“What are you doing?”
Gasping, my heart thunders wildly in my chest. The glass slips through my fingers, shattering on the tiled floor at my feet, ice knocking against my shins. “I didn’t see you,” I breathe out.
Noah is sitting at the table, his fingers curled around his own glass.
“So it would appear.” His chin snaps up, eyes blazing with a force that makes the room shrink in size.
“What were you doing with my brother?” His tone is dark, accusatory, terrifying. Although they had the same face and build, there was something sinister in Noah Remi didn’t possess. Cold cruelty in his shining blue eyes makes my stomach dip.
“Nothing.” I shake my head to add emphasis.
“Why can’t you stay the hell away from him?”
“I like him. We’re friends,” I murmur, my bladder suddenly aching to relieve itself.
“You’re not fucking friends,” he warns, getting to his feet. He’s shirtless, his body powerful, tense, the muscles flexing beneath the skin as he confidently strides across the kitchen to where I’m standing. His shadow stalks the walls, swallowing the light, until he’s just at the other side of the counter.
A light sheen of sweat coats his skin, making him shine under the moonlight. His hair is damp and pulled back from his face. He’s so devastatingly handsome, it’s unfair he’s so ugly on the inside.
Placing his hands on the counter, he leans in, the small, three feet of counter space the only distance between us. “Did you hear me?” he asks, his upper lip curling into a sneer.
Before I can stop myself, I ask, “Why do you hate me so much?” I sound so small, fragile, breakable like the glass now in shards at my feet.
Being held by Remi tonight made me realize how lonely I am, hollow, desperate to be filled up, noticed, liked. Even just to be seen as human would be enough. A small crumb of decency will do.
He turns away from me without answering. I assume he’s done with me. Shaking my head, I turn back to the mess at my feet, bending to pick up a particularly large shard. When I stand, his heat hits my back.
A squeal rips from my chest, and I almost lose my balance. His breath shifts the hair at my ear, the heat of it caressing my skin. “For me to hate you, you’d have to exist to me.” My heart plummets. “And you,” he fists a handful of my hair, yanking my head back so I’m forced to look up into his cold, dead stare, “don’t.”
Noah’s icy cruelty douses any warmth Remi incited within me moments before. Releasing me, I jerk forward, causing my foot to advance to steady myself. The soft flesh comes down on a piece of glass. The sharp edge pierces my skin, stealing my breath.
“Clean that mess up.” He gestures to the ice all around me. It may as well be me in pieces on the floor.
Lifting my foot, I pluck the shard from the wrinkled flesh, wincing when blood drips from the wound.
Dammit.
I lean over and snag a paper towel, dapping the blood. My eyes flit to the door Father uses for his medical stuff. Hobbling over, I try the handle, already knowing it won’t open. There’s a small security keypad on the door in need of a code I don’t have. Remembering Dominique keeps a first aid kit in my room, I shuffle out of the kitchen, keeping only the heel of my foot on the floor.
When I reach the study, I falter. The door is wide open. Noah is in a heated discussion with Father. “I saw it with my own eyes. They were all over each other.”
My mouth goes dry, a shiver racing down my spine. “She’s thirteen, Noah. Your brother isn’t that stupid.”
“So, what happens in a year or two when she’s hard not to notice, Dad?”
“I thought you hated her.”
“I do, with every ounce of my being. It doesn’t mean I’m fucking blind.”
“You’re to stay the hell away from her.” Father cracks his fist on the table. A pen holder topples off the edge onto the carpet.
“I do, but I don’t pull Remi’s strings.”
“I’ll deal with it,” Father says, waving a hand in dismissal.
Tears drop to my cheeks. My heart shrivels inside my chest.
They’re going to keep Remi away from me. I may as well not even exist.
My eyes spring open when I hear movement in my room. It’s daylight. I’d fallen asleep on top of the duvet. The room is freezing.
“What’s going on?” I ask, finding Father at the foot of my bed while Dominque empties things from my dresser into a suitcase.
“You’re going to be leaving here today. I found a great school willing to take you mid semester.”
“School, really?” I gasp, sitting up. Midnight darts from the end of my bed to his food bowl in the corner of the room.