The bodice gleamed with panels of midnight silk, creating a prismatic effect. Tiny black beads decorated from décolletage to hem in a glittering asymmetrical pattern, just like the black diamond Jethro had shown me at the warehouse.
There were no rainbows on this dress.
Only darkness.
But it filled me with terrible pride, along with immense sadness.This might be the last headline piece I make before leaving this world.
Instead of becoming more optimistic as my time continued unmolested, I became less and less sure. Jethro couldn’t hide his frustration. Breakfast, he barely talked. Dinner, he barely ate. He watched Cut with a mixture of obedience and feral rage. But beneath it all was helplessness.
I’d bumped into Bonnie twice since being back. Each time she stretched thin red lips into a smile so cold my blood iced over. She hadn’t summoned me. She didn’t want anything to do with me. However, I had a horrible feeling that would soon change.
Moving away from the mannequin, I stretched my lower back. My hands were pinpricked and sore. My eyes achy and tired.
I’d worked nonstop for four days—ever since Kestrel took me for my first ride.
I still had bruises on my inner thighs from gripping so hard, but I hadn’t fallen off. I hadn’t had a vertigo attack. And I hadn’t thought of Jethro once as I soared over the fields and escaped everything that hounded me.
And that made me absolutely wretched.
I didn’t think of him.Not once.
Kestrel had given me so much that day, and I’d taken it with no thought as to how it would affect my relationship with Jethro. I was guilty, full of shame.
I felt as if I’d betrayed him.
And the longer he stayed away from me, the worse it became.
* * * * *
The next night, I entered the dining room and bumped into the firmest, most delectable chest in Hawksridge Hall.
The moment I touched him, I melted into his body. The tears and guilt I’d been storing inside sprung up to strangle me.
“Jethro...” My fingers swooped to bunch in his t-shirt. “God, it’s been days. Such long, awful days.”
I looked into his golden eyes, seeking the love I’d witnessed when I’d sneaked into his chambers. However, I recoiled at the angry agony glowing in them.
My skin prickled.
He swallowed and for an enchanted moment, we stood together. Breathing, touching,living. Then his mask slipped into place, the emotions in his eyes vanished, and his hands captured mine, tearing them away from his chest.
“Hello, Ms. Weaver.”
Was his coolness because of the low murmur of voices of Black Diamond brothers eating behind him? Or was it the drugs he’d once again befriended?
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t keep doing—”
He took a step back. “I can imagine you’ve worked up quite an appetite.”
“Excuse me?”
“Then again, I would think now that you have your own horse, you’d be out more often—yet you haven’t left your quarters since.”
My heart fell through the floor.
Freedom. Laughter. Friendship with Kestrel.
“You saw that?”
