“Beaumont City.” She waves the bra in myface. “Casino Demartini. You were wrapped around some old man. My friends thought you were an escort. I told them even paid professionals wouldn’t dress that badly.”
Heat flares across my cheeks. I curl my fingers, wanting to claw at her eyes. It’s only a matter of time before she connects the dots and discovers I’m a fugitive. “Never heard of it.”
She gasps, her eyes glittering with triumph. “That was you.”
“Wake the fuck up, princess,” I spit. “You have better things to worry about. Like the man planning to murder you for your money.”
My stomach plummets.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.
She’ll run to Rochester. Then he’ll know I saw.
Blanche’s sneer drops. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
She grabs my arm. “Tell me.”
I clench my teeth. If I keep quiet and she dies, it might as well be me shoving the poison down her pampered throat. “Check your pills before you get high. Or don’t. It’s your funeral. But the only man who ever wanted a skinny bitch like you is after what’s in your trust fund.”
She shrieks like I’ve set her on fire, then pushes past me and stumbles to the door. I watch her disappear into the hallway and hope to God she’s checking her meds, but when she screeches for her Edward, I know I’m screwed.
My knees buckle. I rush toward the four-poster, my gut roiling.
Rochester will wring my neck.
I reach beneath the bed and pull out myduffel bag. Maybe I can escape through the back stairs and figure out how to get off this island before the bodies start piling up.
Footsteps charge up the stairs. I drop the bag, retreat to the bathroom, but it’s too late. Rochester charges into my room, his features a rictus of rage.
“What the hell have you been saying to my fiancée?”
TWENTY-SIX
THE KEYHOLE
You agreed to play my game. Now, you’re not following the rules.
I will enjoy punishing you most of all.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Rochester fills the doorway like a thunderstorm in a three-piece suit, his black eyes flashing with rage. “Answer me. What the hell did you say to Blanche?”
I stagger back, my ass hitting the window frame. There’s no escape. Just a long drop onto stone.
Blanche shoves past him, already a wreck. Mascara streaked down her cheeks in black rivers, her perfect chignon falling apart like her whole world just collapsed. I shake my head. What the hell happened to the ice princess?
“Tell him about the pills!” She jabs a manicured finger toward my face.
My throat seizes. Words stick like glue. I can’t force them out.
“She said you were going to murder me for my money!” Blanche’s voice splinters on the last word. “That you come to her room every night moaning her name like a dog!”
Rochester’s dark gaze fixes on me with surgical precision. I’ve had men want to hurt me before, but this isdifferent. This is the look of someone calculating exactly how to make me disappear.
“Why would you fabricate such an obvious lie?” His voice carries the kind of quiet that comes before violence.
