I wanted to know her—not the mask she presented to me, defiant and quick-witted, but the one she was working to conceal. The one she revealed when she believed no one was looking.
Inside, she paced with irritation in her footsteps, the soft fabric rustling as she stripped off the wedding gown as if she wished to burn it, followed by the gentle thud of shoes hitting the floor.
“Shit,” she muttered.
I smiled, lips twisting over the rim of the cigarette.
She’d stubbed her toe on the bed frame, and it was just like her to swear like the raging fire that she was, even now, half-dressed, enraged, storming through the room that now belonged to both of us.
The version of her that everyone knew didn’t vanish when nobody was watching. She burned.
And I envied that more than I ought to have.
Then I walked down the hallway, past wedding night roses and plaster moldings, to the hidden panel that I had installed two days earlier.
It was for security purposes, I reminded myself.
But the reality was that I needed an excuse to look at her, really see through that tough girl mask she wore all the time.
I pulled open the panel and turned it on. The monitor flickered to life—black and white, grainy, but legible.
There she was.
Pacing.
Hair loose, shoulders tight, pulling her fingers through the waves as if they were choking her. She was disheveled, wild, and beautiful.
She walked on across the room, barefoot, and paused to examine the broken vase I’d knocked over a few minutes earlier. She stood there for a bit, looking down at it as if it had personally betrayed her.
Then, all of a sudden, she collapsed onto the bed’s edge. Collapsed, really, like something within her had finally given way.
I was left breathless as she doubled up, reached for the nearest pillow, and clutched it to her breast, burying her face in the pillow.
She didn’t cry, at least it didn’t look like she did, but her shoulders shook. Little, quiet tremors like an aftershock coursing through her.
It hit harder than it should have, harder than anything else that day.
For the first time, she wasn’t the tough girl who shrieked in silk or spat venom through her pretty red lips. This was the girl underneath.
The one who was still mourning for her sister, the one who hated that she was forced into a marriage. She was still angry. Still scared.
And for some reason, I knew she believed she was alone now in her enemy’s territory.
I pulled in another drag of smoke, but now it was bitter.
Honestly, I hadn’t anticipated this from her. Not the silent sorrow, not the isolation, and definitely not the way it twisted something sharp and unfamiliar deep in my chest.
I should have left to give her some space so she could grieve her old life, an illusion of privacy, but I didn’t.
I simply stood there, looking, listening, pulling her in like smoke and wondering how long it would be before she realized I wasn’t her enemy.
I was something far worse.
Chapter 9 – Zoella
The dining room was uncomfortably hot.
Not the comforting sort of warmth, but thick, and suffocating. Weighty with cigar smoke, cologne, and the collective bulk of men who believed the world belonged to them.
