"Yeah, Marley has some bug up her butt, as usual. She said the most awful things to me."
Marley turned back to her packing, figuring Alex already knew what she was doing, and she wasn't about to stand there and argue in a circle with her sister. They would just have to patch things up later, when Marley was gone from this place, when Alex ditched Lizzie and she wanted her big sister again, like she always did. Marley would be there, of course, like she always was.
Alex's offer to her was a false one, and she couldn't accept it, no matter what the consequences. Damien wouldn't want her to, and freeing Lizzie from Alex still wouldn't fix what was wrong with her. And no matter how pretty it was in pictures, Marley didn't want a life, that was based on falsehoods, weakness, the seduction of sin.
I sensed you had an answer ready for me, Marley heard Alex say. She whipped around and stared at him. He was letting Lizzie kiss along his shoulder, bump her hips against him. Lizzie gave no appearance that she'd heard him speak.
So your packing is your answer? You're leaving, refusing my offer? His lips weren't moving. But she could hear his voice, clear and hypnotic, in her head.
Marley shivered. She wet her lips with her tongue and nodded. "I can't. I won't."
You're certain ? Absolutely certain ? Not even for Damien and Lizzie ?
"No." Down that path lay destruction for all of them.
"I'm sorry you're leaving," he said out loud. "We were just getting to know each other so well."
Lizzie pulled her head back and looked at him, instantly suspicious. "What does that mean? You've never even said two words to Marley."
"Actually we might have said more than two words when we were f**king in the guest house a little while ago."
Marley felt the blood drain from her face. So this was her punishment for refusing him. "Lizzie, he's lying, we didn't…"
But Lizzie was already weeping, big wet tears. "Alex? Tell me you didn't."
"I didn't think you'd mind," he said, all honest astonishment. "We have an open relationship. And Marley was so tempting. She came to me, in tears, with an adorable pouting lip, upset because Damien used her badly. I felt so sorry for her heartbreak that I thought it would be in bad taste to refuse her overtures. Besides, I enjoyed how shy she was with me. A sweet, innocent good girl is so arousing sometimes."
It was exactly the right thing to say to revive Lizzie's anger. She pushed away from Alex. "Don't sleep with my sister again, Alex. I'm serious."
"Since when do you give orders in this relationship? If I want a sister act, you'll do it." He grabbed her elbow when she would have stomped away from him. "But truthfully, I'd rather have Marley alone. She intrigues me, the way she was such a quiet, shy lover, yet so quick to come."
Marley gasped, a sick feeling spreading in her gut.
"But… but I thought you loved me." Lizzie's voice sounded whiny, pleading. "I thought we were getting married."
"Elizabeth, there are girls you marry and girls you don't. You're fun, but Marley is the kind of woman a man wants to marry, not you."
Marley closed her eyes, He was so very good at this.
Lizzie let out a little gasp. Then she turned to Marley and said, "Don't you ever speak to me again. I despise you. And don't go near my son, either."
She ran out of the room, hands covering her face, her nakedness never a concern.
Marley looked at Alex, resigned, tears in her eyes. She had done the right thing, but she had just lost her sister, completely and forever.
Alex smiled and gave her a shrug. "I'm sorry, my dear, but for every action there is a reaction. You had to know there would be consequences for your refusal."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"I'm disappointed, I must say. I was greatly anticipating my success with you."
"We don't always get what we want," she said, voice and emotions raw.
"True." His touch caressed her cheek, her lips. "Enjoy your lonely, barren life, Marley Turner."
When he left, Marley stared into her suitcase, the jeans and shirts she'd already packed blurring and shifting.
That had sounded like an ominous prediction, one she really feared was going to come true.
"Oh, thank God, there you are," Damien said from the doorway. "When you weren't in the garçonnier, I…"
Marley looked up when Damien stopped speaking.
"What are you doing? Are you alright?"
No, she wasn't, not in the least, but she was going to have to be. Marley finished stepping out of the jeans Alex had put on her and flung them into the corner of the room. "I'm as good as can be expected. I just told the demon that I will not do what he wants me to do, and in return, he told my sister I had sex with him. Lizzie hates me."
Though it seemed Lizzie had been angry with her even before Alex had lied about them. Marley was still shocked to realize that her sister had manipulated men Marley had been interested in. Obviously, she was totally stupid, just like Lizzie always said, because she had never seen that. Not once had it even occurred to her to suspect Lizzie of that kind of betrayal.
"What did he ask you to do?" Damien asked, coming into the room and closing the door behind him.
"Nothing." She blushed as she reached for her own jeans out of her suitcase. It was embarrassing the way Alex had so easily picked up on her wants and desires, and the image of Damien with that woman, with his children, played again in her head.
"What did he ask you to do?" Damien repeated, and he sounded so angry, so jealous, that she turned around, shook her head.
For the first time, she saw the traces of the Damien that Marie had known.
"What sick thing did he suggest? Tell me, Marley."
That almost made her laugh. What the demon had suggested hadn't sounded sick at all, not the way he surrounded her sexual compliance with everything she'd ever wanted. "It's not what you're thinking. He asked me to live with him, have his children."
"What?" Damien had been moving toward her, but he recoiled at her words. "And you said no, right?"
She nodded, wanting to cry, but afraid she was out of tears. There were just none left in her.
"I'm so sorry… that was meant for me, Marley. Meant to be my punishment—to have to watch you with him, as a family, having the children I want so desperately, with the woman I love." He wrapped his arms around her. "But obviously he didn't understand how strong you are. The strongest woman I've ever known."
Marley let herself lean on his chest, just one more time. Breathe in his scent, take comfort in his strength. "Even though he offered to free you if I did, I couldn't, Damien, I just couldn't. It's so vile, so wrong, what he is, and I didn't think you'd want me to give myself up for you. And no matter how enticing he tried to make it sound, what he doesn't understand is the vast difference between lust and love. He can only offer me lust. You can offer me love, and that is trump every time in my book."