The house swallowed me in cool dimness, a sharp contrast to the blazing warmth outside. My hearing still throbbed from Levi’s door-slam, but I pushed through the discomfort and stretched my senses. Past the kitchen. Past the living room. Up the stairs where the bedrooms were.
There. A thread of sound, thin as spider silk. Violet’s voice was low and urgent. I positioned myself at the bottom of the stairwell, close enough to listen but far enough to flee if she started heading back downstairs.
When I got a good feel for it, her voice cracked like a whip, frustration bleeding through the syllables. “Liam!” There was an urgency, a raw edge I had never heard before. “I don’t know what to do.”
Liam. Her older brother.
“I asked him for access to my trust, and he wanted to know what I was investing in. How did you ask him for your trust money for your coffee shop?”
Her voice was sharp and restless before she went silent, listening. I knew I could reach for it, dial my hearing up until Liam’s voice became clear. . . but it would cost me. The strain of increasing my hearing that much always left me half-blind with headaches later. Instead, I stayed where I was at the bottom of the stairs and continued to listen to her side of the conversation.
Not that I needed to hear what Liam told her. I already had a good sense of how he would have asked for his trust money, and it involved a mission statement, financial projections, marketing research, and proposed risks. . . paperwork, projections, and adult responsibility.
None of which, I knew, were Violet’s strong suits.
“You wrote abusiness plan? Are you serious?” Her words tumbled down the staircase like broken glass. “That would take me weeks or even months to draft. I almost would rather strip.”
Heat coiled low in my belly. An inexplicable spike of anger and fear that snapped me to stand straight. For a pampered princess to go straight to stripping? She seemed desperate. Why did she need money so urgently?
My hands found the stair rail and gripped until my knuckles went white. A thousand scenarios flooded my mind, each one darker than the last. Debt collectors. Blackmail. Supernatural entities who had sold her irresistible temptations, and now the bill was due.
Had some supernatural already found her? Had I overheard the beginning of whatever web they planned to spin and trap her in?
Her voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. “Oh, don’t act so high and mighty, Liam. How many times did I catch you with your dick in a groupie’s mouth after one of your shows? Not to mention your little run-in with drugs?”
Her words burned, full of fire. I had to bite back a chuckle despite my rising anxiety. She was fearless, or recklessly bold, and despite the fact that we didn’t like each other very much, I had to respect her tactical thinking. Violet might be spoiled, but she was not stupid.
Silence followed before her voice, harder now, said, “I will figure out the money. Even if I do end up stripping, you’d better keep that a secret between us.”
She ended the call with a curse, then there were footsteps announcing her descent. I moved fast, slipping into the kitchen to grab a water bottle from the fridge like I had just come in from outside.
When she appeared in the doorway, I let my eyes take inventory the way they always did. Black jeans torn just enough to suggest rebellion, a cropped top revealing a strip of pale skin, hair twisted into a high knot that emphasized the sharp line of her jaw. Minimal makeup except for her lips—stained a deep red, as if she had just been eating berries.
College suits her, I admitted begrudgingly to myself. I had been so adamant to Levi that she was simply my ward that I had failed to acknowledge much less respect her growth. The woman in front of me proved otherwise.
“Princess. I must say. . . you look ruffled.” I set my water down and leaned against the counter, projecting casual indifference while every nerve screamed alert.
She huffed and moved towards the fridge, close enough that I caught her scent—roses and rosemary, innocence and rebellion tangled together like warring perfumes.
When she opened the fridge door, her eyes found the empty space where my water bottle had been. The last one. I could not help the dark chuckle that escaped me.
“Are you looking for something?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed as she closed the fridge, then fixed on my unopened water with the intensity of a predator spotting prey. Hip cocked, arms crossed, every inch of her radiating controlled frustration.
“You going to drink that, Rowan?”
So polite. So careful. But I could see the storm building behind her hazel eyes, the same fire that had burned through her phone conversation. She wanted something—needed something—and I was in her way.Time to see what the princess is made of.
“I would not have pulled it out if I was not,” I replied, settling deeper against the opal quartz countertops.
She rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath—something about me not pulling out much of anything—then stepped closer to reach the cabinet behind me.
I did not move.
She paused, teeth catching her plump lower lip as she calculated her options. She could ask nicely and hope I played gentleman. She could try to squeeze past, which would put us close enough to count heartbeats. Or she could find her backbone and make demands.
Pride versus necessity. Always an interesting battle to watch.
