Velvet Passions: 14. Proof of Obsession

Rose didn’t sleep that night.

Back in her tiny apartment, she lay staring at the ceiling, Selene’s venomous words echoing in her ears. They don’t love. They consume.

She replayed the scene in her mind until her skin prickled with heat. Selene stripping bare. His voice, cold as glass: You bore me. And then—his cutting declaration that Rose was different. That she wasn’t pretending. Had he said those words to humiliate Selene or had he meant them? 

She should have felt vindicated. Selene, the club’s queen, dismissed like a cheap trinket. Instead, Rose felt a chill, as though she’d just witnessed a lion mauling someone and then turning its golden eyes toward her.

For the first time since she’d met him, Rose wondered what exactly she had gotten herself into.

***

The next evening, she tried to steady herself with normalcy. She clocked in, did her set, plastered a smile on her lips, and forced herself to move like the other girls did—flirty, untouc