull her lips close to mine again, and I was out of my goddamn mind to think I could do that without having to deal with the consequences. This was averybad idea.
What if Valentina was right? What if Liam was testing me?
Oh, but the dress. I thought I’d forgotten about my fascination with green—more specifically, heringreen.
“I think it looks nice.”
“Nice?” she mocked. “That’s something you’d say to your grandma. Really, Max, how do I look?”
She was trying to trap me again. She loved to do that to me. I was once an honest person, but Rosalie was going to make a liar out of me.
Truth be told, I thought she looked beautiful, but I couldn’t admit that out loud. I didn’t want to give her any more encouragement; didn’t want her pushing this game of hers even further. She already tested me enough as it was, like she didn’t realize how much was at stake. My life was on the line if I crossed clear boundaries.
She didn’t seem to care about my life. I was caught between wanting to be anywhere but here and needing to stay exactly where I was, and she knew it. There was nothing stopping her from toying with me, seeing how far she could push me, because to her, my hesitation and caution probably just made it all the more entertaining.
Nothing I did could repel her. Smoking didn’t even faze her. In fact, it made her want to smoke too. And insults? She fed off those like fuel.
