Ruin

by Laurelin Paige

  It didn’t help that the little boy resembled his uncle so entirely with the dark hair and deep-set blue eyes. I could imagine it then, what he must have been like as a father when his children were young. What he’d be like with a baby. What it would be like to have a baby with him. The power of those images was so startling and compelling, I almost forgot I hated him because of how badly I wanted to love him.

  They started toward us, Camilla smiling at Joette and Tom, which threw me momentarily. They were my people, not hers, but of course she’d known them first. The master upstairs was clearly the one she stayed in when she visited, a crib and play area set up in the adjoining suite. I’d just never thought about her actually being in the space that I’d come to think of as mine.

  I slunk back in the shadows as she removed her sunglasses and greeted the women, watching as they embraced and gave cheek kisses before they moved past her to help Mateo with their bags.

  Which was when she finally laid eyes on me.

  Her brows rose, clearly startled by my presence, and for half a beat I wondered if she hadn’t known I was there. What on earth had Edward told his sister about me? Surely not the truth.

  She turned to face her brother as he strode up next to her. “She’s staying in the main house? Are you kidding me?”

  Somehow I’d forgotten she disliked me.

  “Where else would I stay? I’m his wife.” She’d had plenty of time to get used to the idea. I had zero patience for her ire.

  “You’re a Werner,” she said with such disgust I could feel how sour the name felt in her mouth. “Anything else you are bears no meaning next to that.”

  So maybe disliked hadn’t been a harsh enough word. She detested me. Because of the rivalry my father had with her brother? It was beyond ridiculous.

  I shot a look at my husband who hadn’t spared me more than the first initial sweep of a glance. He didn’t return my look now either, remaining focused on his sister. “She’ll stay out of the way,” he promised, as though he had any power over that.

  My lips flattened into a thin line, my hands curling at fists at my side. Every rage he’d inspired in me over the last year was newly ignited. He’d put me on this goddamn island. It was mine now. He’d forced it on me. Like hell was I changing my routines for his sister who had the freedom to come and go as she pleased. Like hell was I going to be swept under the rug.

  But I wasn’t going to throw a fit in front of a two-year-old. Three-year-old now, likely, though I hadn’t been aware of his birthdate.

  Keeping my teeth gritted, I stalked several feet behind them. I continued to hang back as more greetings were exchanged. The staff was just as warm and casual with Camilla as they had always been with Edward, sharing private jokes and knowing what to inquire about back home. Apparently the “August holiday” was an annual event, which meant everyone had known their arrival was on the schedule for some time. Everyone but me, that was.

  I shoved every pang of irritation and jealousy into the pocket of anger I intended for Edward. Not that I needed any more fuel than I already had.

  Eventually, Freddie became restless and Camilla announced that she was taking him upstairs so they could both have a “bit of a nap.” With her disappearance, the staff scattered, and Edward headed, as typical, to the library.

  I was right on his heels.

  “When I said you’d stay out of the way,” he said callously, “I had meant you’d stay out of my way as well.”

  They were the first words he’d said to me, the first real acknowledgment he’d given to my presence, and I was fuming. So much so that I was momentarily speechless.

  “Go on then. What is it you need? Don’t be all day about it.” He leaned against his desk and gave me a bored stare.

  I took a beat to steady myself before responding. “I was going to ask you why your sister hated me so much, but now I think the better question is why do you?”

  “I am not in the mood for one of your tantrums, Celia.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, because I’m throwing a big one. Unless you want to be a decent person and sit down and have a civilized conversation, in which case I am perfectly willing to calm down and do so.”

  “Please. As if a civilized conversation would get us anywhere. We both know that nothing that comes out of your mouth is to be trusted.”

  There it was. The reason he’d been so angry with me before. I’d wondered many times over the summer what exactly had infuriated him so much about the games I’d played in the past. They hadn’t affected him, and he certainly hadn’t shown himself to be some moral pillar that couldn’t stand unscrupulous behavior, but now, with these words, I understood. Part of it, anyway. All the time he’d spent “breaking me down” had also been about earning his trust, and when he’d realized how easily I lied, he’d doubted his tactics.

  Another me, a before-Edward me, would have considered that the very definition of victory.

  But I wasn’t that me anymore. Whenever it had changed, I wasn’t sure. Incrementally, most likely, bit by bit as I’d lived on Amelie and formed real relationships. Most of it, though, because Edward had forced me to knock down walls, not only did he see what was behind them, but so had I, and what I’d found had altered me so much that I couldn’t be who I’d been before. I honestly believed that.

  Now, the only victory I could imagine would be one where Edward believed that about me too.

  There was only one way to fix it. “You know what? You’re stuck on what I didn’t give you last time so let’s just get past that.” I stomped over to his wet bar and poured cognac into a tumbler then brought it back, shoving it into his hand before sitting in the chair facing him.

  “What are you doing?” His tone was more annoyed than curious.

  “We’re having a session. I meant for this to all be said later, but if this is the only way you’ll hear me, then this is where it will have to be said, so sit your ass down and listen.”

  “Sessions aren’t on the agenda for this visit. Go and—”

  I popped to my feet with fury, cutting him off before he told me what I could “go and” do. “No, no. You don’t get to say that. You do not get to cut me off from this arrangement.” My anger crescendoed, and I pointed an accusing finger at him. “You said that if I played well you’d come back sooner. I played well, and you stayed away. You say you want honesty? Then be honest with your negotiations. Sit down and give me what I deserve, Edward.”

  His expression guarded, he straightened. His eyes were on me, and behind them I could see him considering. Deciding. After several heavy seconds, he crossed around his desk and took the seat I’d demanded he take.

  I managed to sit back down too, though I felt a bit like I was floating.

  He swirled his drink and threw back a swallow. Then clapped the glass down on the desk. “Whenever you’re ready.” He was taking charge.

  Or he wanted me to believe he was in charge. But now I knew one of his secrets—that my confessions made him vulnerable too, and that gave me power. A lot of power.

  It wasn’t power I intended to wield lightly.

  “I played games,” I began, prepared for this. “I’ve played them for almost fourteen years. I began playing them when I was in a dark place, right after my miscarriage—you know who I was then. I needed an outlet. I needed something else to occupy my mind, something that wasn’t centered on my pain, and someone I knew stepped up and gave me a tool.”

  I paused only long enough to be sure I had his attention. The slight tensing of his jaw said I did.

  “They were never just games, but I told myself they were. It was easier to justify the entertainment value, I think, when I called them that. And, they were games, in a way. They required strategy and foresight. I don’t need to tell you what kinds of situations we set up—you read the journals. You know they involved manipulating other people’s emotions. That they were centered around guessing how people would behave when they were forced into crisis situations. We got
good at predicting. I got very good, and when the other guy decided to abandon the games, I kept at it. Because it was the only thing I had, okay? There wasn’t anything else in my life but this.”

  I closed my eyes, forcing myself back from the path of justification. That wasn’t what I wanted this to be. I was not the victim here, and I wanted to own that. For myself, as much as for Edward.

  I really should have poured a drink for myself as well.

  Or maybe it was appropriate to face this completely sober.

  Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes. “The things we did were terrible, I admit that. I’ve never not known they were cruel and devastating. That was the appeal. In no way is this an attempt to validate, but I want you to know my reasons, which, to be honest, I’m still trying to figure out myself. I was so consumed with not feeling all the things that I was feeling—I didn’t want to feel anything at all—and I realized that other people’s pain was quite distracting from that.

  “Having learned that, what I should have done, was volunteer for a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a crises center, but, I don’t know.” This was the newest discovery I’d made, the part I was still sorting through. “I was immature, maybe. Self-centered, definitely. My family has always been involved with charity organizations, but the motivation was always about status, not actual giving, and the idea of helping other people was not one that came naturally, and, also, I didn’t want to think for myself. I couldn’t, at the time. I needed someone to hold out a hand and invite me in, and the only hand I saw to grab pulled me in this direction, and it worked. Little by little, I stopped feeling. I went numb, and the only emotions that existed were outside of me, in these people’s lives I destroyed. It was quite habit-forming—watching the world blow up outside of me instead of inside. Maybe that’s why so many angry people are drawn to destruction, because the ruin of others minimizes the ruin going on in your body. It’s a distraction.

  “Perhaps that’s why people bully too.” I gave him a hard stare, in case that resonated. “You want to destroy me. That’s what you’ve said, not in those words, but similar, and I can’t begin to know your motives since you’ve never shared them with me. All I can do is compare it to what I know from my own life, and I can’t help but wonder if your reasons aren’t the same as mine.”

  He started to open his mouth, but I put my hand up to stop him. “I don’t want to talk about that right now. This is about me. This is about my truth, not yours. You were a game too. You know that you were, and yes, you were at the end of a long list, and maybe that offends you to not be a singular incident, but if you were hoping to be unique, then you got your wish, because you are the only person who has ever given me a reason not to play anymore. The only person who has made me feel my own feelings without wanting to demolish everything and everyone around me.

  “You want to know why I didn’t want to tell you about the games? Because I actually care what you think of me, for some insane reason. I care that you know that I’ve done terrible things and that I’m a shitstain on the foot of human existence, because you are the first person who has truly looked at me in a lifetime and made me feel like I wasn’t those awful things, and I knew that telling you about this would take all that away. You want vulnerability? You want honesty? This is me being honest. This is me being completely exposed.

  “And here’s where this is also about you.” I sat forward, needing him to listen particularly close to what I said next. “This is about you because you made this happen. You reached out your hand and said ‘break down for me,’ and I grabbed it, because maybe I need someone to lead me more than I like to admit, or maybe just because I was so fucking tired of being alone. Or maybe because you didn’t leave me a choice, but here’s the thing. I do have a choice. I could lie to you and feed you whatever bullshit you wanted to hear, or I could clam up and say nothing no matter what you did to me, but I’m here for this. I am all in. I committed to your fucked-up offer, and I know I have no rights as far as you’re concerned and that there is no such thing as fairness, but if you don’t show up and commit to this as well, then you might as well just kill me like you planned in the first place. You say I’m going to lose, then let me lose. Give me that chance to lose everything. You might even realize I already have. Because I have nothing except what you give me. If you’re going to give me nothing more, then I might as well already be dead.”

  He was silent, his gaze unwavering, his face hard. He’d never let me say so much without interrupting with questions, possibly because he wasn’t actually giving what I said a chance, but he’d heard it. I knew he’d heard it. He’d sat and listened and now the next move was on him.

  I’d learned a thing or two from him about processing time, though, and I didn’t want his response to be rash. I stood. “I’m asking Tom to help me move my things to the cabana for the week. I’ll take all my meals there. I will stay out of your way. I am not moving out for your sister, though you’re welcome to tell her that’s the reason. God knows you’ll tell her what you want to anyway. But between you and me, let’s just be clear that the reason I’m moving out is one hundred percent because of you.

  “When you’re ready—if you’re ever ready—you know exactly where you can find me, Edward.” I turned and walked away then, without looking back, with all my cards laid out on the table. I should have felt powerless, but for the first time since I’d met him, I believed I held the upper hand.

  Nineteen

  Edward

  She wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  The thought repeated in my head over and over as my eyes followed the line of the beach, wishing I could see past the outcrop that met the rock wall above and hid the cove where the cabana was neatly tucked away.

  As my wife had promised, after sufficiently chiding me, she’d stayed out of the way. Thirteen days had passed, and I’d only caught glimpses of her from a distance. When she emerged to attend yoga or walk around the island, she’d avoided the main house. Tom and Peter brought her all her meals, remaining with her in the evenings when everyone else gathered for dinner. She was being looked after, even without my directive. Which was as it should be.

  And I missed her.

  How the fuck was it possible to miss her? To have gotten close enough to her to regret her absence? It hardly seemed feasible.

  The plan had been simple enough. I had never expected it to be easy to execute, but it had been straightforward. There was a clear path to those shares, and while that route required hideous action, I knew I was a man worthy of the task. I’d proven it before, hadn’t I?

  That plan had assumed Celia was either a shallow rich girl princess or a knock-off of her malevolent father. Both versions of character had their challenges. I’d mapped out all the possibilities, drew up contingencies. I’d been prepared to handle whichever woman it was that I met the day I’d asked for the meeting. Initially, she’d seemed like a mash-up of both.

  She had been neither of those things in the end.

  Yes, she was calculating and manipulative, more so than I’d even guessed until reading those journals, and she was very spoiled about getting her way, but that was all surface. She was an onion. There were layers and layers underneath, parts of her that she held away. Parts she showed no one. For whatever reason, I’d caught sight of what she kept hidden, whether she’d meant for that to happen or not, I couldn’t be sure. Regardless, I was captivated. There was so much to see there, so much to take down. So much of her to know and own and destroy and redesign, and like an old habit, I couldn’t break away.

  She was an addiction, and I wanted to feed on it. She wasn’t supposed to be like that.

  She wasn’t supposed to want to bend to my whims. She wasn’t supposed to open up and give what I asked for. She wasn’t supposed to be so eager to take what I gave her. She certainly wasn’t supposed to see past my own curtain, wasn’t supposed to ask to see more.

  I’m here for this, she’d said.

  And for thir
teen days, all I could think about was how much I wanted to be here for this too.

  So why was she still there, and I, standing here, hoping for impossible glimpses of her in the distance?

  “I have to admit, I like this. Love it, actually.” Camilla’s voice behind me pulled my focus from the woman hidden in the horizon to closer surroundings. “This was all her?”

  My sister was referring to the newly remodeled deck on top of the pool house. It had been nonexistent on my previous trip to Amelie. Now it was the highlight of the building. Celia had kept the design minimal with only a four-piece furniture set and a granite fire table, but the stone tile flooring and the ability to see so far along the coast made it a spectacular addition. It was a compliment I knew I should deliver myself.

  I also knew I wouldn’t.

  “It was,” I confirmed, wondering if my tone sounded with the pride I unexpectedly felt.

  “Hm.” The reverberation came out tight behind pursed lips. She wrapped her arms around herself, despite the unusual heat. The long-sleeved shirt had to be a burden on days such as this, but Camilla was more tied to her secrets than to comfort.

  I loathed what she hid underneath. I despised how her secrets had come about. I wanted to protect and avenge her more than I wanted to exist.

  Or I had wanted that. I’d wanted it for so long, I didn’t know what it felt like to want something different. And I still did want it.

  Only, I wasn’t sure it was all I wanted anymore.

  I turned so my entire body was facing her, annoyance at my inability to stay the course bleeding into my words. “If you love it so much, why have that tone?”

  “Because you let her do it in the first place. And I can’t begin to understand why.” She was frustrated and it showed in both her posture and her expression.

  She had a right to be frustrated. She couldn’t understand because I hadn’t told her much about my plot with Celia at all. It wasn’t the first time I’d kept her in the dark. I was almost more father figure to her than brother, and I took that responsibility gravely. I tried to shield her as much as possible, never bothering her with the darker details. She’d had enough darkness to last several lifetimes. She didn’t need more.