of the office. I would rather stay on one of those round couches in this uniform than go with her, but Zeus gave an order. I don’t have any fight in me right now.
We go out into the hall, and Savannah closes the big door behind her, and then she whirls around. Her mask is gone, and her face is all fury—red cheeks and white eyes. She’s close enough to pinch me, and she does it, hard, and pain arcs up through my arm. “Stop!”
“Shut the fuck up,” she hisses. “You are such a slut.”
I rub at my arm. Jesus, she’s so pissed. And I’m jealous, which is something I can’t even begin to think through right now. Jealous of her, for what? The fact that he used her over me at the moment when it counted? This is wildly fucked up. “I—”
“He fucks all the girls.” A triumphant smile laced with anger. “You should know that. He doesn’t care about you.” Savannah stalks off down the hallway. My feet feel like lead boots. “Hurry up,” she calls over her shoulder. “You don’t want to get caught disobeying his orders, do you? Or would you like that?” Her eyes flick up to the ceiling. “You probably would. Disgusting.”
I don’t have anything to say to that.
I can only follow her through the halls and up a floor. It seems like a long way, and it probably is, but I can’t get my mind to focus on anything but the hum on my skin and what happened in that room. His mouth—his mouth.
“You’re nothing,” Savannah says casually when I fall into step with her. She stops abruptly in front of a set of double doors with frosted glass. “And that uniform looks ridiculous on you.” The uniform. With no panties. I want to shove it down farther with my hands, but she’ll seize on it and make this worse. “Come on.”
She pushes open the door and goes in. I’m one step past the threshold when I see the full extent of what Zeus meant.
The spa is huge, and it’s all out in the open. A line of salon chairs takes up half of one wall, and next to that is a line of high stools in front of more mirrors and enough makeup to fill a Sephora.
And on the other side…
God, no.
On the other side, there are three waxing tables. Not separated from the rest of the room by anything. Bathed in natural light. Two of them are occupied, with technicians in lavender scrubs hovering nearby. They’re finishing up, and one girl hops down, rubbing at her arms. Where is the curtain? Where is the door? There has to be something to hide me from the rest.
There is no door.
There is no curtain.
Savannah has left me behind, and she’s leaning down to talk to a woman in a lavender outfit, pointing at me. The woman’s eyes are neutral, professional, but not Savannah—hers glow. There are a lot of other women in here. Ten? Fifteen? They flit around like butterflies, pulling clothes off racks in the back of the room and sitting down in front of the mirrors. The scent of hairspray wafts through the air.
I’m frozen in place.
Savannah straightens up and reaches out to one of the other girls. It’s like a train wreck happening in slow motion—I can’t look away. And they’re not the wreck. I am. Savannah’s whisper spreads from the other girl to another and another until it’s choked the sound out of the room, stopped all the movement. They’re watching. They’ve noticed the pathetic, desperate girl in the maid’s uniform and bare feet.
“Get undressed.” Savannah’s voice cuts through the waiting silence. “You can’t get waxed while you’re wearing all those clothes.”
I swallow the cold humiliation. It was one thing in Zeus’s office. It was one thing in that room downstairs, on the first night. It’s different now. The women—they look like wolves. The prettiest wolves I’ve ever seen. “Is there somewhere I can change?”
A laugh strikes like a match near the makeup counter and burns through the room as quickly as the silence did.
No. There’s nowhere I can change. The women in the lavender scrubs, the ones still moving, don’t seem to care. But the other girls—they’re staring. They’re waiting. A sizzle moves through the air, invisible and sharp. Like claws in the back of my neck. It’s meant to be awful, and even though I know it, I can’t keep the embarrassment out.
Something cracks beneath the surface