Lifting my head, I opened my eyes to find her sitting primly on the edge of the bed, her maid uniform crisp and her hair tucked up in a low bun.
Like nothing had happened.
Like my world hadn’t just imploded.
“Yeah,” I finally said, “now I know.”
I knew so many things I wasn’t sure I could tell her.
Her blues eyes flicked to mine with sympathy behind them, guilt maybe.
“I wanted to help you last night when the fight ended, but I knew better than to try to get past Connor. While they’ll put up with you, they wouldn’t with me.”
Shaking my head, I rested a hand on her shoulder. “No. Never feel that obligation. Never get in the middle of this.”
Holly shrugged as if she’d let it go, but I could feel the indecision inside her. I knew she was worried that she hadn’t stepped in when she should have helped.
Her voice was a whisper when she said, “It’s just not like him. Mr. Rose has always been so kind. Is still kind when I see him. But with you, it’s like he’s-“
“We have history,” I explained, cutting her off. “With us, there’s so much you don’t know, and I can’t tell you.”
Laughing, she averted her eyes. “Don’t you think I know that by now? He’s marked you, Lisbeth.”
In more ways than one, I thought.
“We should get to work,” she muttered, her eyes drifting to me, to the server uniform I still wore. “Although you’ll need new clothes.”
Embarrassment tinged my cheeks. “A bra and panties as well.”
My suitcases were still in Callan’s room, which meant I had nothing to change into. Not that there was much left. Callan had a habit of ripping clothes away from me, destroying them as he laid claim to my body.
Poor Holly. She knew what my comment meant, but was smart enough not to openly say anything.
“I’ll get some for you.”
On quick feet, she left the room. It took fifteen minutes for her to return with everything I needed. After I was dressed, I met her in the hall, and we went about our usual routine of getting breakfast and grabbing a supply cart to begin cleaning whatever areas we were assigned.
After tending to the common areas of the first floor for a few hours, Holly glanced at me, her expression falling.
“Our last area is the lower floor main hallways.”
A rattle shook my shoulders. I wanted to believe Callan’s assertion that those women were there voluntarily, that they were paid for the show they put on, but I couldn’t get the vision out of my head of their tears - of the red strap welts across their bodies.
“We don’t have to go into the actual rooms,” Holly assured me. “So, we won’t see much. Just grit your teeth.”
I wondered if Holly knew they weren’t there unwillingly, or if Callan was happy for the staff to believe the women truly were slaves stolen from their life.
Judging by Holly’s expression, it was the latter.
I squared my shoulders, sucked in a steadying breath and blew it out slowly.
“Let’s go.”
We took the service elevator so we could bring the cart, the door sliding open with a warning ding. For the feel of this place, it should have been a buzzer, one of those loud, obnoxious noises you hear as a barred door is slid aside in a prison. The lower floors needed the type of sound that warned of danger ahead.
The wheels of the cart squeaked and rattled over the scarred wooden floors, my mind flashing back to the night Callan carried me down here. It was so different from the opulence of the Rose mansion. Gone was the sparkling white marble and chair rail walls, and in their place was a dark foreboding, the walls a deep cement grey, as if they’d recently been sprayed down with a hose.
I jumped when Holly spoke, her voice low as if anything louder would draw attention.
“We only need to sweep the floors. There’s no furniture to be polished. Or windows to scrub.”
Nodding, I grabbed a broom and went about cleaning the floors. Rounding a corner, I lost sight of Holly, but a noise caught my attention, the slow click of heels approaching.
Lifting my head, I recognized the sultry sway of full hips, the shine of dark hair and the curve of seductive red lips.
It was the woman from the gym, the same woman I understood now had been the one brought out for Callan after the fight. You couldn’t look