CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 54
Lance
The villa was a tomb of silence when I walked in, I saw her immediately, a still silhouette in the sitting room....Mila.
She didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge the sound of the heavy door or my footsteps on the floor, but I knew with absolute certainty she was aware of my every move. The air was thick with her unspoken judgment.
I walked past the archway without a glance, my path aimed straight for the stairs.
“She asked me to tell you she left already.”
Her voice, soft as silk but sharp as a needle, pinned me to the spot. I didn’t turn, but I stopped. I could feel her gaze on my back, intent and probing.
“Hmmmn,” I grunted, the sound a dismissive wall. I continued walking, my shoes echoing too loudly in the hollow space.
Dumps a honeymoon on me and leaves me to it. The thought was a bitter pill. I’d known this would happen. Jade always operated in grand, disruptive gestures.
She was more dramatic than Olivia, and that was saying something. Yet, I had listened to her. I always did. She had a way of reaching into the chaos and pulling on a thread I didn’t even know was loose.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, a violent vibration against my thigh. I pulled it out, and the name on the screen made my jaw clench. Speak of the devil.
I pressed the phone to my ear, steeling myself for the cyclone of her voice.
“Baby brother!” Olivia’s shriek was an assault, a sound meant to dominate. I hung up immediately, the silence afterwards a blessed relief.
She called back almost instantly. The phone buzzed and danced in my hand like a live wire. Once, twice. On the third relentless ring, I surrendered with a curse.
“What?” I bit out, the word frigid.
“That is no way to greet your only sister,” she chided, her anger a thin veneer over her prying.
“I heard you went for your honeymoon,” she trilled, false sweetness dripping from her words. “Treat Mila well.”
“Is that why you called?” I scoffed, the sound harsh and hollow even to my own ears.
“Isn’t that enough reason to call?” The displeasure in her voice was now plain, a child denied a toy.
“If you have nothing better to say, I will hang up now.” I ended the call, not waiting for a retort, and dropped the phone onto a side table as if it had burned me. The ensuing silence felt heavier than before, loaded with all the things I wasn’t saying, all the roles I was failing to play.
I shook my head, a futile gesture to dispel the fatigue that was bone-deep. With a sigh that came from the very core of me, I stripped off my travel-stiffened clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor.
The shower beckoned. I walked in and turned the water as hot as I could bear, stepping under the punishing spray.
I let it hammer against the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders, a futile attempt to rinse away the grit of the journey and the deeper, more persistent ache that lived in my chest. I closed my eyes, tipping my head back as the water streamed over my face.
And there, behind my closed lids, she appeared. Mila. Not as she was, guarded, quiet, a stranger in my home, but as my traitorous mind conjured her.
Her face, softened. Her eyes, looking at me without that careful, distant caution. My gaze drifted lower, and I saw her body looking like it was the best thing to touch. I saw the cascade of imaginary water on her skin as she smiled at me sweetly
Fuck no!
My eyes flew open. I was alone in the tiled stall, the steam thickening the air. It was just the water, the heat, the exhaustion.
But the image had been vivid, searing. A low growl of frustration ripped from my throat, swallowed by the roar of the shower.
I braced my hands against the cool wall, hanging my head, letting the water disguise the tremor in my hands. It wasn’t just an ache. It was a temptation, a dangerous, stupid longing I should get rid of.
I walked out of the bathroom still dripping with water, I grabbed the towel like it harmed me before and dragged it roughly through my hair.
I was pissed, for no reason at all, maybe I knew the reason but I was pissed.
I found my way under the covers and closed my eyes in an attempt to let sleep take my frustration away but I was only deceiving myself. I saw her face again and it annoyed me to my very core
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling with so much anger before finally deciding to give in to the temptation.
I walked quietly down the hallway, the reasonable part of me telling me to go back to my room and just sleep but my member seemed to be doing the reasoning for me. It was like a compass guiding me to my Destination.
I ran my hair through my hair frustratingly as I got to the door. I opened it quietly trying not to wake her up, I entered the room and closed the door behind me and there she was sitting on the bed looking at me wide eyed like she had been expecting me.