Chapter 64

I ignore Beau’s remarks, knowing he’s just trying to get me upset. “What are you doing here?”

Beau stalks closer to me, much as a shark would come nearer an injured fish in the water. He stops only a few inches away, smirking down at me.

His eyes hold fire though. He’s definitely angry.

But when aren’t the Hayes brothers angry? I nearly sigh but I don’t want to further antagonize him. Not yet, anyway.

“Since you tend to get into trouble when you go to class, my brothers and I have taken it upon ourselves to keep a closer eye on you.”

He reaches a hand up and brushes a lone finger down the side of my neck. He stops where the collar they gave me peeks out from under my shirt. There, he traces along the top of it, tickling a line across my neck.

I swallow thickly. His touch is slow and feather-light. It’s intimate, almost, like how I imagine lovers caress each other at the start of a seduction.

Like this, I can so easily see why all the girls always fall so easily into Beau’s bed.

As he watches my face, his smile turns smug. “I recognize that look in your eyes. I see it quite often. Every time I make promises to a girl about the things I can do in the dark.”

His finger lingers a moment more, pressing right up against my pulse point.

Don’t beat too hard, I command my heart, but it has never listened to me before. Why would it start now? Instead, it pulses quickly.

Beau is so close. He’s so handsome. He’s barely touching me but it’s all I can think about.

He clucks his tongue as he lets his hand drop away. “As if I would ever sleep with the help.”

Gods, I am the world’s biggest idiot. What am I thinking, letting this manwhore seduce me just to drop me flat?

“Good thing I never asked you to,” I snap back. I place my hands on his chest, intending to shove him away, but he doesn’t move even an inch.

“You will someday,” he says, confidence oozing off every word. “Someday, you will beg me for it. But I’ll have to disappoint you. You’ll be so crushed.”

His smile adds teeth, like the thought of my heartbreak pleases him. Sick asshole.

“Keep dreaming, pal.” Instead of pushing him, I shove myself away from him and start walking down the sidewalk. He quickly catches up to me, then walks faster than me, so I have to rush to keep up with him.

I wouldn’t even bother, except he says, “Tell me who that boy was.”

“None of your business,” I say.

“Everything about you is our business. You have no right to secrets.”

“I don’t remember that in the contract.”

“Maybe you didn’t read the fine print.” He says it with his usual unabashed confidence, so sure that I can’t tell if he’s lying or not.

I ultimately decide it’s for my best interest to be at least somewhat honest.

“He’s a friend.”

Beau snorts out a laugh.

“He is!” I double down.

“That boy would never want to be your friend,” Beau says, certain as anything. The absolute bastard.

“You don’t know that.”

He abruptly stops walking. I do too so I can look at him.

His smile isn’t quite as bright as before. Now, it looks sinister, a promise or a threat. “Boys like that will never treat you as an equal, Nanny.”

“Neither do you,” I snap.

“Yes, but you and I are under no false pretenses. I have never claimed to be your friend, nor will I ever be. I am your better. I have made that clear many times.”

My face reddens as my anger grows. This insufferable, shameless jerk!

“This boy will lie to your face about what you are to him. Don’t speak to him again.”

I glare. “You can’t tell me who to be friends with.”

He shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him either way. “I’ve said my peace. Now go straight to the Pyramid, Nanny. Mia needs you.” He tapped at his neck, over where the collar sat on mine. “We’ll be watching you.”

Ug, this damn tracker! I wish I could rip it off. But then the brothers probably would have me chained up in their place like some kind of animal.

Beau salutes me, then casually veers off the sidewalk. As I stand there watching, he marches straight into the waiting arms of a smiling woman and kisses her soundly on the mouth.

I roll my eyes so hard they nearly pop right out of my head.

Yet… thinking on his words, I wonder about his intention. Though he said them with such casual cruelty, what he said could almost be construed as a warning.

Something like, this boy is not who he says he is. Or, this boy is lying to you.

I wish he could have just said that though, instead of making me feel so inferior to everyone. I guess that was just Beau’s way. The only person he would uplift is himself.

Either way, the threat he gave me was very real. For him to have been able to find me so easily meant that he used the tracker. Which meant the other brothers have been using it too. Likely, someone is looking right now, waiting to see if I follow Beau’s orders and head back to the Pyramid.

What other choice do I have?

So, gathering what’s left of my dignity, I start the trek back.

Along the way, my nerves prickle. Beau likely told Archer about my meeting with Tide. Likely, the minute I walk through the door, I will be called to face him and his disapproving glare and his increasingly terrible – and arousing – punishments.

Yet when I walk in through the back entrance of the Pyramid and up to the hallway where the brother’s bedrooms are, it’s not Archer who calls me into his room for a lecture.

It’s Neil.

“Chloe. In here.”

I pause a moment, unsure. His voice sounds a bit off somehow, harder than usual. Last time he’d been like this, the brothers had just withstood their father’s verbal lashing over their leniency toward me. I can only imagine what the cause could be this time.

“I know it’s you, Chloe. I can see your tracker on my phone.”

Shit. I am really stuck now. He has Mia right now too. I can’t just ignore either of them.

I suck in a sharp breath for courage and push into the room.

Neil is standing in the center of the floor, arms crossed and his phone in one hand.

“What took you so long?” he asks, voice stern and low.

Behind him, on his easel, is a painting of a still life, made with meticulous, long strokes of the brush. The brushes are already cleaned, drying on a towel placed over an end table beside the easel.

“I was lost in thought a moment,” I say.

“Not right now. Before.”

His disappointment is palpable, though I’m not totally sure why. What does it matter if I’m a few minutes late? I’m still here, now. I haven’t run away or anything.

This feels like a test, but I don’t know the rules. I’m walking blindly into a trap.

“Didn’t Beau tell you?”

“He did. I still want to hear it from you.”

Okay. That’s weird. But if that’s what he wants, I can repeat myself just as well now. “I was talking to a friend.”

Neil’s expression does not move, but I feel the weight of the room shift somehow, like the tension just amped up in ways I can’t understand.

When Neil speaks again, it comes out low, a growl.

“Unacceptable.”