Chapter 49

VEDA

Rage roared through my body until I trembled with it. It heated my face as I stomped down the hall away from Luca's room, trying doorknobs as I went, wearing only the comforter off the bed because I refused…fucking refused...to put on anything of his.

Technically, the comforter was his, too. I knew that. But since it only touched the sheets and not his bare skin, it didn't count. Or, at least, that's how I rationalized it to myself in my broken mind.

He'd left me. Just fucking left me there. But first he'd made me come harder than I ever had in my life. Then the bastard had pulled on his pants, grabbed his shirt off the floor, and strolled out of the room like nothing at all had fucking happened.

Left me on the bed with my bare ass in the air, my skin hot and throbbing from his hand, my overly sensitive breasts aching, and my pussy clenched with the need to be fucked until I had a concussion from my head smashing into the headboard.

But it wasn't just the physical craving. Or the embarrassment of him walking out while I was lying naked on his bed. After everything he'd taken from me, I'd asked for one thing. Just this one fucking thing. I'd needed him to help me forget. If only for a little while. Just for the night.

And he'd fucking left.

I found an empty bedroom at last and slammed the door behind me. Then I locked the doorknob, just for good measure. Flicking on the light, I looked around.

The walls were a light peach. The floors the same marble as throughout the rest of the house, only partially covered by a darker peach area rug. There was a single, queen-sized bed with a cream-colored quilted headboard and matching comforter, a weathered oak nightstand and a matching dresser. A window took up most of the wall to my right, and there was another door to my left. Hopefully to a bathroom, because I never planned to come out again.

Turning the light back off, I threw myself on the bed, not really caring if this was someone else's room. Although I didn't see how it could be. No one else lived here that I was aware of. Slowly, the anger at Luca faded away as the pain of my sister's death flooded back in and the tears began to flow.

It was much, much later when I reached for the lamp, looking around for a phone. I needed to call my parents. But there was no line of communication out of this fucking room. Of course.

I'm not sure how long I'd been sitting there staring vacantly at the floor when there was a knock at the door. "Ms. Calbert? It's Lisa." When I didn't answer, she knocked again. "Veda?" And then, quieter, "Please let me in before Mr. Morelli finds me here."

Getting up, I unlocked the door and let her in.

The moment she was inside and the door was shut again, she grabbed me in a hug, comforter and all. "I'm so sorry about your sister," she told me softly. "Tristan told me what happened."

I'd thought I was all cried out. Thought there were no more tears left. But I was wrong. The loss of my twin rose up inside of me like a volcano, overflowing with hot, wet tears beneath the kindness of her condolences.

"I hated her, you know," I said when I could talk again. 

She frowned, shaking her head. "You didn't. Why would you say something like that?"

"Because she was a bitch."

"And you're not?"

I heard the humor in her voice and pulled back, sniffing and wiping my face. Honestly, from what she’d seen of me so far, it wasn't an unreasonable question. "No. Not like her. If I'm a bitch, it's because someone has pushed me to that point. Nicole is—was—a bitch by nature. Even to me." You would think out of everyone in the world her twin sister would’ve been spared from her nasty attitude, but if anything, she’d treated me worse than everyone else.

I often wondered what I’d done to her to make her hate me so much.

Maybe hate wasn’t the right word. She tolerated me, but I always had the feeling she resented my existence in her world. And yet she would never let me leave.

"How about a drink?" Lisa asked. "Something strong. And then I'll sit with you as long as you'd like." She smiled, brushing my hair from my face. "You shouldn't be alone right now."

"I need to call my parents," I told her. "Do you have a phone I could use?"

I could tell immediately from the look on her face the answer was no. However, all she said was, "Let me get those drinks and I'll see what I can do."

I nodded. After all, what more could I hope for in this fucked up place? "You wouldn't happen to have some clothes I could borrow, would you?" I asked. "I don't know what happened to the ones I had on when I got here, and I can't wear his." Lisa was slightly taller than me, and maybe ten or fifteen pounds lighter, but surely she had something that stretched.

She searched my face, curious for secrets I wasn't ready to tell. "That I can do," she said. "Hang tight. I'll be right back."

After she left, I went back over to the bed and sat down, tears tracking silently down my cheeks as I tried to fight back the horrors of the day. Memories of Nicole and me growing up flashed through my head like an old movie reel. Right up until she turned fifteen and decided she had better things to do than hang out with her "stupid" sister who couldn't keep up with her. Not in school. Not in life.

That's where the movie always stopped. I didn't miss the person Nicole had become after that. It was a horrible thing to say, but it was the truth.

Lisa knocked on the door again before letting herself in. She had alcohol, two glasses, and some kind of clothing thrown over her arm, but no phone.

When I raised my red, burning eyes to hers, she just shook her head. "I'm sorry, I asked Mr. Morelli, but we can't take the chance the call will be traced back here."

We, she'd said. She was one of them. It was a good thing for me to remember. "I thought you didn't want him to know you were here."

She had the decency to look ashamed. "I kind of told you a bit of a lie about that. He asked me to come check on you."

I waited to see how I would feel about that, but there was nothing.

"But I have these." She held out the pants and T-shirt she had over her arm, both black. "It's just an extra set of mine I keep here in case I slosh gravy all over myself or something. We can order you some clothes when you feel up to it."

"I want my clothes back," I told her as I held onto the comforter with one hand and took the clothes with the other. “The perfectly good clothes I was wearing when I got here. But thank you," I added with a nod at the clothes.

But she just gave me a small smile. "We'll get you some new stuff. Of course, Mr. Morelli will have to approve the purchases." She wouldn't look at me as she said it.