Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (30 page)

“A few days.” She kneeled next to me and
brushed my hair out of my face. “You?”

“Your whole life. It’s a long story. I’ll
tell you when you wake up.” I wasn’t tired until she’d said that.
She kissed my forehead, and my eyes closed. “That’s it. Don’t fight
it, love. Just sleep.”

I stretched my dead arms and legs in the
softest bed I’d ever been in. I opened my eyes in an unfamiliar
room. Everything was pure white or crystal. Expensive and
modern.

My head was pounding, so the crying and the
breakup hadn’t been a nightmare. It least I wasn’t suicidal.
Yet.

I would’ve burst into tears again if the
pillows didn’t smell so wonderful. Like oranges. Like peace.

“Sophia?” I said, when I stopped sniffing,
convinced I was imagining the scent because I needed it so
badly.

The double doors of the bedroom opened, and
Sophia poked her head in. “You’re finally awake?”

“Finally?”

She came in and pulled the covers back.
“You've been out a while. It's Sunday, the 4th. It’s almost three
in the evening.” That would explain why my body was so heavy.

“Where are we?” I asked. “California?”

“Paris, dear.”

She reached for my hand to help me out of
the high bed. Once down, I ran to the window to see Paris. It
didn’t disappoint. We must have been high up. My view was of
rooftops and the heart of the city, like photos from World
Geography of the touristy part of Paris. Or maybe all of Paris was
picture perfect like this.

“Why are we here?” Sophia closed the curtain
and took my hand. She led me to an all white bathroom and started
the shower.

“We’ll talk about everything when you get
out,” she said and smiled, relaxed and back to her normal self.
Maybe because I wasn’t groping and getting groped by a shifter.

Ouch. It hurt to think of him. Like knife in
my chest, hurt.

She walked out, leaving the door open. I
undressed anyway. I had to adjust the water in the shower. It was
way too hot. In the process, I wet my hair. I decided to wash it
since I’d drenched half of it.

I grabbed the clear bottle on the ledge,
guessing it was shampoo. It only took a drop for it to wrap me up
completely. It was, hands down, the most wonderful thing I’d ever
smelled. Better than Nathan. And it didn’t hurt to think of him
anymore. Nothing was wrong now, and I had the strangest urge to
curl up and sleep. It was ten times more potent than any orange I’d
ever smelled. Like oranges only mimic this scent.

I forgot to rush so Sophia could explain
everything. I took my time, lathering the shampoo everywhere – in
my hair and all over.

“Sophia?”

“Yes?” she said, in the bathroom, closer
than I expected her to be. But I didn’t jump. I was too calm to
jump.

“Did you make this shampoo? Like with a
spell?”

“No, love. But if you like it, I can get you
some.”

“Please.”

She reached a towel through the curtain. I
reluctantly took it and shut the water off. She turned away from
me, and I slipped on the black panties and bra she had waiting on
the counter. She wrapped my hair in the towel and shook my head
fast and in crazy directions. We laughed for a moment like my world
hadn’t ended and she hadn’t been lying to me for days.

Sophia tapped the arm of a chair pushed up
to the mirror. I smiled when I realized she was about to comb my
hair. “I’m sorry about Nathan,” she said, parting down half and
clipping up the other. “I found him a few miles away from the
house. He’s with Emma and Paul at my place. Don’t worry.”

“He hates me.”

“He’s a boy. The male species reacts
incorrectly ninety-nine percent of the time. He’ll realize it, and
you’ll have to decide if you want to forgive him or not. Though … I
think I know what you will choose.” She reached in the cabinet and
pulled out hairspray. This apartment or hotel was very stocked.
“I’m sorry about what I said about you not dating him. I’m partly
to blame for his mood. I had no right saying that.”

“I get why you did. No Contact, right?”

She nodded as she very gently combed through
my curls with more skill than I had.

“I wouldn’t worry about that either. I was
just a little wound up at the time.” A little? That was the biggest
understatement of the year. “I’m glad you called me about Remi. I
know you could’ve handled it yourself, but it was very wise of you
not to.” She chuckled unexpectedly. “You pack a lot of power in
this little body of yours.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

Our eyes met in the mirror, and she looked
away a moment later. She sprayed more of the hairspray that I
wished smelled like the shampoo.

“I wanted to take things slowly. I didn’t
want to take you from school, tell you about your inheritance, and
reveal that you were wrong about your powers all in the same night.
So, I lied and got the kids for you, but it wasn’t something they
should know. And I didn’t want you to have to hide anything.”

It sounded very orchestrated when she put it
like that. She’d made it seem like they’d needed a place to stay
before. Now, it sounded like they were there to keep me
company.

“You know … of all the humans like yourself
I’ve known, you are by far the kindest,” she said. The comb snagged
in my hair. She apologized with a kiss on my cheek. She pulled back
to my ear and whispered, “Nothing like your mother at your
age.”

I turned around in the chair, and she
smiled. Immediately, I saw what I should’ve seen the moment I’d
read it in the diary. Sophia was the maid Catherine hated. She
turned my shoulders, making me face the mirror, and continued
combing through my hair.

“That word Nathan called you, copy, you are
not one, love. I can guarantee it. She was nothing like you. She
was rude and spoiled. She made sure I knew how rich she was in the
first five minutes of knowing her. In the first five minutes of
knowing
you
, you gave me ten thousand dollars.” She was
smiling at my hair when I looked up. “And you let me kiss you and
hug you. Your mother and I didn’t get along at all. She was fifteen
going on sixty and … she was my boss. I couldn’t believe I had to
answer to her, and that she got more respect from the agent I
worked for than I ever would.”

She unclipped the top half of my hair and
sectioned it off as well. She got to work on the left side, and I
decided to let her talk without interrupting with questions.

“I’ve worked for agents for over forty
years. Cleaning, assisting, whatever they ask of me. They pay
extraordinarily well. Especially these days.”

I turned around, and she smiled again. The
job she went to every day was with agents? Wow.

“For years, I loved my job,
until
I
met your mother. She used to spill juice on the carpet while I
watched her. Knock things over just to order me to pick it up.” She
laughed again, and I chuckled. CC was still as annoying. “Anything
to get a rise out of me.” She sighed, and the smile drained from
her face. “But she grew up eventually and disappeared.”

“With my dad,” I said. She nodded. “Why did
you say you didn’t know them?”

“I didn’t know your dad. I saw him once, but
I never met him. But I did lie about knowing your mother, and I’m
sorry. That first night, you were too fragile to hear that you
weren’t a witch, and I couldn’t even begin to fathom how you’d take
learning about copies and breeding. I lied to protect you. How did
you even hear about it? The kids?”

“I tested my blood,” I whispered. “Nathan
told me the rest.” She bent down and kissed the top of my head,
shaking hers like she knew how much distress that had caused
me.

She worked through the last section of my
hair. She opened a drawer and pulled out a tin of hairpins. “Life
is sometimes very complicated, Christine. And for some of us, it’s
down right bizarre.” She pinned my hair back in a sophisticated
bun. She’d missed some strands in the back, but it worked with the
hairstyle. “I’m sorry I’ve told you so many lies. About your
powers. Your parents.”

While I stared at her, her eyes watered. She
went to the open door of the bathroom and pushed it closed. My
heart sped. She was being incredibly creepy. A red dress hung from
the hook on the back of the door. She unzipped it and held it open
for me to step into. It came just above my knees and all the way up
to my neck. It was sleeveless and sophisticated and way too dressy
to wear in a house. Then there were the shoes. Black pumps with red
soles. She knelled down and put each one on slowly.

She rose with a strand of pearls in her
hand. She clasped them around my neck and kissed my cheek
again.

“Sophia, what’s wrong? Where are we going?
What are we doing in Paris?”

“You look beautiful,” she said, ignoring
me.

She walked me out of the bathroom and
through the room I’d been asleep in. I noticed the bed was
made.

The rest of the, wherever we were, was just
as nice. Fancier than my house, but smaller. An apartment for sure.
I didn’t think they made hotel rooms this big. Or maybe they did in
Paris. The sleek and modern design stretched into the living room
with sparkly lamps, a thinner than air television, and a long white
sofa.

We stopped at another set of double doors.
She took my face in both of her hands and smiled.

“Just breathe,” she said. “You’ll get
through this if you just breathe.”

“Sophia, you are freaking me out. What are
we doing?”

She straightened the pearls on my neck and
tinkered with my bun. “Meeting someone important.” She turned me to
the door and opened it. She rubbed my back for a second, then her
hand lifted. I looked behind me. She was gone.

I stepped into the dining room slowly. I
wasn’t alone. A person, a woman, with long blonde hair was standing
at a window with her back to me. She was thin and had on a
sleeveless black dress. The backs of her arms were well defined. I
was immediately afraid.

She turned around, and my heart stopped. I
couldn’t run, or scream, or bow like I was supposed to. Lydia Shaw
was even more frightening in person.

She smiled and waved, and tears fell from my
eyes. “It’s okay. Don’t cry,” she said. “Can we make a deal? I
won’t listen to your thoughts if you don’t listen to mine.”

I nodded, admitting to her that I wasn’t the
innocent girl from the news. But she knew that already. Lydia Shaw
knew
things like I did. Maybe she’d known this whole time
and had Sophia deliver me to her.

“Do you know Sophia?” I asked, my voice as
weak as I felt.

“Yes.”

“Does she work for you?”

“Yes.”

My throat closed. My heart pumped so
violently that I thought I’d pass out. “I can prove that I’m not
dangerous. Too dangerous to exist.”

She stepped closer in fancy black pumps,
like the ones on my feet. I closed my eyes. I wanted Nathan’s face
to be the last thing I saw.

“I don’t think you’re dangerous,” she said.
“I wanted to have a nice dinner with you. To meet you and ease your
mind about my agents and hunters. Sophia told me you were very
worried about me.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” I opened my
eyes slowly. She smiled and shook her head. Her stare sent a chill
up my spine. She looked fascinated by me. Looking down at my nice
dress, I broke. I remembered my mother’s story of being auctioned
off by Julian. I wasn’t in skimpy clothes, but Sophia primped and
groomed me for her. I was her prized possession. A thing. And
things can be sold.

Sophia’s betrayal burned. So did the thought
of being treated like an animal and being forced to sleep with
someone I wouldn’t know. If I were to sleep with anyone, it would
be Nathan Reece, even though the idea of that would make him vomit
now. Regardless, he would be my choice, and like my mother before
me, I
would
choose. I’d make sure I got the chance to.

I opened my hands and pulled two knives from
her fancy place settings into them.

“Christine, give me those. Everything is
okay,” she said.

“I’m not for sale. I won’t be bred!”

“Bred?” she asked, looking confused. “No one
is selling you.” Her face was concerned now. It was hard, even in
terror, not to notice how pretty she was. “Did someone threaten to
buy you?”

She came closer, and I raised the knives.
Then I noticed how incredibly nonthreatening they must’ve seemed to
her.

“I don’t care who you are. My mother didn’t
let it happen and neither will I.”

I felt weak and defeated as she pulled the
knives from my hand. “How do you know about that?” she
whispered.

“My mother, CC, told me. She showed me her
diary.”

She looked shocked and scared. Not like she
wanted to buy me or hurt me at all. Her honey colored eyes filled
with tears. I shivered. There was something familiar about her eyes
this way, watery, but certainly she’d never cried on the news or
anything I’d seen.

“You’ve been talking to a woman named CC?”
Her voice cracked, and I nodded.

“Okay … honey,” she said. Honey? “We need to
talk about her.”

“You knew her?” I asked.

She wiped her eyes and whispered, “Yes.” I
hadn’t thought about my mother having friends. It didn’t seem like
she would. Lydia could be an acquaintance of hers from her training
days, but most acquaintances probably don’t tear up at the mention
of a name.

“The woman you’ve been talking to is not
your mother,” she whispered. I had to strain to hear her, and it
took me a moment to register what she’d said. I didn’t know if I
believed her or not. I didn’t know if I wanted it to be true or not
either.

“She … is. She … has to be,” I said, hanging
on to CC for some unknown reason. She wasn’t very nice. She didn’t
say she loved me. But it was terrifying to think I’d been talking
to a ghost that had been lying to me. Even more terrifying to think
none of that had really happened and was a part of a psychotic
break. “She
has
to be,” I said, hanging on to my sanity
now.