The entire tower, his siblings, Kyros… they’d probably snickered over the farce from day one.
“No,” I answered. “There’s no one else.”
He squeezed my shoulder. Or steadied me—that was always a possibility.
I scanned the room, my chest tightening. “I’d like to be alone.”
“As you say,” he replied softly.
Heart sinking to the floor, I watched the butler walk down the hall before reaching for the double doors to push them shut.
I woke in a cloud of lavender.
Drawing in an inhale filled with regret, I heaved onto my back and stared through bleary eyes at the maroon canopy.
Ugh, I didn’t feel so good.
Crawling to the edge of the enormous bed, I tugged on the bell, then promptly collapsed.
The doors opened.
“Miss Le Spyre?”
“Rosie, thank god.” I coughed. “I’ve awoken with a dire case of the dry mouth.”
“… I see. Might I recommend a greasy breakfast, coffee, and a mango lassi?”
I waved a hand in the air. “You may.”
“Very well, Miss Le Spyre. Will you take your breakfast here?”
Grandmother would arise as undead and stab me. “No, I’ll take it in…” I steeled myself. “In the lavender tiers.”
No answer.
I squinted at the doorway to see the plump head servant whose pallor was a direct contrast to her name. “Problemo?”
“Not at all, miss. Did you want me to wash your clothes?”
Crap. “Am I naked?”
The servant blanched. “You’re in one of your grandmother’s skirt suits.”
Jesus.
Carefully rolling to placate the temple demons, I peered at the teal blazer and below-knee skirt that I’d pulled on—white blouse and mother-of-pearl brooch included. The skirt suit was about six sizes too big and I hadn’t removed the lavender pouch from the breast pocket. That explained the lavender scent.
“No, Rosie. Don’t worry about that. Just breakfast.”
She curtseyed and backed out, closing the doors behind her.
Fuck me, I had to get rid of all the tequila in the house.
“Time to get up, fool,” I whispered.
I stood without vomiting and swept up my discarded clothes before shuffling to my own suite in the opposite wing.
I stood on the threshold, eyeing my white canopied bed with longing. But I’d wallowed in self-pity long enough. It wasn’t just me now. I had staff and an estate to manage. Poor Fred couldn’t be landed with the job forever.
Plus, everything I currently felt could be felt by Kyros, too, unless he was working as hard as I was to ignore the foreign tendrils of emotion. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of feeling my wallowing shame a day more. He’d played me for an idiot, and I had to suck it up and admit that head-on, no matter what my pride wanted to deny.
So many times in the last six weeks, I’d felt out of my depth or moronic. I’d had enough. This was it; the last time Vissimo would make a joke out of me. I wanted nothing to do with them—barring the Indebted.
They could visit. I’d shower them with gifts and kindness.
Kicking the doors to my suite closed, I shucked my grandmother’s outfit, draping it over the heavy wooden seat in front of my dresser.
By the time I’d gone through my shave, wash, hydrate routine in the adjoining en suite, an aching stiffness had settled in my limbs, but I felt halfway human.
Returning to the bedroom, I skirted past the sliding lounge doors to the wardrobe. Striding past the handbags, shoes, and jewellery cases, I stopped in front of the activewear section, which I couldn’t ever recall actually exercising in.
“No,” I scolded myself. “Today is a conquering day.”
I pivoted to the opposite wall and selected dark-blue jeans, light-grey stilettos, a belt with an obnoxiously large gold buckle. Then I snagged a loose linen white shirt equipped with a plunging neckline. The girls would free ball it today—with nipple pads of course. Didn’t want to scare the staff any more than I had. Selecting a black G-banger, I pulled on the entire ensemble, tying a knot in the front of the shirt to highlight the dramatic curve where my narrow waist flared to my hips. Thanks, Mom.
My hair would dry into barrel curls, but I helped it along in the shine department with some oil blend my hairstylist supposedly invented. Returning to my dresser, I picked up a thin gold chain discarded there—a twenty-first present from my grandmother. One I’d flung here the night I argued with her and left. Heart weighing heavy, I clasped it around my neck.
I shifted my eyes to the other objects on the dresser. My phone—from this century, portable charger, headphones, and the voice recorder Angelica gifted me.
Beast would remain by my bed for Snake purposes, but otherwise…
I slipped my 21st-century phone into my back pocket, snagging the charger too. I snatched the recorder up. Today was a list-making day.
“Time to get shit done,” I told the empty room.
Leaving the doors to my suite open for the cleaning staff, I strode to the central stairs, looking around the place for what felt like the first time in years.
All of this was mine now.
Mine to care for the next generations. Which would theoretically come from me.
Wow, I felt so ill-equipped.
I hadn’t even wanted this. Yet my stint outside of the estate taught me there were worse things in life. To be out of that tower, I’d put up with a lot more than a net worth of one hundred and fourteen billion dollars.
Plus, the thought of someone else caring for the estate finances if I relinquished the position, made me feel… possessive. For centuries a Le Spyre had cared for our assets. Apparently that did mean something to me.
Like my grandmother, I’d make this life what I wanted, maybe even relocate to one of the estate’s other properties if I could bear to leave the memories of this house behind. Kyros could find me, yes, but a ten-hour plane trip between us sounded fucking idyllic.
I passed through the ballroom and across the sweeping balcony, past the pool and outside entertainment pagodas, and wound between the towering hedge-way that extended to the west boundary of the estate. Turning left at the break in the hedges, I clicked down the paved path, stopping short when the path opened into the circular lavender tiers.
Rings of lavender bushes rose around a small glass table and wrought iron chairs in the centre.
I sat in one of the cold chairs, my bloodshot gaze trickling over the surrounding purple plants. Only the towering tips of the main house and the tops of the hedge-way were visible.
Did my grandmother sit here the day she died? Did she think of me or miss me in those moments?
Blinking several times, I inhaled, the lavender cutting through my self-inflicted headache.
“Miss Le Spyre?”
Glancing up, I smiled at the head maid.
She set the breakfast tray in front of me.
“Thank you, Rosie. Are the eggs soft but not too soft?”
“I hope everything is to your satisfaction, Miss Le Spyre.”
Rosie had been around too long to fall for my mind fuckery. “I’m sure it will be. Thank you.”
She bobbed and retreated.
I drew out the phone that could take pictures and stay awake longer than thirty minutes at a time, plugging it into the portable charger. I picked up the voice recorder next.