“She wore her scars as her best attire.
A stunning dress made of hellfire.”
—Daniel Saint
My heart races when I leave Adam’s room. I keep my eyes forward and my steps brisk as I walk through the halls, desperate to find a spot where I can be alone. One of Raife’s secretaries passes, and I manage a small nod but otherwise forge ahead until I’m near the spa and locking the bathroom door behind me.
I let my weight fall against the wall, close my eyes, and I just breathe. My skin tingles everywhere, deliciously sore from the pressure of his strong hands running all over me. I can already feel the bruises forming.
I’ve had rough sex, gentle sex, some unconventional and everything in between. I’ve never considered myself someone who leaned one way or the other, because it was never theactI was after—it was the release. Those blissful moments of pure, blind ignorance an orgasm provides, shutting the world down around me.
But this ...
With a swallow, I reach for my inner thigh and stroke the raw bite mark. His starving tongue, the tremors rolling through him, the unapologetically depraved look in his eyes—this was so much more.
Hewas so much more.
Instead of ignorance, I tasted what it might be like to finally be me. I didn’t give a show this time. I had no plan, no calculations. No scolding voice inside my head.
For a little while, I was free.
Adam—he was unhinged. Shameless. Everything wrong and everything right. And he held the key to my cage in his palm.
I jump at a knock on the door.
“Emma? You alive in there?”
It’s almost normal now, hearing Aubrey address me as Emma. “Just a sec.”
Adam’s heat still warms my skin, my sore muscles reminding me of only him. I close my eyes again, letting the sensations sink in for one final moment.
I hope it lasts.
Pulling the door open, I step into the hall and face Aubrey.
Her eyebrows lift as she scans everything from my wild hair to the torn hem of my nighty to the faint marks on my thighs. Stepping closer, she places her hands on my cheeks and stares into my eyes for a few long moments. Soon, she goes from squinting with concern to giving me a satisfied grin.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my cheeks still squished between her palms.
“Just working out if that look in your eyes is you losing yourself or finding yourself.”
My brows knit. “And?”
She drops her hands and steps back with a knowing glint in her eye. Then she spins on her heel and heads toward the spa’s exit. “And I think we need to clean you up because the kitchen isn’t going to service itself.” Just as I start to follow, confused, she looks over her shoulder and winks. “Emmy.”
Is this what you felt, Frankie?
Did you let yourself go to this place? To one ofthem?
Her question from our last conversation comes as a whisper in my ear:If you had the chance to get away, and I mean really get away—forget Mama, forget it all. Would you take it? If there was a place you could finally just be you. All of you. Would you do it, Emmy?
My chest twists as I place a tray of bread rolls in the oven, then start preparing the rest of them.
Frankie might be good and whole, but everyone is flawed. And in our case, we had a mama who never failed to remind us of it. A mama who saw Frankie’s strengths and treated them like things to be cleansed of. I watched it suffocate Frankie, Mama’s constant punishments and attempts at purifying us.
Sometimes I wondered if I was suffocating her, too. She was all I had growing up, and she knew it. It hurt each time she left, but I never blamed her for needing to get away.
I could have said no that day. I could have lied so she would’ve stayed home. She may not have believed me, but I could have at least tried.
