THE ROSSETTI HEIRESS HAS STOPPED BEGGING

CHAPTER FOUR

The bandages itched.

Thick white gauze wrapped my neck, the side of my face, and both hands where the water had splashed when I tried to shield myself. Every time I turned my head the skin beneath pulled tight and burned all over again. The maid who had finally been allowed to treat me that morning had worked in silence, her eyes fixed on the floor, as if even looking at me too long might bring the same punishment down on her.

I moved through the halls like a ghost. Slow. Careful. Every step sent a dull throb through the burns. Leo had been kept from me since the night before—Arthur’s orders. “The child doesn’t need to see her like that,” he had told the nanny in front of me, as if I were already dead.

I needed to see him. Just for a minute. Just to remind myself why I was still breathing in this house.

The master bedroom door was half open.

I shouldn’t have looked.

I should have kept walking.

But the soft, rhythmic sounds coming from inside stopped me cold.

I pushed the door wider with my bandaged hand.

Arthur had Toria bent over the edge of the massive bed—the same bed I had slept in alone for three years. Her red hair spilled across the black sheets. His shirt was open, trousers shoved down just enough. One of his hands was fisted in her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave marks. He was driving into her with deep, unhurried strokes, the kind of deliberate rhythm that said he had all the time in the world and no reason to rush.

Toria’s moans were loud. Theatrical. Exactly the kind of sounds meant to carry. Exactly the kind of sounds to catch my attention because that was what she wanted.

My stomach turned so violently I had to press a bandaged hand to my mouth.

Arthur’s head lifted. His eyes met mine over her shoulder. There was no surprise. No shame. Only a slow, cold satisfaction that settled into his expression like it belonged there.

He didn’t stop moving.

“Don’t just stand there,” he said, voice rough with exertion but perfectly controlled. “Come in.”

I took a step back.

His eyes hardened.

“Guards.”

Two men appeared behind me so quickly they must have been waiting in the hall. One of them gripped my upper arm—careful of the bandages, but firm enough that I couldn’t pull away. The other stepped past me and closed the double doors with a heavy click. The lock turned.

Arthur’s gaze never left mine.

“You’re going to watch,” he said. “Every second of it. Maybe then you’ll finally understand your place in this house and keep off restricted places.”

Toria turned her head just enough to look at me. Her lips were swollen, her eyes bright with triumph even as she moaned again when Arthur thrust particularly hard. She didn’t look away. She wanted me to see. She wanted me to know exactly what he gave her and what he had never once given me.

“Arthur—” My voice cracked. “Please… don’t do this.”

He smiled. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen on his handsome face.

“You walked in. You stay until I’m finished.”

He pulled almost all the way out of her, then slammed back in hard enough to make her cry out. His eyes stayed locked on mine the entire time. Every thrust was deliberate. Every low sound he made was for me. He wanted me to hear how much he enjoyed her. He wanted me to watch the way his hands moved over her body, her breasts and her hips like she was something precious instead of the woman who had helped destroy me.

I tried to look away.

“Eyes on us,” Arthur ordered sharply. “Or I’ll have them hold your head.”

The guard’s fingers tightened on my arm in warning.

I forced myself to look.

Toria’s nails dug into the sheets. Arthur’s jaw was tight with pleasure, dark hair falling over his forehead, the same face I had once been stupid enough to hope might one day soften for me. He leaned down and bit the side of her neck, never breaking eye contact with me, and Toria’s moan turned into a broken little sob of pure satisfaction.

My stomach heaved.

I clamped both bandaged hands over my mouth, but it was too late. The bile rose fast and hot. I doubled over and vomited onto the expensive Persian rug, the violent retching pulling at every burn on my body until black spots danced at the edges of my vision.

Arthur didn’t stop.

He f****d her through the sound of me being sick, through the wet, humiliating noises leaving my throat, through the way my legs threatened to give out. Only when Toria shuddered and cried out his name did he finally still, buried deep inside her, breathing hard, eyes still fixed on me like I was part of the entertainment.

Silence stretched.

I stayed bent over, spit and bile dripping from my lips onto the ruined rug, the bandages on my hands now damp and sticking to my skin. My entire body trembled.

Arthur pulled out of her slowly. He didn’t bother covering himself right away. He simply looked at me—at the vomit, at the tears I hadn’t realized were streaming down my face, at the pathetic, bandaged mess of his wife—and something like mild disgust flickered across his features.

“Clean that up,” he said to the guards. Then, to me, voice almost bored, “Get out. And next time you decide to wander into rooms that don’t belong to you, remember what happens.”

The lock turned. The doors opened.

I stumbled into the hallway on unsteady legs, the taste of vomit still thick in my mouth, the image of them burned behind my eyes so clearly I knew I would see it every time I closed them for the rest of my life.

Somewhere down the corridor, a small voice called out.

“Mama?”

Leo.

I wiped my mouth with the back of a bandaged hand, forced my spine straight even though every movement hurt, and turned toward the sound of my son.

Because if I didn’t… if I let myself collapse right there in the hallway… they would win completely.

And I was no longer sure how much of myself I had left to lose.