Read Online The Wedding of Molly O'Flaherty by Sierra Simone - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sierra Simone
Ads: Link
in Amsterdam one year. Tonight, hundreds of people danced, drank, and flirted, all of them coming to the front to greet Hugh and me.
I have so many friends , I realized with a sense of sadness. For so long, I’d kept myself apart—burdened by my secrets, consumed by my business. Coming out to play whenever I needed a distraction. And all along, these people had grown attached to me, fond of me, even though I’d been distant and frequently dismissive. Possibly even cruel.
All of these friends, all of this carefree joy and lighthearted laughter as they drank and ate (at my expense, but that was easily forgiven)—would it all vanish once I was legally under Hugh’s thumb?
Unlike me, my future husband was untroubled by any sort of introspection or epiphany. He laughed along with the guests, handsome, ruddy, and blond, a picture of Saxon health and vitality. He shook hands and he kissed hands. He bowed to women and he embraced men.
Unlike me, he had nothing but a happy future ahead. A rich wife, an infusion of money, and nothing else about his life would have to change.
It took everything I had not to push him away whenever he drew me close. Especially when that woman Mercy Atworth sashayed up to us, her dark hair glistening and her neckline low. Mercy had been the woman to drive Silas and me apart last year—and almost again last month—and while I tried to remember that it wasn’t necessarily any fault of her own, since I had never laid public stake to Silas and Silas was by far the guiltier party when it came to both of those incidents, it was hard not to hate her. Her and her easy beauty and her lush sexuality.
We’d been friends once. More than friends; I knew what her nipples felt like hardening against my tongue. I knew what sounds she made when she came around my fingers. But that was a lifetime ago, in another world, with another Molly. Now I kept my posture stiff and restrained as she curtsied to us both. And then Hugh pulled her in to kiss her cheeks, both kisses landing at the edge of her curved, full mouth.
There was something about their familiarity that scratched at me—it wasn’t jealousy, not at all, although if Silas had touched her that way, I would have dug my fingers into her eyes until I touched her brain.
No, it was more like the realization that the two of them were closer than I’d really understood. Close like the closest friends, sensual like the most passionate lovers.
It struck me that the way they stood right now, hands clasped, bodies tilted toward one another’s like twin plants arcing toward the same sunbeam, was a lot like how Silas and I were around one another.
Were Hugh and Mercy… in love?
This didn’t upset me. This didn’t even change my perception that Hugh was genuinely fond of me, in a romantic way. I knew better than most people that you could believe yourself in love with one person while you were actually deeply and subconsciously in love with another.
I turned this new angle on their friendship over in my mind as she chattered with Hugh. I thought of how close they were, how frequently they spent time with one another. I thought of something else too. I thought of Hugh’s anxious displeasure when Silas came to town. Of the day we’d caught Silas with his cock inside Mercy’s mouth. I’d been with Hugh, lunching together in his townhouse, when he’d received a brief letter from Mercy. “She needs us to stop by,” he’d said, folding the letter and tucking it into his jacket. And I’d agreed to go, not needing to be anywhere else.
So it had been no coincidence that we’d walked in to find that scene. Which made me feel marginally better about Silas’s role in that, but quite depressed about my own intelligence. How had I not seen the trap? How had I not seen how I’d been guided and manipulated—not just by Hugh and Mercy, but by Cunningham and the board? For all these months…all these years?
I snagged a glass off of a tray traveling nearby,
I have so many friends , I realized with a sense of sadness. For so long, I’d kept myself apart—burdened by my secrets, consumed by my business. Coming out to play whenever I needed a distraction. And all along, these people had grown attached to me, fond of me, even though I’d been distant and frequently dismissive. Possibly even cruel.
All of these friends, all of this carefree joy and lighthearted laughter as they drank and ate (at my expense, but that was easily forgiven)—would it all vanish once I was legally under Hugh’s thumb?
Unlike me, my future husband was untroubled by any sort of introspection or epiphany. He laughed along with the guests, handsome, ruddy, and blond, a picture of Saxon health and vitality. He shook hands and he kissed hands. He bowed to women and he embraced men.
Unlike me, he had nothing but a happy future ahead. A rich wife, an infusion of money, and nothing else about his life would have to change.
It took everything I had not to push him away whenever he drew me close. Especially when that woman Mercy Atworth sashayed up to us, her dark hair glistening and her neckline low. Mercy had been the woman to drive Silas and me apart last year—and almost again last month—and while I tried to remember that it wasn’t necessarily any fault of her own, since I had never laid public stake to Silas and Silas was by far the guiltier party when it came to both of those incidents, it was hard not to hate her. Her and her easy beauty and her lush sexuality.
We’d been friends once. More than friends; I knew what her nipples felt like hardening against my tongue. I knew what sounds she made when she came around my fingers. But that was a lifetime ago, in another world, with another Molly. Now I kept my posture stiff and restrained as she curtsied to us both. And then Hugh pulled her in to kiss her cheeks, both kisses landing at the edge of her curved, full mouth.
There was something about their familiarity that scratched at me—it wasn’t jealousy, not at all, although if Silas had touched her that way, I would have dug my fingers into her eyes until I touched her brain.
No, it was more like the realization that the two of them were closer than I’d really understood. Close like the closest friends, sensual like the most passionate lovers.
It struck me that the way they stood right now, hands clasped, bodies tilted toward one another’s like twin plants arcing toward the same sunbeam, was a lot like how Silas and I were around one another.
Were Hugh and Mercy… in love?
This didn’t upset me. This didn’t even change my perception that Hugh was genuinely fond of me, in a romantic way. I knew better than most people that you could believe yourself in love with one person while you were actually deeply and subconsciously in love with another.
I turned this new angle on their friendship over in my mind as she chattered with Hugh. I thought of how close they were, how frequently they spent time with one another. I thought of something else too. I thought of Hugh’s anxious displeasure when Silas came to town. Of the day we’d caught Silas with his cock inside Mercy’s mouth. I’d been with Hugh, lunching together in his townhouse, when he’d received a brief letter from Mercy. “She needs us to stop by,” he’d said, folding the letter and tucking it into his jacket. And I’d agreed to go, not needing to be anywhere else.
So it had been no coincidence that we’d walked in to find that scene. Which made me feel marginally better about Silas’s role in that, but quite depressed about my own intelligence. How had I not seen the trap? How had I not seen how I’d been guided and manipulated—not just by Hugh and Mercy, but by Cunningham and the board? For all these months…all these years?
I snagged a glass off of a tray traveling nearby,
Similar Books
