Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,76

what we came for, or if we should keep snooping around.

But when I slip back out into the hallway, Simone is nowhere to be seen.

She’s completely disappeared.

31

Simone

While Dante searches the master bedroom, I keep watch outside, making sure that guard doesn’t circle back around.

Keeping guard is pretty boring. At first, I’m distracted by the fear of getting caught and the guilty sensation of sneaking around someplace you’re not supposed to be. Once that fades, I’m just standing in the dark, listing to the distant thud of house music. I saw the DJ out in the backyard—I’m pretty sure he’s the same one who played at Ryan Phillippe’s birthday party in Los Angeles.

Sometimes I go to celebrity parties, when Ivory drags me along. She loves that kind of thing. That’s why she got into modeling in the first place—she loves the attention, the feeling of being special.

For me, the attention only makes me feel more lonely. People think they love Simone Solomon, but they don’t actually know me. All their compliments mean nothing, because they’re directed at the persona I created. That Simone is just a product. She doesn’t really exist.

I know what it felt like to be loved by someone who actually understood me. Dante loved me not like my parents do—because of what they want me to be. He loved me exactly the way I was.

Serwa did, too. But she’s gone now.

And Dante, though he’s only a few meters away on the other side of that door . . . he might as well be a thousand miles away. I lost his love forever when I ran away from him.

At least I have Henry.

I’m afraid, though. Afraid that by making Henry the center of my world, I put too much pressure on him, just like my parents did to me. It’s not right to put all my happiness on him. He shouldn’t have to carry that burden.

I don’t know what else to do, though.

Other than Henry, nothing in my life really makes me happy.

God, if only I hadn’t ruined things with Dante . . .

I thought I caught him looking at me when we walked down the hallway. I thought his eyes had that same look in them that they used to—hungry and intent.

But then I blinked, and he was just staring down the hall again, refusing to meet my eyes.

As I wait, I hear voices down at the end of the hall. I’m about to duck inside the master to warn Dante, but I can hear that the two people are moving in the opposite direction, across to the far wing of the house.

My hallway and theirs form a T-shape. As the figures cross the intersection of the two points, I see Roland Kenwood. I looked up his picture online before we came. He’s medium height, lean, with a long, tanned face, an aristocratic nose, and a shock of gray hair. In the photos for his publishing house, he’s dressed in dark suits with monochromatic dress shirts beneath. Right now, he’s wearing a lime-green shirt unbuttoned to the navel, pool shorts, and sandals. He’s accompanied by a young woman. A very young woman—maybe even a girl. She barely comes up to his shoulder, and she’s wearing a Shirley Temple dress, with her hair in two blonde plaits over her shoulders, the ends tied with bows.

I can’t see the girl’s face because she’s looking up at Kenwood as they pass. But I hear her childish giggle.

My skin crawls. They’re walking quickly—if I don’t move fast, they’ll disappear into this rabbit warren of a house.

I poke my head into the master, looking for Dante. The suite is too big and too dark for me to see much of anything.

“Dante?” I hiss.

There’s no answer.

I don’t have time to find him. I run down the hall as quietly as I can, looking to see where Kenwood went.

As I turn left at the T, I can just see the hem of the girl’s skirt disappearing into the last doorway on the right. I hurry after her, worried what Kenwood plans to do once he gets her alone.

By the time I get to the end of the hall, the door is closed. I press my ear against the wood, unable to hear anything on the other side. I know I’m not going to be able to go inside without being spotted, but I don’t have any choice. That girl could be Henry’s age.

So I grab the knob and turn it, stepping into the brightly