regardless, not liking the way he stared intently at me with that dark, whiskey gaze. It always felt like Callan was studying me as if I were some experiment - like a damn mouse running in his fucked up maze.
I closed my eyes when his hands wrapped over my wrist, his heat sinking into my skin as he worked the strap lose and pulled it from my arm. Before letting me go, he gripped my hand and ran his thumb down the center line of my palm, the tender touch forcing shivers down my spine.
“You hate it when I touch you.”
Not a question as much as a statement.
Sadly, it wasn’t exactly the truth, but I nodded my head on a lie. He affected me in ways I would never admit.
In some sense, he always had.
Callan was always lurking when we were kids, a servant kept close by, always watching. I could sense him even when he didn’t want to be seen, my skin prickling with his attention, a wash of goosebumps as if his eyes could somehow reach across the distance to brush my body.
Whether he knew I sensed him, I wasn’t sure, but it would make me angry for some reason. Why chase a girl yet never talk to her? Why allow her to hurt you without fighting back?
It only made me want to hurt him more, as if that would free me of whatever spell he’d spun.
“We should go,” he said, breaking me from the past.
“I have a long day ahead of me, which means you have a long day as well.”
I opened my eyes to look at him.
“As your servant?”
“Yes.”
There was no telling what he would do all day to make my life hell, but I squared my shoulders regardless.
He wouldn’t steal my pride.
“I need to change into a new uniform.”
“You do. Gretchen will pitch a fit to see this one so wrinkled. I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready. Don’t keep me waiting long.”
“If I do?”
Callan grinned. “I’ll find a creative way of punishing you.”
Without another word, he pushed to his full height and left the room.
Not wanting to keep the bastard waiting, I eventually stood from the floor, grabbed a new uniform and walked into his bathroom to get dressed.
There was no telling what the son of a bitch had planned for me today.
Whatever it was, he would make sure I didn’t like it.
Callan
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t enjoying my new arrangement with Lisbeth. Not that she had much say in the matter. The fact that she continued to hold her chin up like she was something more than the servant I’d made of her only excited me and impressed me at the same time.
I would have sworn she was made of much more fragile stock than she’d shown so far.
But then...she was a Rose.
The girl may have been pampered her entire life, but she hadn’t been born to weak parents. Her father was a lethal son of a bitch while her mother had been cunning. It made sense that Lisbeth had taken after them. Their evil had been written into her genes, a perfect formula of stealth and beauty that shaped the woman she’d become.
Unfortunately for Lisbeth, I’d been born of a strong woman, too. My mother hadn’t come from a wealthy family, but had honed her instincts on the streets. She had a spine of steel and a sharp mind that kept her from breaking under the pressure of the demands made of her. She’d loved me fiercely and did what was necessary to keep me safe, even if she couldn’t protect me from Lisbeth’s games.
I never knew my father, and my mother had never spoken of him much. So, I couldn’t judge what he’d given me. In that area of my life, I could only look to Franklin’s influence, an influence where I’d most likely gained a few traits of the Rose family.
Our genetic makeup made Lisbeth and I the perfect opponents, and our past only served to fan those flames. I wondered how much it would take to make her cower. I hoped I would have a front row seat when she finally tipped and spilled out from her ivory tower.
Yet, as it stood now, her pedestal was still firmly in place.
In her mind, at least.
How long would it take to rip it out from under her?
“Were you planning on telling me about your overnight guest, or was it meant to be a surprise when