by Nichole Van
Whoa.
I did not like the thought of Tennyson ‘going down.’ I couldn’t formulate a response that wouldn’t be an argument.
“Please, promise me,” he repeated.
The pleading in his tone got to me.
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll be careful.” Which wasn’t quite the same thing as saying I wouldn’t help, but Tennyson seemed to think it was enough.
“Thank you,” he said. “And along those same lines, I expect you to tell me if you feel unsafe at any time.”
I nodded.
“My mom is coming, just so you know,” he continued. “I think my sister, Chiara, will probably drive down to Villa Maledetti to spend the night, too. I want you to know you can trust us all.”
Yeah. I had gathered that a while back.
Tennyson seemed almost like two people in that moment.
Sure, he was a ridiculously handsome bundle of man-nip, but that was just the outer shell.
Inside, he was different. There was pain and suffering and intense empathy. There had to be. Tennyson D’Angelo had never had the luxury of taking people at face value.
What did that mean for me? He couldn’t sense my emotions. Did he feel differently about me than other people? Was I more or less interesting because of it?
And would spending more time with him ease my epic crushing or just make it that much worse?
Tennyson
My mind reeled from the revelations of the last half hour.
Dr. Vincenzi’s tight concern lingered in my memory, sour and potent.
I don’t know how to stop the daemon from killing me.
I had known she was dying. But I hadn’t known that we were essentially dying together.
I couldn’t decide if that made things better or infinitely worse.
She smiled at me, a small, soft thing. I reached over and snagged her hand again, helpless to not touch her.
Longing swamped me, the emotion all my own. It was a vicious ache in my chest. A nearly feral thing.
I wanted to know everything about this woman. Absorb her. Talk and learn her until I knew her every breath as well as my own.
For me, there were only two switches when it came to women. I was either completely disinterested, or I was obsessed to the point of madness.
I was like this. I knew I was like this.
But with Olivia . . .
I had already plummeted into the deep end, head first.
Could she escape her fate in the end? Would I kiss her and seal her doom?
I felt relief that if we were together, the daemon would come for me before her. At least I could protect her that much.
For myself, fighting my fate generally felt futile. How could I think I would be different from all the D’Angelo men before me?
But for Olivia . . .
I would simply not kiss her. That I could do.
It figured when I finally met a woman who captivated me, she would be completely out of my reach.
The sound of the Imperial March from Star Wars rang through the room—Darth Vader on his way to create mayhem.
Olivia scrambled for her phone with her free hand. She glanced at the caller and then thumbed off the ringtone.
The music stopped.
I raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “My mom. Probably furious that I didn’t get on the plane with Michael. As much fun as it is to be scolded like I’m five years old, I decided to take a pass.”
She squeezed my fingers but didn’t pull her hand away, choosing instead to stare at our entwined hands.
“So . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“So,” I replied.
“Do you still feel nothing off me?”
I nodded. “Not a whiff of emotion.”
Though I couldn’t say the same about the rest of the hospital. Emotions pounded around my edges. Pain. Despair. Terror. Frustration.
I had managed to hold the emotions at bay, fearful for Olivia and wanting to make sure she was all right, but emotional exhaustion and too little sleep were rapidly catching up with me.
I drew in a deep breath, centering my energy on Olivia and the blissful blankness of her. I could hold on. I would hold on.
For her.
Olivia smiled, wide and amused. “You do realize this is a little creepy, right?”
Her expression was at odds with her words. The disconnect disorienting.
“Creepy?”
“Yeah. You not feeling my emotions, watching me while I sleep, not to mention living alone near Volterra. Are you sure you’re not part vampire?”
Right.
She had a definite point.
I was being creepy.
Obsession had a tendency to be like that.
I sat back and dropped her hand. Or rather I tried to drop her hand but she kept a tight grip on mine.
“Whoa.” She pulled me back. “That came out wrong. You feel warm and you haven’t stared even once at my neck, so I’m pretty sure you’re not a vampire.”
I froze, not sure what to believe. I couldn’t sense her, and I had very little experience reading body language.
Besides now I was trying really hard not to stare at her neck.
“I’m not a vampire,” I deadpanned.
“Good to know.”
“Why would you think I’m a vampire?”
“I had a seriously unhealthy Twilight obsession for a while.”
A beat while I absorbed that.
“Ya know.” She rolled her free hand. “Edward is obsessed with Bella because he can’t read her thoughts, so he creeps into her room at night and watches her sleep, yadda-yadda. It was very romantic to my younger self.”
Okay. Was that a good or bad thing?
My confusion must have shown because Olivia laughed. “I take back anything I said about vampires. You’re more adorkable than vampiric.”
“Thank you?”
She chuckled again. She had an amazing laugh, rich and a little throaty. I wanted to spend days listening to it.
I couldn’t help but grin in return. “So I’m not a vampire—glad we got that out of the way—but you are the only daughter of a prominent U.S. senator.”
“Yeah, Olivia Louise Hawking. That’s me.” Her words were chipper, but something about her tone didn’t ring quite true.
Her smile dimmed. I sensed that she didn’t like to talk about her family. Given Michael’s behavior and her mother’s words, I couldn’t blame her.
I had googled her at one point during the night.
Shameless, I know. But I hadn’t lied when I said I wanted to know everything about her.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot about her online and none of it terribly personal. Someone obviously carefully managed her online presence.
Olivia was the only daughter of Mark and Louise Hawking. I found a handful of family photos, each showing Olivia standing with an older mustachioed man and blond woman, all of them immaculately pressed and primped. Olivia went from cute, gap-toothed kid, to gangly teenager, to composed woman in the images.
Olivia, with her dark hair and complexion, clearly didn’t belong with them. The Senator’s Wikipedia page stated the Hawkings had adopted Olivia as a baby. Critics suggested that the Hawking’s adoption of an obviously Latina child was a political move intended to curry favor with Hispanic voters. Supporters claimed it was another sign of Louise Hawking’s commitment to minorities.
Aside from that, Olivia was listed as the director of a non-profit that worked with refugees in D.C. and eastern Europe. There were a few articles discussing her humanitarian work. One of the articles referred to her troubled teenage years and another obliquely referenced an event that had been hushed over.
It all painted an intriguing but incomplete picture.
I wanted to know about her life, her family. What was it like being the only child of a prominent politician? How did she deal with the pressure of it?
I couldn’t read Olivia’s emotions, but a c
ouple things had become clear to me.
People often embrace being the stars of their own lives. They live in egocentric worlds where everything relates to them and their needs. They accept the praise and adoration that comes as their due. They never doubt their own worthiness to be loved.
Olivia, however, tended to look outward. The work she did with refugees, her continual questions about me and my family . . .
She constantly reached out to others.
But I was starting to wonder if—within all the love and acceptance she showered on others—had Olivia saved any for herself? Did she love and accept herself as readily as she did everyone else?
And if not, would my love and respect be enough for us both?
FOURTEEN
Olivia
Tennyson got a phone call from his mom right after asking about my family. He shot me a quick smile before answering.
Apparently, his mother was leaving their palazzo right now for the hospital, but traffic was terrible. She would be a while still.
Tennyson chatted with her for a few moments, both of them agreeing that he should probably return to Villa Maledetti. He was being stoic about it, but I could tell that the emotions of the hospital were getting to him.
His smiles were less smiley. His eyes even more tired.
He left to talk to the doctor about discharging me and came back saying that the doctor would be in to chat. He apologized profusely for leaving me, but I insisted I would be okay for an hour or even two until his mom arrived. She would drive me back to Villa Maledetti.
Grimacing, Tennyson reluctantly agreed and left.
The doctor came back in and asked a few questions before leaving, clearly troubled that I was insistent on being discharged.
I sent Langley a photo of the IV in my arm and told her to text me when she woke up as it was still nighttime in the States.
A nurse returned and I signed some paperwork, declining further treatment. She removed my IV, shooting glances at me the whole time, clearly trying to understand how not one, but two abnormally good-looking guys—Tennyson and Michael—had been in and out of my room all morning. I sensed she was torn between giving me a high five or passing along information on the local battered women’s shelter.
You and me both, sister.
I was now back in bed and waiting to be discharged once Tennyson’s mother, Judith, arrived to get me.
I twirled my phone in my hand, nearly dropping it when it rang.
Mom flashed on the screen.
My mom, not Tennyson’s.
Louise Hawking could always sense when my will was weak and I would probably answer.
“Olivia, I am extremely frustrated right now,” was her greeting. Muffled voices and the clank of dishes drifted in behind her. She must be eating lunch with her staff. “You need to return home. You don’t have a boyfriend. We both know this. And how could you do that to poor Michael? Toss him out on his ear? He flew through the night to reach you!”
First of all, there was no poor Michael about it. The man was excessively well-paid for his job and thrived on situations like this one.
Second, I didn’t ask Michael to come. I didn’t ask my mom to send him. I refused to feel guilty for something my mother chose to do.
Therapist Counseling 101.
Not that I said as much to my mother. She would be appalled at all those therapy sessions being thrown back in her face.
Third, though I understood why she wanted me back in Washington, D.C., it just wasn’t going to happen. Tennyson had answers and I was dying—literally, hah!—to understand what he knew.
“Hi to you too, Mom.”
She made an exasperated-mom noise, before moving on to the polite necessities. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”
“Fine. Just like always after one of these . . . episodes.”
“Honey, I’m worried about you being so far away. I panicked when that D’Angelo fellow called saying you had collapsed again.”
Ah, parental concern. It was an effective weapon and she knew it.
“Please consider coming home, Olivia.” Mom pushed on. “You need to be examined by doctors here. They’ll want to see if your . . . disorder has progressed further. I’m so worried about you. I need you here.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“If you know this, then why are you insisting on staying in Italy with your ‘boyfriend’?” She managed to air-quote the word through tone alone.
Mmmm, should I admit to my small falsehood about my girlfriend status? Or let it go?
Eh, who was I kidding?
I went with my third option—avoidance.
“Mom, I know you think that the doctors can do something to help me. But for the last time, my episodes are not some weird unknown disease. They are caused by outside forces that are very real and very legitimate.”
Mom let out a very frustrated snort. The background noise receded. She must have gone into her office for more privacy.
“Look, Olivia,” she said after a moment. “I get that when these episodes happen, you might see something out of the ordinary. Your brain is going haywire, after all, so it’s only natural that these . . . visions . . . would feel extremely real to you—”
“Mom!” Ugh, I so hated her kiddie-voice; the one she used when I was six years old and refused to take a bath on vacation because I was convinced the Wriggle in the bathtub would eat me. Like this situation was even remotely the same.
Okay, maybe the situation was similar but I still hated her kiddie-voice.
Mom kept talking.
“Sweetie, how many times do we have to go over this? It’s all in your head. There are no Wriggles. There is no supernatural black-slime-demon trying to kill you. There just isn’t. You have a rare brain disorder that needs close medical attention—”
I took that thought back. This situation was exactly the same.
“But there is a daemon, Mom. How many times do I have to tell you? It. Is. Real. It is not a figment of my imagination—”
“Come home. We can schedule an appointment with Dr. Nancy and get you more help—”
“I’m not talking to a psychiatrist. I refuse to go back on anti-psychotic meds, Mom. They don’t do anything other than make me fuzzy headed and irritable. They don’t stop the black slime. They don’t heal me.”
“Olivia—” She broke off, exasperation in her huff.
This was the same conversation we had been having off and on since I was sixteen and the daemon first appeared.
She tried another tactic.
“Sweetie, you know how important this is for me. Your father and I have been working toward this day for the past decade. I thought you were in this with us. As a family, we have to present a united front and show the world that I have what it takes to lead the United States of America. If you’re not here, the press will investigate why, which will inevitably lead to questions about your mental health. I don’t want all your personal secrets dragged through the mud of public opinion.”
The ‘mud of public opinion’ was a polite way of saying, ‘I don’t want your strange secrets to hurt my chance of becoming the next President of the United States.’
“I get it, Mom, I do. Your presidential bid is important. But this is killing me. I need time to explore some answers,” I said.
“And you think that Tennyson D’Angelo has the answers you seek?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Mom sighed. It was her I-love-you-even-though-I think-you’re-an-idiot sigh. I got that sigh a lot.
“Honey, you don’t know Tennyson D’Angelo at all.”
“I know enough, Mom. He knows about the daemon, too. He has ideas and theories. I just haven’t had a chance to talk with him about them.”
“Of course he knows about the daemon. They always do, sweetie. Michael has been looking into the D’Angelos—”
“Mom, you know I hate it when you investigate my friends—”
“It’s for your own pro
tection, Olivia. You are shockingly sweet and trusting. And I’ve seen the photos. Tennyson is extremely handsome. Any girl would lose her head over all that Italian charm.
“But let’s look at this logically, shall we? You contend that there is a supernatural daemon that comes through rifts in reality that only you can see. The daemon shreds something inside you that causes the neurological damage we see on brain scans.”
“Mom, please stop trying to negate my reality. I agree it totally sounds loony, but that doesn’t make it untrue.”
Grrr. I loved my mom, but sometimes she just needed to give the lawyering a rest. If it wasn’t a hard, provable fact, then it didn’t exist.
Unfortunately, she was just getting going.
“Okay, I concede your point,” she said. “But if this damage to your brain continues—regardless of whether it comes from a disease or a daemon or whatever—it will eventually kill you.”
“I know, Mom. That’s why I’m here. The D’Angelos might have answers—”
“The D’Angelo family are antiquities dealers, correct?”
“Yes.”
“They import and export antiques every year from the United States. They pay a lot in customs fees and taxes. In addition to Senate Majority Leader, I am the chair of the Senate Finance Committee which oversees the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Office.”
Yeah. I knew that. The entire known world knew that.
She was simply building her case. Lawyering again.
My heart sank. I could see where she was headed with this.
Mom continued, “Currently, there is a measure before the Committee that would cut the import duties on items over a century old. You can understand how such a reduction in taxation would assist the D’Angelo’s business. They would be stupid to not try and use you to influence my decision.”
I could clearly see how she would believe all this.
I barely believed me right now. Hadn’t I asked myself if Tennyson was using me? It was an extremely logical conclusion.
Besides, Mom did have an obligation to her constituents and the United States government. She had to think about the legal ramifications of every action.