Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 408

I crossed the room. "Madam Lily. Why is she working with you?"

Scarlett straightened, and the smile she turned on me was smooth as water. "Good morning. I am a good cook. It has been a while since I used my talents, and when I saw the opportunity, I decided to make myself useful."

Madam Lily wiped her hands on her apron, her face apologetic. "I tried my best to stop her, sir, but she was determined."

"It should never happen again." I turned to Scarlett and let my voice go flat. "Your role is at my bed, not my kitchen. Is that understood?"

She held my gaze for a long moment, and something flickered in her eyes, and then she nodded. "It will not happen again. I am sorry."

She set down the plate she had been holding, wiped her hands, and headed for the stairs.

"Scarlett!"

Tasha's voice rang down from the top of the stairs, bright and eager, and Scarlett looked up, and her face changed. The polite mask, the careful smile, all of it fell away, and what was left was a wide, genuine, radiant smile, the kind a woman wears when she sees the one person in the world she loves more than anything.

The room erupted. Maya burst into tears and Jasmine threw her arms around her, and Tasha was laughing and crying at the same time, and the three of them held each other like they had just been told they would live forever. Scarlett watched Tasha with a smile of pure contentment, the same smile from the stairs, and she was the only one who did not shed a tear.

Jasmine did not try to get close to me again. She did not give me the flirtatious looks, did not arrange herself in my path, and I liked that. I liked it when someone took a hint quickly.

That night, Scarlett lay on my bed in a nightie even more revealing than the one from the night before, thin red lace that left nothing to the imagination, and I did not look at her. I had told myself I would not touch her again. I wanted to get over whatever was making me addicted to her, and the only way to do that was to starve it. It was easier tonight than I had expected. Whenever I was about to go to war, mapping out the strategy mattered more to me than anything else, more than hunger, more than sleep, more than the woman in my bed.