Wild Dirty Secret(34)

She turned back at the door. “You know, if it was a pride thing, I wouldn’t mind at all. The one man who could resist you, so you have to bring him to his knees. That would be fine. But I don’t think that’s it. You seek him because you know it’s impossible. You’re setting yourself up for failure, just so it won’t be your fault when you’re alone. So you can be alone and blame every asshole john and every uptight cop instead of yourself.”





Chapter Seventeen





Inheritances are funny things. They aren’t earned, except by being born; we get them whether we deserve them or not. But I had learned long ago that everything came at a price.

On the first day my father came to my room, he didn’t touch me.

He sat on my bed and told me that my mother had abandoned us both. She was weak, and he was strong. He hoped I would be strong too.

He left a small velvet bag of rocks on the bed. Mostly diamonds but other types of gems too, rubies and emeralds all beautifully cut and glittering by my bedside lamp. He explained that he had melted down my mother’s jewelry after she left. It was rightfully mine, considering I would take her place.

Only years later, when I left the house with them in my possession, did I realize that she would have taken her jewelry with her. Which meant her leaving had been an unplanned escape or that she hadn’t left at all—at least not willingly. Part of me preferred this rendition, since it meant my mother hadn’t abandoned me to a monster. But these were all stories, part of the Laurent family legacy.

I hadn’t sold the jewels, even when Allie and I had desperately needed the money. I had preferred to sell my skin than part with them, for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. I set out in the world with both my dignity and my inheritance intact, and now I only had the latter.

My dependence on those stones was fading, though. I could feel the weight of them lifting, their manacles unlatched. Their worth to me was measured not in blood but money—what I could buy with them. A new life for Ella, maybe. And if I bestowed the money upon her, like our own makeshift inheritance, what price would she pay?

The large sitting room and wet bar were usually empty unless Philip was entertaining. I slipped along the wall, trailing my finger over a lesser-known Matisse. In his private rooms, Philip’s taste was spare and masculine. However, he spent a small fortune decorating the public rooms with artwork and bric-a-brac. The only style was expensive, and that was the point. I had once teased him about being so obvious. He replied that he had to be—people often didn’t see what was in front of their eyes.

I had taken this lesson to heart.

Nestled in a bookshelf was an abstract sculpture of a rainbow with metal rays jutting from an unpolished block of concrete. Without the muted colors on each thin pipe, this would just be a piece of construction refuse. Maybe it had been once, though Philip had paid five figures in an auction at Christie’s in New York to acquire it. I loved the way the artist had taken something ugly and made it valuable and unique—but without hiding its true nature. I also loved the way it stored my gemstones, which filled a dip in the concrete. I assumed that no one would look twice at the treasure at the end of the rainbow. Hiding in plain sight. Isn’t that what I did every day, every trick? Even if the maid had dared to steal from Philip, the rainbow statuette hardly seemed like the most valuable trinket in the room. It looked like Swarovski had thrown up on a brick.

I had brought the stones with me when I lived with Philip. My departure had been abrupt, and I’d never gotten to retrieve them. That turned out to be a good thing. If this had been at my apartment, it would have been stuck there along with the rest of my belongings.

I scooped them out, a handful of glittering color, my own tainted rainbow that I had been following for years, a hopeless quest for treasure at the end. An emerald sparkled against my palm, the same green that had gazed at me with heat and passion and distrust, endless facets of light and dark, of blind hope and a long tumble to fathomless depths. It mesmerized me against my will, held me in its thrall so that I’d never be able to let it go.

“Find what you’re looking for?”

I whirled at the sound of Philip’s voice. His hands were slung into the pockets of his dress slacks, his shirtsleeves rolled up. I searched his face for signs of accusation but found only a sort of sheepish tension. His dark eyes were hooded.

Slipping the stones into my pocket, I perused the textbooks on the shelf. “Not yet. Got any recommendations?”

He strolled closer, his distracted gaze flicking over the titles. “I didn’t think you were interested in architecture.”