Pretty Little Prey, page 11
“Leave it,” he said.
“Speaking of, how’s Mommy Dearest doing these days?” Ashleigh’s voice dripped honey, but I could sense the barbs in her words even if I didn’t understand them. “I think it’s probably time for another trip away, isn’t it?”
That one landed. Dillon sat up, moving in slow, controlled movements, and I could see the sourness cross his face even from here.
“Ash…” he said, and I was shocked to hear a note of pleading tinge his voice. It sounded completely wrong, a contradiction to his usual cocksure insouciance.
She smiled, knowing she’d won. “Let’s hope she can afford to get there.”
I was watching all of this with open interest now. There was no mistaking the threat in Ashleigh’s voice. Dillon obviously heard it, too, because he swallowed, and the sour look disappeared, wiping away clean so that he once more looked like his normal self. He stretched back out, but I didn’t miss the tightness in his muscles, even as he pretended to relax.
When Ashleigh lay back as well, I took my chance to slip away without them noticing, thinking about everything that I’d heard and what it could mean. I put the thought out of my head. Whatever games those two played had less than nothing to do with me. But I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy.
And later, in the shower, thinking back on the moment he and I had shared by the pool, my nipples tightened once more.
The next day, I felt ready to take my plan up a notch. I drove out to the store and, while doing a bit of grocery shopping, detoured to the hunting section. “Scent eliminator, bug spray, tick repellent…” I said aloud, tracing the row of sprays with my finger as I looked. “Ah-ha!” I grabbed a bottle of buck urine. “Perfect.”
Back home, I locked the door to the bathroom that led to Ashleigh’s room and carefully unscrewed her bottle of Jo Malone perfume and dumped it down the sink. Shame to waste it, but it was worth it. Using a small plastic filter I’d also picked up on my shopping trip, I opened the bottle of buck urine and poured it in, carefully capping the bottle once more and then wiping it off so she wouldn’t know it smelled until she used it.
Even just that brief moment that it had been opened, a thick, musky scent took over the air in the bathroom. I stifled a laugh and sprayed some air freshener, flipping on the fan and then turning to my next prank.
This one was going to make my life a little inconvenient until she discovered it, so hopefully, she’d use the toilet as soon as she woke up. I lifted the heavy tank lid and set it aside, grabbing the plastic refill tube inside and laying it flat across the rim of the tank. I slid a metal straw inside the rubber tube so that it wouldn’t pinch closed under the weight of the tank lid and then replaced the lid.
I thought about testing it but figured it wasn’t worth it. If it didn’t work, I’d try again, but I’d rather not drench myself in toilet water. I grinned at the thought and then slipped out, unlocking the door to Ashleigh’s bedroom as I went and leaving the door to the toilet open. In my room, I moved my chair next to the bathroom door after I shut it and settled in with a book.
It didn’t take long.
I had just lost myself in the story—it had been hard to relax and read these past weeks, but I was coming back to myself once more—when I heard a piercing scream sound from the bathroom.
My face lit up immediately.
I carefully set my book aside and put my ear against the door, waiting. I didn’t want to come into it too soon, after all.
I heard Dillon come running in.
“What the f—”
As he got closer, I heard the door open and the sound of water spraying everywhere, Ashleigh still shrieking inside.
“Make it stop!” she screamed. “It’s all over me!”
I couldn’t resist the temptation to view my handiwork any longer. I forced my smile away and stepped through the door. The sight was even better than I’d hoped for.
Ashleigh, dressed in her pajamas with dots of zit cream on her face, was cowering against the far wall of the bathroom as the plastic tube slapped back and forth, trying in vain to fill the toilet tank. She was absolutely soaked through, her panties around her ankles still, and it was hard as hell to hold back my laugh.
Dillon snagged the tube and shoved it back inside the tank. Silence fell suddenly without the sound of the water spraying and Ashleigh shrieking.
“What happened?” I asked, all innocence.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ashleigh snapped, shoving past me and into her room, slamming the door shut as she went.
“How the hell?” Dillon murmured, looking into the tank. It had filled back up now and sat quiet and still as if it had just been doing its job all along.
He picked up the rubber tube, his brow furrowing as he felt the straw inside of it. He peered in and pulled it out, looking down at it for a moment.
Then he lifted his head and looked at me. “You did this.”
I shrugged, leaning back against the door. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He lifted the straw. “So this just happened to show up and set itself up just right for Ashleigh to use?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, turning to go.
His hand on my arm stopped me. “I’ll give you this one. It’s pretty good payback for the hair. But don’t try it again.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked archly.
He didn’t answer, his eyes just holding me in their depths.
“If you think this is all the payback that’s coming, you’re in for a surprise,” I said.
“I mean it, Emma. Don’t make me tell Ashleigh what you’re doing. It won’t go well for you. You know it won’t.”
“Oh, so Dillon James is suddenly worried about me?” I scoffed, but to my surprise, he didn’t deny it, his hand hot on my arm. The tension between us was zinging, thick and strong, and I suddenly found myself wondering what his lips would feel like.
The door banging open startled us both apart. Ashleigh swanned through, wearing just a towel tied tight around her, her hair up in a terrycloth headband, chin held high.
She shot a look at me. “Stop being gross and clogging the toilet. It’s bad enough to live with you; I don’t need to be attacked because of your nastiness.”
She was into the room with the shower with the door shut before I could respond. I gaped after her. Did she really think that was how clogging worked? I exchanged a glance with Dillon, whose face made me snort.
“Dillon!” she called out. “Join me?”
I rolled my eyes and went back into my room, careful to lock my door. I was counting that as my first successful prank. I couldn’t wait for Ashleigh to use her new perfume.
14
As much as I wanted to continue working through my list of prank ideas on Ashleigh—I had a number of new ideas now that I knew she had no clue how basic plumbing worked)—I knew it would be foolish not to take Dillon’s warning to heart.
If Ashleigh found out that it was me who had drenched her in toilet water… the consequences were not even worth thinking about. She’d probably make my haircut seem like a friendly little sisterly bonding moment.
I’d gotten to see her, zit cream spotted and drenched in toilet water—and so had Dillon, which was an added bonus—and she’d get an interesting surprise when she used her perfume. I was also no longer creeping around the house like some sort of unwanted houseguest/maid.
That was good enough for now. I didn’t need to escalate it. I’d been researching bullies and behaviors and how to respond to them, and often, when the victim began to stand up for themselves and became a harder target, the bullies backed off. She’d done far more to me, but at least now, I no longer felt like a dog rolling over and showing its belly. I had fought back; I had stood up for myself. I was cautiously hopeful.
Monday night’s family dinner, our togetherness mandated by Dad, seemed to prove that theory right. It was the quietest dinner the three of us had had together so far, polite even. There were no scalding looks, no barbed remarks, no drama whatsoever.
I was clearing the plates when Lucille invited me to take tea with her the following day.
I stopped, hands full of dirty dishes, and tried not to gape at her. “Take… tea?”
“Yes, dear. Tea. Surely you’ve heard of it?” Lucille’s words were as sharp as always, but she was smiling. Well, a little bit.
“Oh, well… yes, all right,” I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. It wasn’t like we wouldn’t have plenty of opportunities to make it happen even if I could get out of tomorrow. Besides, I was curious.
“Two o’clock, then,” she said, pushing back from the table. “I shall prepare the tea, so you can simply show up. We’ll take it on my balcony in the master suite.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a response. Ashleigh was sitting primly, not smirking or anything.
“Emma, dear, I know you are new to society, but it is considered polite to thank someone for an invitation.” She smiled. “Even if it is a rather unexpected one.”
“Thank you,” I said, clearing my throat and remembering my promise to stand tall. “I look forward to it.”
She nodded and headed upstairs, followed by Ashleigh, who didn’t even shoot a nasty look at me once her mother’s back was turned.
Could things be changing around here?
I tried on three different outfits as I prepared for my afternoon tea with Lucille before finally settling on a knee-length skirt and a cardigan over a white T-shirt. Not wanting to be late, I found myself loitering outside her door at 1:57. I dithered, not sure what to do with myself, but she must have seen me right away.
“Entrez, dear,” I heard from inside the room, and so I did.
I had decided to treat this like a proper social call and had run to the bakery this morning to purchase a box of jewel-colored macarons, which I gripped in front of me like an offering as I entered.
I’d been in this room every day this week, making the bed and cleaning the room itself and the bathroom, but this felt entirely different.
Lucille was sitting at the balcony table—making it even more curious that she’d known precisely when I walked up—but stood to greet me. The consummate hostess, she air-kissed both of my cheeks, exclaimed over the macarons, and gestured for me to sit before pouring me a steaming cup of lavender tea.
Contrary to Lucille’s belief, I was not, in fact, a feral animal and had fairly good manners. My mother had been raised in the South as well, after all, and had passed on her lessons to me, same as Lucille. She’d never been able to see them because every moment with her felt like being on guard against an attack, but I knew Lucille well enough to know that if she had chosen to invite me for tea, she would be nothing but a welcoming hostess.
I praised the tea and the table decor, she praised my macarons, we exchanged pleasantries on the weather, and then it was finally time to figure out why on earth I was here.
“I’m sure you are wondering what this is about,” she said, placing her teacup on her saucer and dabbing her lips with a cloth napkin.
“I’m simply happy to be invited to have tea with you,” I said, smiling.
“Hmm,” she said. “And where has this polite guest been? I am beginning to see quite a bit of potential in you, Emma.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just took a sip of the tea. The lavender had been an excellent choice—it soothed my nerves and made me feel more comfortable. These were the small touches that Lucille was known for and why she was a renowned hostess in her social circle.
“That is why I have asked you here today, in fact. You and I have been placed at opposite ends of the playing field for a very long time. Perhaps it is time that we remedy that and work together toward a more similar purpose.”
I tried to parse that but found myself stuck on the very passive way she made the situation seem—rather than her own very deliberate placement of us on the two ends of the “playing field.”
“I’m being rather cryptic, aren’t I?” She smiled and placed her napkin to the side of her teacup, folding her hands in her lap and leaning forward. “I want to help you, Emma.”
“Help me with what?”
She laughed, a little tinkling sound that was nothing but pure charm. “I think the proper question would be more what you do not need help with, darling girl.” She took my hand across the table. “I mean this kindly, but surely you see that you have not fit in here, with these people, for a reason?”
I cleared my throat and decided to be as diplomatic as possible. The last thing that I wanted was to be the one who destroyed the civility of this meeting. “All due respect, Lucille, and I do not mean this rudely, but I feel that Ashleigh’s treatment of me is why I do not fit in.”
Her smile did not dim. “Of course, you have a point there. My daughter has been difficult. Even I, who loves her more than anything or anyone on this earth, can see that. But…” she raised a be-jeweled finger, “you do yourself a disservice if you do not take any responsibility for this situation.
“Emma, you have been a walking, shining target since the day you showed up. You are weak, dear, and I do not mean that cruelly. The stutter, the posture, the shrinking, the fear…” She sighed and shook her head, long blond hair moving in perfect synchronicity around her face.
Oddly enough, I was not at all offended by her words. I saw the truth in them. Even more, I wanted to hear what else she had to say. I was once more under the Lucille spell that was so unique to her.
“But I can help you change all of that.”
I frowned. “How?”
“Why, it would not take much. You have the potential, as I said before. Look at you, now, for example.” She pulled a slim leather case and put on a pair of square glasses, looking at me carefully through them once they were on. “You have already learned a lesson that my daughter has not quite worked out, that sometimes less is more,” she raised her brows at my skirt length and cardigan. “You have the looks, buried beneath everything else, that could be brought out. I see the change in you just from one haircut from Anya!”
I raised a hand to my hair. It had made a big difference. I never would have gone for this kind of cut, but I had to admit, I loved it. I’d even noticed some appreciative glances from guys when I was in town, shopping.
“You are smart, and that will go a long way toward your future. My poor, dear Ashleigh will need to marry high in order to continue living the lifestyle she is accustomed to, but you, you could make yourself a life of luxury.”
I could feel her words weaving a golden circle around me, drawing me in. I wouldn’t have interrupted her right then, not for anything.
She took off her glasses, folding them with care and replacing them in their case, then leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You, Emma, could be beautiful. You could be popular. You could be a celebrated part of our social circle. You could belong.”
I found myself leaning toward her, subconsciously, desperate to know more.
“I see you today and wonder what you could have been, had you had a proper mother.”
With that, the spell was broken. Like a pair of scissors had snapped the web Lucille had been weaving, I felt myself come awake and remember who, exactly, I was talking to.
Lucille continued on, unaware of the mistake she had made. “I could be the mother you never had. I could teach you the things you need to know in order to be a part of this world. You never had anyone to teach you, but that doesn’t mean you should be penalized for it.”
Repulsion welled in me at these words. She may think she knew my mother because of their history, but they hadn’t seen each other or exchanged a single word since about nine months before I was born. She was ignorant; she had no idea at all what she was talking about.
“Listen, Ashleigh and I are hosting a party this Friday evening. The afternoon will be a more civilized adult event, and in the evening, we shall all depart and allow the kids to let loose and have a bit of fun,” she smiled indulgently. “With my help, this party could be the first event of the rest of your life. You could show them all, arrive looking like they had never seen you, act in such a way they wonder where timid little Emmy went. With my help, you could make a grand entrance and show yourself as a force to be reckoned with.”
As angry as her words about my mother had made me, I was tempted to take her up on this second part. I knew she could help me. Look at how strict she was with Ashleigh. Ashleigh may show a lot of skin, but she also had always known precisely how to dress in every situation. She never stuttered, looked unsure of herself—unless she was around her mother—or let anyone see her sweat.
“You are likely soon to come into a great deal of money, Emma. Money that you have no idea how to spend. Let me help you. I can show you where and how to spend your money. Not from the family account, of course,” she laughed again, but this time the tinkling sound wasn’t quite so charming. “But I can certainly aid you in spending your money.”
I felt cold on the inside. It had taken me this whole conversation to parse Lucille’s true intent, and there it was. This conversation was more or less what the initial one between us had been—all about money.
I forced a smile. “I will take what you have said into consideration, Lucille. Thank you for your offer.”
She looked surprised but hid it as she poured herself another cup of tea. “Of course, Emma. You are my stepdaughter, after all. The least I can do is offer to mother you.”
We finished the tea with some more gentle, meaningless pleasantries, and then I excused myself. She had given me a lot to think about, especially when it came to this party they were apparently throwing on Friday.
I wasn’t planning on attending, but on Wednesday morning, a polite knock on the door shocked me when I opened it to reveal Ashleigh.
“Uh. Hey,” I said.
“Hi.” She didn’t smile, but she wasn’t actively glaring at me either. “Mummy and I are having a party on Friday, here, at the house. You’re invited.”
