Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Your money?”
“Yes, Miss Whitson. You stare at me as if I'm vile or repulsive.”
“How long did he have the business?”
“What?”
“How long?”
“Forty or so years. You saw the man. I adjusted for the times.”
“What about consulting? Why not help people?”
“I take shite, Luxury. Business, lives, you!” I sneer. The mentality is fundamentally rooted in my core. My father’s motto–Reap, enjoy.
Taken aback by my tone, Luxury sniffles. I will not tell her I took Overton’s business on a whim just because she and I weren’t talking.
“You keep things from me, and you lie!”
“I have never lied to you,” I assure her yet again. The air between us retracts, sucking out all the oxygen in the room.
“Hello, mates, we’re back,” Graham says sheepishly. His arm hangs over Alba’s shoulder as they stand just outside of our bedroom door. “What’s with all the fuss?”
43
Luxury
“Graham, you’ve quite the big brother. He evades half the questions I ask. So, why don’t you tell me why he left Arlington?” My eyes are all over Graham as he places a designer overnight bag on the floor. The two had taken off for a few days after my dad came to town. Now, I realize I’ve come to depend on them.
“Come again?” Graham asks as he pulls out of his jacket and helps Alba with hers.
“You heard me loud and clear, Graham.” While this is an awful way to greet someone, I fold my arms over, unwilling to relent. “The day I stop asking, inquiring, and lacking initiative, that’s the day I no longer care for your brother.”
“Oh, Lux,” Graham grumps.
“Tell me why Victor left Arlington in the first place?”
Baffled, Graham points here and there in confusion. “Alba just left her passport in our room, um, so I think we will get it and go.”
I stop in front of them before they can scurry down the hall. “Graham, please tell me.”
“Brother . . .” He looks from Victor to me. The beast seems to be in another world. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Graham pulls out his cellphone.
“Alba told me you hadn’t . . . looked up my brother,” he mutters while sifting through applications on his iPhone.
“I trust him. Or I at least tried.”
Hands shaky, I take the awaiting phone from him. Despair colors my eyes as I watch a short clip of a bubbly blonde twirling in a wedding dress, spinning into Victor’s arms, a bed of sunflowers around them.
“The Queen gifted Victor and Emeli this very duchy at their wedding,” Graham starts. “She was the youngest professor at . . .” His voice fades.
I’m numb.
This man.
My man.
Scalding humiliation bridges the dam in my eyes, crashing over in a series of heated tears. I show Victor the photo. “I thought you couldn’t love. I was going to take you for what you are. Imagine me deciding to live my life with a man who says he could not love me.” I take a deep breath.
Graham and Alba disappear from my blurred sight as tears streak my cheeks.
Alba’s running a tender hand over my back as I stare at two people in love. I should envy Victor and his wife, but I don’t. I feel so alone.
Victor finally speaks, “Luxury, I care about you.”
“Don’t ever say that shit again, Victor!” I swipe tears with the back of my hand. More emerge—a whole ocean of them, rendering my attempts futile.
“So, you weren’t going to tell me about your wife? I mean so little to you that I don’t even deserve to know about Emeli Tudor.”
“You’ve questions, yeah?” His eyebrows furrow in anger.
“Yes!”
“As you wish.” An iron grip cages my bicep and tugs me along.
“Hey!” Alba screams as I stumble past her. Our fingertips barely brush as Victor hauls me up a few more steps.
“Let me go, Victor.” I yank, tumbling over unsteady legs, which can’t quite keep up or get me away.
Graham brings up the rear, following us down the hall. “Okay, brother, okay. Mate, let’s all sit—” He stops talking as Victor’s forearm spurns him.
I jam my toe on an end table. A vase crashes to the ground, and Victor drags me along.
Victor jiggles one of the guest bedroom doors that I stumbled upon one morning.
When the door doesn’t budge, his boot kicks at it. The double doors fall off their hinges, collapsing to the floor. We step over them and into a large bedroom.
“This is the room that I shared with my wife. That I will always adore!” Victor shouts, eyes sweeping around the room but seeing nothing. The bed is made, and the velvety curtains are drawn. The color scheme and crystal figurines are courtesy of a woman that he loves.
“We met in a literature course at university. Fell in love fast,” he sneers. “You fill in the rest of the story—you’re good at it, Luxury.”
Before I can speak, he snatches my hand. He takes us back across the threshold of secrets.