My Beautiful Sin
Page 20
"All right." I could hear the uncertainty in the waitress's voice, could sense it even as she retreated from us and went to put in my order.
And then we were alone again. Surrounded by noise, yet shrouded in silence. It was funny how that happened sometimes.
"I visited this place the first week I moved to the States," Jean said after some time. When she brought the glass to her mouth, her hand was shaking. "I had the most divine cherry and coconut pie, with a rich treacle topping that just melted in my mouth. I think I wrote back home about it." She smiled, but her eyes were sad. Not because of the memory, or the fact that she could no longer enjoy the "magical" pie. But because of this forced conversation starter.
I sipped my lemonade, said nothing, only waited for her to continue, to say something else irrelevant.
"For years after that, every city or town I went to I inquired about it, searched obsessively over every menu, but I never did come across it again."
I peered out the window, into the dark parking lot. There was something calming about staring into darkness, as though my soul felt at home.
"Lissa, talk to me. Please."
I was wondering how long it would take her to say it, to finally stop ignoring the elephant in the room.
"You didn't speak the whole drive up here, and now...now this."
I drank my drink without feeling or tasting it, my silence everlasting. I wasn't trying to punish her with it, though she might have thought otherwise; I simply didn't know what she wanted me to say. Was I supposed to tell her to be grateful that she had even this much, after everything she'd put me through? That my silence was more than she deserved? No, I couldn't say that, because sitting here with her, with the woman who had taken everything from me, and yet had given me so much, had been my choice. The first one I'd ever made without her intervention since the age of twelve.
"Shout at me, say anything, I don't care. Just...just let me know that you're here with me."
"I'm here." My voice was weak, quiet, but enough to make her sigh with relief. Enough that she didn't feel the need to fill the silence with trivial talk about pie, or anything else. Nothing more was said between us while we waited for the order.
The daily special: a tasteless, oily concoction with unidentifiable meat, that I barely ate two mouthfuls of. A meal truly suitable for the occasion.
I hung back as she twisted the key in the lock. The floodlights poured over us and the graveled driveway, making it seem as though it was 10 in the morning instead of the middle of the night. Moving house at such unsociable hours, however, was probably commonplace in this town.
Once she'd wrested the door open, she turned back to me with a smile. "Would you like to go in first?"
I shrugged and stepped past her. The shrug was more about me being tired than nonchalant. I'd been too on edge to sleep in the car on the drive up, and I had barely slept the night before.
Light flooded the spacious hallway seconds later, from an automatic sensor trip or something. It was smaller than her old house, but equally as opulent: an imperial staircase that split off in two, leading to the second floor, and marble flooring to boot.
Through my peripheral vision I saw her watching me, watching for my response. It didn't matter what she thought of the house; my opinion was the only one that mattered to her.
"There's plenty of space for your studio."
"This house, is it sufficient for your needs?"
"Do you mean is there an underground?" She nodded. "The house used to belong to...to someone like me." She looked away when she said that, guiltily, as though she thought the mere mention, or reminder, of what she was would hurt me. As though her race was the thing I despised, and not her.
"Spare rooms, more bathrooms than we'll ever be able to use..."
There she went again, trying to fill the void of silence so that she wouldn't have to listen to me ignoring her.
"Should we take a tour? I've only seen it in pictures. Robyn picked it."
"I'm pretty beat. I think I'll just get some sleep."
"Of course. What was I thinking?" She led the way upstairs and I followed languidly. My body felt heavy and lethargic; my bones seemed to creak much like the stairs. I knew that as soon as my head hit the pillow I would be out like a light.
The first room she stumbled upon was a guest room, furnished with a single bed, closet and not much else.
"The master bedroom must be down the hall," she said and started to leave.
"I think I'll just stay in here..." It was such a simple sentence, but far from innocuous. And I knew precisely what effect my words would have.
She opened her mouth to speak, to protest, to scream at me for pushing her away despite me promising to give us a chance. And then she closed it again, nodded and turned away quickly, but not fast enough to prevent me from seeing those watery red tears I'd made her shed a thousand times already.
I'd made it very clear. There was no place for her in this room, in my bed. And only time would tell if there would ever be a place for her in my heart again.
"If that's what you want," she said. And her goodnight came out choked as she dashed from the room.
Good. Now we were both in pain.
OTHER BOOKS BY HEIDI LOWE
Series:
My Mother's Best Friend
Justified Affair
The Neighbor
Set Dreams
Le Coeur Island
Novellas:
Crave: Nikki's Story
Crave: Faye's Story
At Her Service
Novels:
My Beautiful Sin (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 1)
Sinning Again (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 2)
Sinning Forever (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 3)
The Queen of Miami
Strummed
Her Lesson in Love
A Scarlet Kiss
Before You Were Mine
Mega Bundles:
Girl Love: 11-Book Lesbian Romance Mega Bundle
BLURB
Lissa Rowan hates vampires, and with good reason. When she was twelve her father was brutally murdered by one. As far as she's concerned all vampires are monsters. And she's happy to go on thinking this way, until Jean Posey walks into her life. Rich, powerful and beautiful, she comes to Lissa's rescue when she needs her the most, always in the right place at the right time. Suddenly Lissa finds herself drawn to this mysterious vampire, and begins to question if she misjudged the race.
But, like most of her kind, Jean has a dark past. There are secrets she doesn't want anyone to know, least of all Lissa. She has her reasons for trying to keep Lissa at arm's length. Unfortunately, her heart has its own ideas, and falling for the girl proves inevitable.
And with that comes the certainty that Lissa will discover the truth about her and realize that Jean might just be the monster she initially thought she was.
My Beautiful Sin is a steamy paranormal lesbian romance novel.