“Maddie, who I can admit deserved it, and everyone you plan to prey upon. You don’t get credit for being nice the rest of the time, because it’s been nothing but an act to worm your way into their good graces.” She pulled out of my grip. “I’m done having this conversation with you. You’re a fucking jerk, and you know it, and I don’t know why I’m even trying to prove my point. It’s like talking to a wall.”
She started to walk away, but her foot caught on the waterlogged hem of her dress, and she flailed forward. I grabbed her before she hit the pavement, scooping her up, bridal style. I could have carried her back to the car, but I didn’t think I’d be able to convince her to get into it after such a close call, plus her shop was only a few blocks away. It’d be no problem to carry her the whole way because, Christ, she was light. Almost painfully so. I’d made the mistake of looking up her disease, and I’d learned that people with it could lose as much as twenty pounds in a month if they were flaring. Stella didn’t have that much to spare, so, for the first and last time, I decided to make an exception for someone. For her.
“We’re done,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m certain all it will take is one party to clear your debt.”
A shiver wracked her body. I hugged her closer to my chest, and even though my shirt was just as drenched as her dress, at least the body beneath it was warm. All my muscle made me run hot, like a furnace burned inside me. I never thought it’d be good for anything other than keeping me warm in winter, but if I was able to heat Stella back up, then I guess it was my new superpower.
“But... you can’t know that for sure,” she said.
I hefted her higher. “Careful, it sounds like you want me to stick around.”
“I just want to make sure that when I’m free from you, it’s for good.”
“Don’t worry, Sunshine. It’s for good. I’ll find a way to drain them.” And even if I weren’t able to fully recoup the three million, I wouldn’t tell her. The money wasn’t what I’d really been after anyway. Revenge was, and since it was now within my reach, there was no reason to drag this out any longer, despite the fact that I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Stella.
I’d grown used to her over the past several weeks. And I’d never admit it out loud, but lately, I’d found myself actually looking forward to picking her up, wondering what sort of outfit she’d be wearing, what kind of mood she’d be in. If she’d be prickly or feisty or playful. I didn’t know what it said about me that I preferred feisty Stella over every other incarnation.
It says that you’re a brat after all, and you want her to put you in your proper place, at her feet, where you belong,my subconscious helpfully supplied.
I tried to muzzle it. On top of researching gastritis, I’d made the mistake of googling “brat kink,” and now my head was full of all sorts of thoughts and images I didn’t need there. They’d been cropping up more and more lately, and maybe that’s really why I’d been such a dick tonight. Maybe it had nothing to do with being trapped with Richard and everything to do with wanting Stella’s negative attention to distract me away from my own fucked-up thoughts.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” she said.
I nearly stumbled. After everything I’d put this woman through,shewas apologizing tome? Goddamn it, how had I been so wrong about her? And why was I now worried I might be wrong about other people, too?
I shook my head. No. I couldn’t start second-guessing myself. Not now that I was so close.
“Don’t be sorry,” I told Stella. “I’m fine.”
Thankfully, she let it go. “You can put me down now.”
“In bare feet?”
“I have shoes on—oh.”
They’d fallen off half a block ago, and it made me think she must be half frozen if she didn’t feel it happen.
“The mind really goes when you get older, doesn’t it?” I said, returning to the familiar safety of insults.
“I amnotold,” she grumbled.
“Said the woman born in the 1900s.”
She was quiet for almost a full minute. “That might be the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Hey,” I started.
She looked up at me. “Yeah?”
I slowed enough to meet her eyes. “Don’t think this means I’m suddenly going to become a nicer person, but I’m sorry about what happened with Maddie.”
She dropped her gaze. “Yeah, you already said.”
“I mean seven years ago. I’m sorry you went through all that. Your best friend leaving you like that, and then trying to blame you for what she did...” I shook my head. “That’s beyond fucked-up. And I’m sorry about what happened in the car. I should have been paying better attention to the road. That must have been... hard.”
