by Nikki Sloane
Royce and Macalister weren’t back by midnight, and even though I was still in my dress, I went downstairs seeking a late-night snack. Or maybe a drink.
But the kitchen wasn’t empty.
Alice sat alone at the table and in the near-dark, an untouched mug steaming in front of her.
“Marist.” She put her hand over her heart. “You startled me.”
“Sorry, I was hungry.” I bit my lip and inched toward the table. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She didn’t look at me. Her eyes were out the window, staring at the gardens she loved to maintain. “I’m leaving.”
I nearly asked where she was going before her meaning sank in. “You’re leaving Macalister?”
She nodded. “If I’d known it was going to be like this, there’s so much I would have done differently.”
I lowered myself into a chair across from her, feeling like she wanted to talk, even if it was with the girl her husband was fixated on. The lights weren’t on inside the kitchen, but my eyes had adjusted, and there was plenty of light coming in from outside. She looked tired. Weary and maybe broken.
I hurt so badly for her.
“I tried to give him everything he wanted,” she added. “But I couldn’t. I was never going to be her.”
She had to be talking about Macalister’s first wife, Royce and Vance’s mother. She lifted a hand and delicately wiped it under an eye. Was she crying?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t mean to put it on you.”
I wanted to help, to make her feel better. “No, it’s okay.”
“Do you want some tea?” She gestured to the cup in front of her and then the teapot still on the counter. “I think I made enough for two.”
“Sure.”
Her blue dress swished as she went to the cupboard and pulled down a mug. “I tried to leave him once before, a little over a year ago.” She filled the cup and handed it to me. “We were separated for three months. I think the rumor was I’d been sent to rehab.”
She’d been gone when Royce graduated with his MBA from Harvard. That felt so long ago. “But you came back.”
“I was unhappy no matter where I was, and decided I’d rather be unhappy with him around.”
I took a sip of my tea and made a face at the bitter taste. Normally, I loaded it with sugar and milk, but it seemed rude to get up in the middle of her conversation.
Her eyes were sad as her gaze settled on me. “I’m not proud of it, but for a time I found someone else who made me . . . less unhappy.”
“Vance,” I said.
It didn’t surprise her that I knew. “Yes.” Her fingers traced the handle of her mug. “We both wanted to hurt him in our own way. You’ve seen how hard Macalister can be on his sons.”
“Yeah.” I took another sip of my tea.
“Part of him died when Julia did.” I froze mid-sip, but Alice was very matter of fact about it. “A lot of the good parts, from what I’ve heard.”
“Hmm,” was all I could find to say from under my mug. I didn’t remember him much from before the accident.
“I knew the thing with Vance wasn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t. But Macalister lost interest in me years ago, and Vance was all I had.”
Until Jillian Lambert.
The image flashed through me of Vance’s hips pressed to Jillian’s ass. I drank my tea to try to wash it away.
“I can’t be here anymore, not when no one wants me.”
“That’s not true.”
She looked dubious. “Oh? Don’t tell me you want me around. We’re not friends, Marist.”
“We could be,” I offered. It wasn’t the most convincing I’d ever sounded.
She shook her head then reached behind it and began to pull out the pins in her hair, dropping them onto the table in a neat stack. “No, I really don’t think we could.”
“Why not?”
Her blue eyes were full of turmoil and irritation. “You know why.”
My pulse quickened, but I tried to remain calm and stared at the woodgrain in the table. Was she talking about the initiation? Macalister’s obsession with me? Or had she seen us in the hedge maze the night I’d lost to the Minotaur?
“My options are simple. I can watch the two men I’ve had as they cast me aside to pursue other women, or I can leave.”
My stomach hurt. A dull sympathetic ache because I knew what it was like to have no good options.
“I’m strong,” she said, “but I’m not strong enough to stay. Not if you’re here.”
I frowned, not liking how her tone seemed to have a threat laced to it. I took a final sip of the tea, set it down, and stared at her. “Will he let you go?”
She shrugged. “Royce and I are his two great failures. We never surrendered complete control.”
The statement hung for a long while, leaving us sitting in silence.
“Can I be honest?” I whispered. “This tea isn’t my favorite.”
She laughed with her whole body, so long I wondered what the joke was that I wasn’t in on. “The funny thing is I’ve always liked you.” She smiled, and her eyes gleamed. “You’re not afraid to say something direct.”
“Thank you.” My heart fluttered, causing a strange sensation. It was like I was running down a hill and my pulse couldn’t keep up.
“I don’t mind being direct either. There’s a third option I can consider. It’s one where you’re not in the picture.” Her face went so cold, it was nauseating. “Care to guess which one I chose?”
Visually, she was peeling apart, creating two Alices instead of one, and I blinked rapidly to try to put them back together. It didn’t work, and it didn’t make sense.
“I don’t feel right.” My heart was out of sync with my body.
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
It was hard to make myself stand, and when I did, everything became much worse.
She rose to her feet as well, moving effortlessly. Like it was easy and the floor beneath her feet was stable. “I’ve been sitting down here for almost an hour, not sure if I was going to drink this tea or not. And then you showed up.”
Blood screamed in my ears, so loud it drowned out whatever else Alice was saying to me.
Wait—no. Hera, not Alice.
She was taking her role a bit too seriously. The jealous queen of the gods punished all the mortals Zeus slept with, even the ones who were unwilling. Except Macalister wasn’t Zeus.
“He’s the Minotaur,” I mumbled.
“What?” She stared at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was. Things moved around me in unexpected ways.
I stumbled away from the table. I’d only come downstairs for a snack, so I’d left my phone in my bedroom. Now it was so far away.
“What did you . . . do to me?” I tried to cross the kitchen, but the floor pitched and rolled like a ship in violent seas. It took all my effort, and when I reached the counter by the door, I clung to it and struggled to catch my breath.
She didn’t say anything.
Or maybe she did. The room was darker now and growing smaller every second. I hurled myself out the door and into the dining room, but all-new terrors waited for me in here. I saw the board members as the gods on Mount Olympus, eight feet tall and horrifying, and when I knocked one of the chairs over, pain shot up my leg.
I was going to throw up. Or pass out.
Or maybe die.
Time slowed and then lurched forward like an arrow pulled back in a bow and set loose. Hera didn’t seem to be here anymore. I’d made it out of the hellish dining room, and now I was in the entryway, facing the grand staircase, where all the lights had halos. At the top of the landing, the Hale family portrait watched me with their intense eyes, taunting me to come join them.
I climbed a million steps until my legs quit working.
And then I crawled.
The stairs grew steeper, and I clung to the carpet, worried I was going to fall.
Keep moving
!
I slithered as Medusa up the next step, fighting for every inch and against my heavy eyelids that wanted to close. I had to get to my phone. I had to tell Royce again that I loved him and make sure no one was around this time so I could hear if he’d say it back.
I wasn’t to the landing yet, and there was still another flight of steps to go after that. I’d never make it. Tears welled in my eyes, and the pounding in my head was too powerful and crushing to go on.
I didn’t want to give up, but this was checkmate.
Marist Northcott was going to die halfway up the staircase on her quest to becoming a Hale, her beautiful green dress splayed out around her. I dug my fingers into the thick carpet, anchoring myself as best I could, and let the darkness have me.
“Marist!” a male voice shouted.
Hands scooped up my shoulders, forcing my eyes to crack open. Everything was blurry and indistinguishable, like I’d put on a pair of my sister’s glasses. I tried to speak, but it was a garbled mess in my head.
Then Royce came into view. I reached up, wanting to touch and make sure it was really him. “I love you,” I croaked.
My hand landed on the face, but it wasn’t his.
It was the Minotaur.
* * *
Thank you so much for reading THE OBSESSION!
Dying to know how the Filthy Rich Americans saga ends? It will be concluded in THE DECEPTION!
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OTHER BOOKS BY NIKKI SLOANE
THE BLINDFOLD CLUB SERIES
It Takes Two | FREE
Three Simple Rules
Three Hard Lessons
Three Little Mistakes
Three Dirty Secrets
Three Sweet Nothings
Three Guilty Pleasures
One More Rule
The Blindfold Club Collection | Books 1-3 bundle
THE SORDID SERIES
Sordid
Torrid
The Sordid Duet
Destroy
SPORTS ROMANCE
The Rivalry
THE NASHVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD
The Doctor
FILTHY RICH AMERICANS
The Initiation
The Obsession
The Deception | Coming November 5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you so much to my gorgeous husband Nick for everything. And I mean, everything. He helped brainstorm, supported me at every stage, and encouraged me when I was stressed out about making my deadlines. As is with every book I write, this one would not have been possible without him.
Thank you to my friend Andrea Lefkowitz. She is a voice of reason who has twice now saved this series from crossing a line a lot of readers would have found intolerable. She was also there for me during a difficult time and kept me together, and I owe her so much.
Thank you to my editor Lori Whitwam. I turned this in five days late and she still got it back to me on time, and then even let me sneak in a second round of edits. Sixteen projects together and she still wants to work with me, LOL.
Thank you to my publicist Nina Grinstead for all her hard work and support, and making this series the best it could possibly be.
Thank you to my beta readers Aubrey Bondurant, Casie Lanham, Rachael Leissner, Theresa Martin, and Tara Slone for their help and great notes.
Thanks once again to my father for answering numerous random questions at all hours to help me get out of the corners I wrote myself into.
I owe a huge thank you to so many bloggers and author friends and there are too many to name. If you’re reading this, picture your name here! I am so incredibly grateful to anyone who shared their love for this series, their uncomfortable feelings for Macalister, or who supported my writing at any stage of my career. I’m weird and awkward and not good at saying the right thing at the right time, but everything you’ve done means so much to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikki Sloane fell into graphic design after her careers as a waitress, a screenwriter, and a ballroom dance instructor fell through. For eight years she worked for a design firm in that extremely tall, black, and tiered building in Chicago that went through an unfortunate name change during her time there.
Now she lives in Kentucky, is married and has two sons. She is a three-time Romance Writers of America RITA© Finalist, also writes romantic suspense under the name Karyn Lawrence, and couldn't be any happier that people enjoy reading her sexy words.
Website: NikkiSloane.com
Goodreads: Nikki Sloane Author Page
Twitter: @AuthorNSloane
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Instagram: nikkisloane
COPYRIGHT
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2019 by Nikki Sloane
Cover photography © iStock Images
Cover design © Shady Creek Designs
Minotaur illustration © Wes Harvey | Instagram: i_am_suspect_zero
Athena Edition