Page 47 of Ruthless Vow
I finish the glass.
I can lock myself in this study every night for the rest of my life. Drink until I can’t feel my hands. Turn myself into stone again.
I’ll still want her.
And wanting her is already destroying me.
11
CASSIA
The sheets beside me are cold.
Cold, like he’s been gone for hours.
Morning light cuts across the ceiling in pale slashes. Somewhere downstairs, dishes clink. Staff murmur. Normal sounds. Ordinary sounds.
Nothing about last night was ordinary.
This can’t happen again.
His voice echoes through my skull. Four words. Precise. Final. Said while I was still trembling.
The pillow beside mine still holds the impression of his weight. Faint.
Already fading.
Like I imagined all of it.
I didn’t. His fingerprints still burn on my thighs. The ghost of his mouth. How he looked at me when I came apart. Hungry. Wrecked.
Then, gone.
The mask slid back into place. His voice went flat. His focus went somewhere I couldn’t follow.
I throw off the covers.
The shower is too hot. I don’t turn it down. Let the water scald my skin until the memory of his mouth gets washed down the drain with the soap. Until my body stops humming with aftershocks I wasn’t supposed to experience.
Useful.That’s what I am. That’s what I’ve always been.
Not precious. Not worth keeping. Just practical enough to be tolerated.
The kitchen smells like chicory and buttermilk biscuits. Nonna Rosa stands at the stove, stirring a pot of grits with the easy rhythm of decades. Her gray hair is pinned up, a few strands escaping, and she’s humming low and tuneless under her breath.
She doesn’t turn when I enter. She doesn’t need to.
Nonna Rosa hears everything.
“Tea’s on the coun’er,cher.” Her voice carries the soft cadence of the city, those stretched vowels and dropped consonants that make even ordinary sentences sound like song. “Haven’t seen you since dinner last night. Been worryin’.”
My stomach knots. Twists so tight the muscles ache.
“Thank you.” I take the cup. The ceramic burns my palms. I don’t register it.
Nonna Rosa turns now. Her dark eyes find mine, and the sharpness in them pins me where I stand.
“You didn’t sleep, dawlin’.”
