Beautiful Revenge (A Good Wife #1) - Sienna Blake Page 0,41

blurring around me as I speed through them, relying on instinct rather than clear sight, until I’m stumbling into my room upstairs and falling into bed, my heels kicking off to the floor.

I curl into a ball, my energy zapped too much for me to even take off my dress. It is a long while before I succumb to the darkness.

No one comes for me.

Not Emily.

Not my husband.

Not even the one I fear—and want—the most.

33

____________

Alena

I feel a soft, warm body snuggling up to my back.

Dimitri?

I let out a sigh and turn around to face him. I realise with a start that the body is too small, too soft to be Dimitri. I snap my eyes open with a gasp.

Emily is curled up beside me, her warm grey eyes fixed on mine. Despite the slight bags under her eyes, she looks awake and alert.

I sag with relief. “Oh, Emily. It’s you.” I rub the sleep from my eyes and glance over to the curtains stained with early morning light. It can’t be any later than seven a.m.

Emily laughs, cuddling up closer to me, twisting her small feet into mine. “Who did you think I was?”

“No one,” I say a little too quickly as a memory invades my mind. His arms wrap around me, pulling me back against him. I relax into his arms. When he holds me, the warmth comes from the inside. I shake this memory from me.

Thankfully, Emily doesn’t notice. She’s too busy smiling at the ceiling. “I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you, Leni. I’ve missed you.”

A stab of guilt hits me. In trying to avoid Dimitri I’ve neglected her. I resolve to be a better friend, to stop being so wrapped up in my own troubles. “I’m sorry, Em. Let’s do something today, just you and me, like we used to.”

Her face falls. “Oh.” Guilt creeps over her features. “Dimitri and I were going to take the horses out today. You can come with us, if you want?”

I can’t. I can’t stand to watch Dimitri dance around Emily for my sake. Oh, sweet, innocent Emily, can’t you see he’s using you? I force a smile that I know is weak. “Do you really think you should take him out riding?” Dimitri has never been on a horse. I can’t say outright that I know this. “Does he know how to ride?”

“Oh, yes. He has horses back in America.”

He does? Her words stun me. I used to know everything about him. Now he is a stranger. A stranger who kissed me last night like he knew me.

“He’s so handsome,” Emily says, her small teeth nibbling on her bottom lip, “and he’s such a great dancer. We danced all night last night after you left.”

I swallow down a ball in my throat. “Oh?”

“Oh, Alena,” she breathes, “I think I’m in love.”

Emily’s words stab my chest. You can’t love him, I want to scream at her. He’s mine! I shove this thought aside. “You…You hardly know him.”

“I know enough.”

Panic jitters inside me. Love? No. She can’t love him. She can’t. “But he’s…he’s too old for you. You’re barely eighteen.”

She frowns. “You were only sixteen when you married my father.”

“I’m just saying, don’t go rushing into things before you know…”

She pulls away, her feet untwisting from mine. Her voice becomes pebbled. “You don’t think he likes me back.”

I know he doesn’t, I want to cry. He kissed me last night. He asked me to go to bed with him. I can’t tell her that. It’ll kill her. It’ll ruin me. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” I say, “that’s all.”

“Well, I know he likes me,” she cries. “He danced with me all night. And he kissed me.”

My mouth drops open in horror. “He didn’t.”

“He did.” She folds her arms, a smug look on her face.

My stomach twists with pain. Were his lips still warm from mine when he pressed them to Emily’s?

Oh my God. I suck in a breath. “Did you…” oh, God, I don’t want to know the answer. “Did you sleep with him?”

Emily scowls. “Of course not. I’m not a whore.” Her choice of word tears an old wound open.

“Don’t fucking touch me, you whore.”

“Don’t you dare call me that. I’m not—”

“Marrying a man for money? Fucking a stranger for money? Don’t kid yourself at what you will become if you do this.”

Despite my pain there is relief. Dimitri didn’t sleep with her. He didn’t take Emily’s virginity to wound me. At least