Read Online The Haunted (Sleeping with Monsters Book 1) by Cassie Alexander - Free Book Online

good
husband, or father, but he did have a lot of funds. Private schools weren’t
cheap, and neither were ivy league colleges.
    If
she could manage to lead Richard on, to make him think they were happy, at
least until she got pregnant…then things might be okay, mightn’t they? There
was no way he’d stay home, he’d go away again on a business trip, philandering
– and when he was gone, she would have the baby and the ghost. The best of all
possible worlds, right?
    She
stroked the curve of her ass, watching her hand in the mirror. Yes. If she could
keep her wits about her, it just might be possible to juggle it all.
     
    She
unpacked with a vengeance that day, no flouncing or posing. She wanted Richard
to feel bad when he got home, when he saw how much she’d done, toiling away
without him. Arthur brought up boxes and they shoved furniture around as a
team, until all the bedrooms on her wing were done. She’d already picked out
one of them to be her nursery – all they had to do was get one of the dressers
the locusts had left behind out the door.
    It
was heavy wood, an ancient piece, she could understand why the locusts had left
it behind. It was far too grim for a nursery though – it had to be moved.
    “Let’s
put our backs into it, Arthur –“
    “Ma’am,
my back may not have much more left to give!” Arthur said with a laugh.
    But
the felt beneath the dresser’s feet suddenly glided across the floor and they
slid it out the door and down the hall to the spare room Daphne was using to
hide all the furniture she didn’t want or need.
    They
both walked back up the hall slowly, hands to backs, congratulating each other
on a job well done, returning to the newly empty room. The walls were the wrong
color – mint green, whereas she’d want pink or blue, child depending – but the
windows were shaded by tall trees outside, letting in the perfect amount of
light.
    Her
eyes scanned the room, imagining her future life, when she lit on a dusty photo
tilted against the wall where the dresser had been. She walked over and picked
it up.
    It
was of a woman holding up a trophy in front of a giant black horse.
    “Who’s
this?”
    Arthur
came over to look over her shoulder. “I believe that was one of the prior
tenant’s children.”
    Children?
She wasn’t a child. Daphne squinted, and saw it, the innocence around the eyes
– but the curves of her body, shown off by the tight breeches and top she wore,
were all woman.
    “She’s
beautiful.”
    “Indeed.
It was a shame.”
    She
turned towards him, a question in her eyes.
    “She’s
the one that died,” he explained.
    “So
-- this was her room?”
    “I
believe so.”
    Daphne
frowned. This house was only big enough for one ghost. “I think we’ll have to
move the nursery down the hall.”
    Arthur
nodded. “A wise decision, Ma’am.”
     
    She
waited until the alarm chirped that night, and addressed the ghost directly,
knowing he had to hear.
    “My
husband’s coming home tomorrow. You can’t do – that – again,” she told thin
air. Was he in the room, hovering in quiet disapproval? Or was she only
projecting her own disappointment out? “I’m sorry. I – “ she licked her lips,
scared to say the words aloud, especially when the ghost could never say them
back.
    A
warm finger touched the cool space of her arm. Forgiveness? She turned towards
him. “I really do –“ She’d had all day to think on it when she’d been alone, in
between unpacking things. It was so scary to say things out loud, to say what
she needed – her whole life she’d been conditioned to never ask for what she
wanted, always praying that somehow she’d be good enough for it to just fall in
her lap.
    But
because he was silent, she felt the need to fill the space up between them with
words – and because he couldn’t talk back, talking felt safe. He would never
tell a soul the way she’d writhed against him, trying to get away from him
while secretly wanting more, to