Chapter 20 #20
Chapter 20
~ Dwayne ~
It has been chaotic lately. Complete, unrelenting chaos.
Between the company drama, the ridiculous competition my father had orchestrated between Dante and me, and the constant tension simmering in every corner of the Belmar manor, I felt like I was being pulled in a thousand different directions at once.
And yet, through all of it, one thought kept circling back with maddening persistence: Shailyn.
I'd heard from Mrs. Eden, one of the housekeepers, that Shailyn had been discharged from the hospital and brought back to the manor. The news had hit me harder than I wanted to admit, stirring up feelings I had no business having about my brother's wife.
But I couldn't help it. That girl had been occupying far too much space in my head lately her wide, startled eyes when she'd looked at me across the dinner table that first night. The way she'd felt in my arms when I'd caught her in that hallway, her body fitting against mine like it belonged there. The vulnerability I'd seen in her face at the hospital, the confusion and fear when she'd woken up with four years of her life missing.
And then there was the other woman. The mysterious, intoxicating woman from the masked party who'd consumed my thoughts ever since that night.
I still couldn't get her out of my head. The way she'd grabbed me with such desperate need. The sounds she'd made. The way her body had responded to mine with an intensity that had shaken me to my core. And that feeling, that inexplicable, maddening feeling that I knew her somehow, that we'd met before, that her touch was familiar in ways it shouldn't have been.
Marcus still had nothing. No leads, no information, no trail to follow. It was like she'd been a ghost, appearing for one perfect night before vanishing into thin air.
Maybe I just needed a proper night out. Clear my head. Stop obsessing over women I couldn't have and ghosts I couldn't find. Hell, maybe I'd get lucky and run into her again though the odds of that were astronomical.
But even as I tried to convince myself to go out, to do something normal and social, I found my feet carrying me in a different direction entirely.
Down the hallway. Past the grand staircase. Toward the east wing where the guest suites and, apparently, where Dante and Shailyn were now staying.
I should turn around. Should go back to my own wing and mind my own business. Shailyn was Dante's wife. Dante's problem. Her recovery, her wellbeing, her existence none of it was my concern.
But my feet kept moving anyway, carrying me forward like they had a will of their own.
Before I could stop myself, before rational thought could intervene, I was standing outside their door.
I raised my hand to knock, then hesitated. What the hell was I doing here? What was I going to say? "Hey, just checking in on you even though you don't remember me and you're married to my brother who I despise"?
But somehow, my knuckles were already rapping against the wood before I could talk myself out of it.
"Come in," I heard her say from inside, her voice small and uncertain.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, already forming the words in my mind. How are you feeling? Is there anything you need? Are you settling in okay? Perfectly normal, perfectly appropriate questions to ask a family member recovering from a head injury.
But the words died in my throat the moment I looked at her.
She was standing near the wardrobe, and in her hands clutched between her fingers like it might burn her was a black dress.
The black dress.
I would have recognized it anywhere. It was seared into my memory along with everything else about that night the way it had hugged her curves, the way it had looked rumpled and forgotten on the floor of that hotel room, the way it had smelled faintly of her perfume when I'd woken up alone the next morning.
Time seemed to stop. My brain short-circuited, unable to process what I was seeing.
It couldn't be. It was impossible.
But there she was. Shailyn. My brother's wife. Standing there holding the exact dress that the woman from the masked party had been wearing.
No. Could it be a replica?
But thinking of it now, Shailyn just fits the picture.
My mysterious vixen, the woman I'd been obsessively searching for, the woman whose touch had haunted my dreams for weeks
It was Shailyn.
Shailyn had been the woman at the mask club.
I slept with my brother's wife.
And I had no idea.
The realization crashed over me like a tsunami, drowning out every other thought, every other sensation. Suddenly, everything clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The familiarity I'd felt that night. The way her body had seemed to know mine. The recognition I'd sensed but couldn't place.
It had been her. All along, it had been her.
Oh God.
"Dwayne?" Her voice cut through the roaring in my ears. "Are you okay?"