I smirk at her, our eyes lock. We’re having a moment. We always had a moment during heinous planning.
“So, what do I do?” Chad asks, clearly envious of our little moment.
“You wait for us to call you,” Scarlett tells him.
He frowns. “My money.”
“Pass me my purse,” she instructs me and I do.
She pulls out a thick white envelope and holds it out. He snatches it from her as she smiles and stretches her arms out.
“You two have a lovely fucking day,” he says then storms out.
He slams the door and Scarlett laughs diabolically, her head falling into the crook of my neck. I smirk at the feeling of her arms around me and the smell of her perfume. I sigh and place my hand on her arm and lay my head against hers, closing my eyes. She lifts her head up at me.
“Those eyes,” she says softly. “They have so much in them. Kelly is going to become so enchanted by those eyes that she won’t even see the lion behind them coming out to eat her alive.”
Maybe I’m tired? Maybe I’m not feeling good? All I know is that looking into Scarlet’s dark grey eyes does nothing but detach me from my sole purpose of what I’m doing. It even causes me to question. Why am I doing this?
I want to make the doubt go away so I kiss her. I take what is mine, devour every dark thing about her and feed it to my own soul. That’s all it needs. It just needs to be fed.
“I’m not supposed to be doing this, remember?” she moans as I kiss her neck, sliding my hand under her skirt.
I say nothing. I rise up from the couch.
She unbuttons my pants and pulls them down, getting on her knees. This is all I need. Scarlett is all I need.
But if Scarlett is all I need, why am I picturing Juliet in front of me? As Scarlett gives me a magnificent blowjob, Juliet pops in my mind. Her smile, her blue eyes, her brown hair—it all comes to my mind. The kiss and the way her lips tasted of mint, oranges, and strawberries and the electricity crawls up my skin. The blare of her bothersome words and her sublime laughter make it impossible to hear the moans coming from Scarlett’s mouth.
My grandfather once told me at my mother’s funeral that women are the number one cause of a man’s downfall. I’m beginning to see that he’s right.
JULIET
“Ugh, Chad was here?” Jordana asks in disgust.
I was just telling her, Cody and Poppy after I left August. He was busy drawing so I left him once it was clear he was in deep concentration.
“He was very eerie,” I say.
“Don’t even get me started,” Jordana says. “He used to watch me and Poppy and not in an ‘oh I have crush’ way or even an ‘oh I want to fuck you’. It was borderline rape, stalker shit.”
“Yeah, he used to give me the heeby sceebies,” Poppy says shivering.
“Hugo definitely wasn’t fond of his arrival,” I tell them.
“What was he even doing here?” Cody asks. “Ms. Eleanor doesn’t keep in touch with him.
“Scarlett invited him. She, Hugo, and Chad had some meeting. My guess is they are planning something ruthless,” I inform them.
“If it’s those three, they definitely are and I bet it involves pictures. That’s what Chad is good for. He should just start his own private eye firm or some shit, but he’s too lazy and self-loathing,” Jordana says. “He’s bisexual, ya know?”
“Men can’t be bisexual,” Cody objects while I gape at Jordana.
“The hell they can’t.” Jordana smacks her lips. “But there is also a possibility that he’s just gay or a sadist. Chad is a sadistic male who likes to have sex with women, but when he has sex with women he likes to hurt them. He likes doing that because really he wants to bang guys.”
“I don’t believe it,” Cody says.
“Girls always left here crying with some bruised wrist or marks on their backs when spending the night with him. I heard the rumors. Girls say he would start off sexy and sweet, but then he would get too rough and I started to believe them because my room was next to his and I heard the screams and trust me they did not sound pleasurable.”
HUGO
“Have fun,” Scarlett says to me before I get out the car.
After our encounter I had her drop me off here on her way home. It’s my father’s condo with Kelly. I want to test this potential tension between us.
“Good day, Mr. Mandrake.” The doorman Franklin smiles at me, holding the door open. “I haven’t seen you here in a while, sir.”
“I plan on visiting a lot more Franklin.”
I still have my key. I pull it out once the elevator doors open. I head to the white door. I stick my key in unlocking it.
“Jonathan?!” she calls. She sounds excited at the possibility of my father being home in the daytime. “Is that you, sweetheart?”
I go to the kitchen and her smile falters. “Hugo…” She clears her throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I can’t come visit my lovely and beautiful… stepmother?”
She laughs nervously. “Of course. I’m sorry, it’s just you haven’t been here since…”
“Thanksgiving last year. I’m overdue for a visit.” I sit across from her at the glass table.
“What are you up to?” I ask.
“Um…” She stares at the catalog in front of her. “I’m thinking of redecorating.”
“How exciting,” I say flatly.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be rude.”
“You didn’t hear? I’m the rudest of them all.”
She grins and I notice how flush her skin gets. I would bet money the pulse between her thighs is quickening.
“You’re not so bad, Hugo,” she says.
“Well, you don’t know me well and since we are family, I think you should.”
“You’re right. August too. You should bring him here.”
“I will. I need to start developing healthy relationships with women.”
She narrows her eyes at me in confusion.
“Men hate me but women always tend to look the other way when it comes to me. Why do you think that is?”
She shrugs and shakes her head.
“Some say it’s because I exceed in other talents that don’t involve communicating and that’s not healthy.”
My eyes lock on hers and her lips part. “Well maybe you’re right,” she says nervously, laughing it off.
Our lingering stare ensues until I place my hand on her thigh. Her eyes widen and a gasp escapes from her throat.
“What are you doing?” she frowns.
“I’m merely bonding with you.”
“Hugo… this is very inappropriate.”
“And yet, you still have not moved my hand away from your thigh. The hand that is slowly moving up.”
She quickly smacks my hand away and stands up from her seat. She walks over to the kitchen island. “I want you to leave,” she says facing me, gripping the edge of it.
“You didn’t want me to leave the party the other night,” I say standing up.
“I don’t know what you’re implying.”
“You mean, you weren’t throwing flirtatious subtitles at me?”
“No! That’s ridiculous.” She pauses, “I was upset and…”
“Drunk?”
“Yes, and it was very wrong of me to speak to you like that in that manner.”
“I thought you didn’t remember.” Her eyes lock on mine. Mistake. “It was wrong,” she stammers, “but…”
“So enticing,” I finish for her. I step closer. “I don’t understand what you see in my dad. He’s like ten years older than you.”
“And I’m fifteen years older than you.”
“Seventeen… I know you have a habit of lying about your age.”
“Get the hell out of here,” she sneers.
“You lie all the time. Lie about loving my father. Lie about liking yours. Fathers are redundant, aren’t they?” I’m so close now. Her chest rises and practically touches
mine. Her eyes peer up at me. “My father does whatever he wants while you try to be the perfect wife. Why can’t you have a little fun?” I press my hand on her warm, flushed cheek and she closes her eyes. Her breathing increasing at a rapid speed. “I’m not saying I’m in deep love with you, Kelly. I just sense a hunger in you that needs to be fed. I want to be that energy for you.”
“You just want to piss off your father.”
“He doesn’t need to know. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” I whisper.
She licks her lips, her eyes still locked on mine. “I want you to leave.”
I lean in and she’s not stopping me. Her eyes close and her lips open up some more. I smirk to myself and drop my hands from her, stepping back. She opens them in shock.
“If you ever change your mind… you know where I am.”
I leave her in shock and want. It’s always good to starve them. It will make them more desperate.
SCARLETT
I go to the art gallery in Brooklyn where Janet Eaton works the next day.
“Janet, you have a visitor?” the girl tells Janet who’s chatting with someone. Janet turns around and sees me, her eyes stunned.
“Scarlett Brayson,” she says walking up to me, “God, the rumors are true.”
“Indeed they are.”
“I’m gonna go have a smoke,” she tells the girl at the front desk and leads me outside where they have chairs and tables set out. “So, if you’re visiting me I guess it’s because you want something from me,” she says sitting down and pulling out a cigarette. “And if you want something from me, that means you have something on me.”
“Janet, didn’t you hear I’ve changed?”
She exhales the smoke, squinting her eyes at me. “Yeah, well I was never much for hope.”
“Well, I guess there isn’t any point in wasting precious time then.” I smile, “How close are you to your cousin, Kelly?”
She inhales another puff and exhales, squinting harder as the sun shines on her face. “Let’s see, her father treats my mother like shit still and has everything in the world including the perfect daughter who loves to rub her entitlement in my face.”
“So, I guess you still have a problem being known as the girl who attended our school because her uncle provided charity. Constantly being compared to her beautiful cousin who attended years before us.”
She ashes the cigarette in the tray, glowering at me.
“So, I guess sleeping with your cousin’s husband is a great way of revenge, isn’t it?”
She holds the smoke in, her eyes broadening. I pull out a photo of her and Mandrake and place it on the table as she finally breathes.
“So, what you want to stick it to my cousin as much as I do?” she asks, staring at the picture.
“No, my quarrel is with Jonathan Mandrake.”
“But as always, someone has to burn in the fire you set.” She counters.
“Yes and for me to watch the flames cover the Mandrake house, I have to burn poor little Kelly Harper.”
“If I wanted to out my affair with Jonathan, I would’ve been done it. We’ve been seeing each other for a year now.”
“Don’t tell me that ”
“That we’re in love? Yes, we are.”
“Oh, Janet, seriously? Don’t tell me you have learned nothing from the guys who branded you a charity case slut in high school.”
She glares at me. “He’ll leave her soon.”
“I guess that’s when the contract is signed on this future investment on a technology Harper’s company is creating?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Let’s not be redundant with the question of how I know things.”
I could go about this, another way. She knows about the deal. She’s obviously in love, the idiot. So to hurt Jonathan would be hurting her, but I always learn that everyone has a price. It doesn’t have to be money—it can just be what people love and hate the most. The question is what outdoes what? Usually what is hated the most outdoes the love. That’s why there is no love in my world. Love is not strong. Love is weak. I hate to lose more than I love to win.
“So did he promise you that he would leave her after that deal? Or did he leave out specifics? I guess it would work—I mean, once you’re under contract, that’s it. No breaking it, but what about the future? Harper is known for his unfailing inventions. He is named the man of tomorrow in Forbes next to Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs. He will soon be worth billions and you honestly believe that Jonathan would give that all up for you? The family that Edward Harper left out in the cold because they didn’t know the difference between the outside fork and the one next to the plate? And then let’s say that he does leave her… what happens? You think he will bring you into the fold? You will never be accepted. Kelly will always shine. She will never suffer the real pain of losing to you unless… she sees how deep in love you are. Jonathan will have no choice but to really need you when he’s left out in the cold—no beautiful wife or billion-dollar investment to stroke his pride and he has pride. It’s what he values most.”
Doubt is the key. Doubt is what leads to fear and fear is what leads to stupidity and cowardice. “Kelly is fragile. She will hurt. She will lose her husband to the cousin she used to use as a butt of a joke during brunch with my mother and I.”
Her brown eyes are dark with rage and vengeance. She jams her cigarette in the ashtray and her eyes lock with mine. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just when the time comes… make sure to smile.”
JULIET
“So, basically you’re Alice in Wonderland love,” Jazib says over the phone.
“I guess that’s a distinguished way to put it.” I’ve updated him on everything that has happened in the two weeks of being here.
“They all sound like a bunch of wankers… except that Poppy. She sounds like she’s loads of laughs and a good time.”
I laugh. “She is, so is the rest.”
“What about this chap you fancy? He sounds like an arse.”
“He is, but… I can’t seem to shake him.”
“Of course. You and trouble are magnetic.”
“Na uh,” I object.
“Ju Ju, you and I both know you like a challenge. This guy, from what you have told me, is one, so you want him. You’re attracted to the sinful, broken, brooding type. It’s not your fault, love. It’s just who you are.”
“Either way, Jaz… he’s all I ever think about. All I ever want. Why is this bloody happening to me? I didn’t want this. It’s only been two fucking weeks.”
“No, you want the guy—you don’t want the drama.”
“This is more than drama, Jaz, this is war. A battle of unnecessary allurement between this disturbing girl and me.”
“Well you’re a bit disturbing too, so at least you got equal weaponry.”
I roll my eyes as he laughs. “Haha,” I mock.
“Listen, Juliet, remember this girl’s got nothing on you when it comes to the matter of the heart.”
“That’s not always a big deal. Matters of the heart. People don’t usually listen to their hearts, especially men.”
“They do when they’re captured.” I wait for him to explain. “This girl Scarlett, she’s somehow managed to dispose of this bloke’s feelings of love and all that happy shit, yeah? Well that means she doesn’t have his heart. She only darkened it, but you… you have the ability to take it. To really reach through that darkness and pull out the red element that controls everything in not only his body but his soul.”
“Jaz,” I smile. “Who knew you could be so poetic and romantic?”
“I tell you all the time I’m fucking Fabio.”
I laugh hysterically. I miss Jaz.
“Besides, if this guy can’t see how amazing you are… then he’s a fucking knob head.”
“Aw, thanks babe.”
“Anytime… I think my family is coming to America next month so I’ll
see you then.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Now remember, the key to a man’s heart is a great personality and a fantastic blow job.”
“Oh my God, bye you twat.”
I hear him laughing like a hyena before I end the call. The thought of seeing him soon makes me happy. Jaz being here will feel like home and maybe I’ll even set him up with a certain strawberry blonde haired girl since she sounds like loads of fun for him.
POPPY
Everything is getting so intense around here. I don’t get it. Jordana is sad about Margaret Jacobs. Cody is sad. I think it’s because he’s a virgin. Hugo is always sad. Juliet isn’t really sad, but I fear she loves Hugo and that will probably make her sad. If only everyone could just be beautiful. Ugly people need a good influence. Ugly people like Hugo and Scarlett. They can be beautiful, but their ugliness just overcomes them. Speaking of ugly, I wonder if my mom will remember my birthday this year. It’s not until October, but she forgot it last year and the year before that. I was upset about it, but Daddy bought me the new Prada bag and a Burberry coat. Those made me feel better.
“Poppy,” Ms. Eleanor comes into my room.
I love Ms. Eleanor. She’s always understood me.
“I’m going away for the weekend. I am in need of a relaxation at the spa.”
“Okay,” I tell her and she goes on to the next room.
Ms. Eleanor is going away for the weekend. Everyone here is sad and grumpy and Ms. Eleanor is going away for the weekend. My mom didn’t tell me she loved me today on the phone and I’m sad about that too. I want everyone to cheer up, so what does anyone do when needing to be cheered up?
Throw a party!
16
SCARLETT
“Kelly,” I smile and her eyes seem wary of my kindness.
“Scarlett, how have you’ve been?”
“Good and you?”
“Wonderful, I heard you’re engaged to Patrick Townsend.”
“Yes, I am.” I flash my engagement ring and make sure my smile is genuine, a sign of change. Her smile appears to be more comfortable now.
Sinners & Saints (Sinners & Saints #1) Page 18
