003: The First Glitch In The Matrix

“I want my own room.”

Leigh doesn’t even look up from his tablet as he buttons his pajamas. “It’s not happening.”

“Why?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest. Just one night and one day with him, I am losing my fucking mind. I am definitely not sharing a bed with this asshole today again.

He finally glances over at me, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits as he studies my face. “Why don’t you tell me why you can’t share a room with me?”

Heat rushes straight to my face, my cheeks burning instantly.

Images from last night flash across my mind. I remember lying there completely frozen, his hand resting over my boob for what felt like hours. I remember the heat pooling low in my stomach, the way my nipple had hardened right against his palm, and the rush of sensations I had never felt before in my entire damn life.

God, I hated myself for it. I hated my body for reacting to the man who would literally plunge a blade into my gut three years from now.

I ended up rolling out of bed and sleeping on the freezing floor just to escape his touch.

Leigh scoffs when I stay silent, breaking the tension. “It’s not my fault you fell off the bed.”

“You literally kept rolling around the entire night!” I spit back, my voice rising.

“I woke up on my side of the bed,” he replies in a cold tone, completely unbothered.

“Whatever,” I snap, my hands curling into fists. “I want my room. I am not sleeping in here another night.”

“Yeah, well, the last thing I need is any of the maids reporting to my father that we aren’t sleeping in the same room when he specifically said we had to,” he says, stepping toward the door.

I scoff loudly. “Fuck your father, and fuck this arrangement! I’ll find a fucking hotel to sleep.”

Without waiting for his response, I turn on my heel and storm out of the room.

I hear his sharp intake of breath behind me, his quick footsteps following right after. “Stephanie, get back in here!”

Before I can make it halfway down the wide upstairs landing, a deafening crack of thunder shakes the entire mansion.

A split second later, the lights flicker once, twice—and die completely.

Pitch-black darkness swallows the corridor.

A cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck.

My breath hitches in my throat, my pulse spiking so fast my ears start to ring. The darkness presses into me, suffocating. Suddenly, I’m not in the hallway anymore.

I’m back on that floor.

I can feel the phantom sting tearing through my stomach, the sticky warmth of blood soaking my clothes, the utter helplessness of dying while someone watches with pure indifference.

My knees instantly turn to water.

I gasp, my vision spinning as my legs give out from under me.

Before I hit the floor, a pair of strong hands grab me, his arms locking around my ribs to keep me upright.

“Stephanie? Breathe. Look at me,” Leigh’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears, laced with something that sounds dangerously close to real concern.

The heat of his body comforts me for probably less than half of a second, my chest heaving as I fight for air. But just as quickly as he caught me, Leigh pulls back, returning to his usual asshole self.

A blinding flash of lightning tears through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the hall, illuminating the foyer downstairs.

I blink through the blur of my panic, my gaze dropping toward the large family portrait hanging on the wall below.

My heart stops.

In my previous life, that painting only had Leigh and his parents.

Now, standing right beside Leigh in the frame, is another young man—someone with the same eyes and an arrogant smirk painted onto his lips.

A face I have never seen before in my entire life.

Or am I seeing double?

>•<•>•<•>•<

Well, I now know I wasn’t seeing double.

After that terrifying rainstorm last night and Leigh catching me in his arms, things became a blur. I am actually still not quite sure what happened after my knees gave out for the second time, but I woke up this morning sprawled across the bed alone. Leigh was nowhere to be found.

It is breakfast time now.

I stand at the bottom of the staircase, my neck craned as I stare up at the updated family portrait. There is Leigh, his older sister who ran away, his mother—that’s right, she wasn’t at the wedding which is strange—and a boy standing awkwardly to the side who looks just like Mr. Gilford. He’s just a younger version of the young Leigh. The newcomer’s face gnaws at my brain. Who the hell is he? Why was he never in the picture three years ago? Hell, why had I never seen him before when I firstly got married to Leigh before he killed me.

Why wasn’t his own mother at the freaking wedding? Her only son was getting married; albeit forced… but still.

“Admiring the artwork?” a smooth, deep voice asks from behind me. The voice is too nice and polite to be Leigh.

I jump a little, whipping around to see the exact man from the painting standing right in front of me. In person, he looks even more like Leigh, except his hair curls slightly and his smile carries an easy, effortless charm.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, offering me a warm, disarming smile. “I’m Damien. I couldn’t make it to the wedding ceremony yesterday, so I came by to bring you a proper gift before you travel for your honeymoon tonight.”