by Angel Payne
They’re there, Mishella…haunting him…
I still find nothing.
I peer harder at the sleek walls, glass accents, and elegant furniture, all seemingly custom-crafted for each of his main living spaces. Every inch practically screams of the money spent on it—and the effort expended to separate it from the scrollwork and romance of the building’s exterior. Even the décor pieces are carefully crafted to fit the look: slick, clean, neutral.
None of it matches him.
Not the man I have talked with, laughed with, opened up to, and seen into for the last three days. Not the person to whom I feel more connected than anyone in my life, including Vy and Saynt. Not the lover who has given me himself in return—or so I have thought.
I have sensed them…those missing pieces of him…or rather, felt the empty spaces in him sometimes. The unexplained moments of stillness. The searching casts of his gaze, toward a horizon that does not exist…maybe for a person that is no longer there.
Ghosts.
Spurring. Haunting.
I should be patient. Let him come to me, in his time…
But he has known Kathryn since college—nearly ten years—and he still only gives her the shadows.
I cannot accept the shadows.
Ella…it’s time to live in the light.
I want his light too.
I have six months with him, not ten years.
Fortune favors the brave.
It feels like destiny to remember the words, a favorite expression often used by King Evrest back home. Evrest even credits their importance in helping his journey toward true love—though that is far beyond my ambition right now, and must remain that way.
It must remain that way.
I have no idea where Cassian and I are bound with each other. I only know that he has helped me at least see my light—and now, if I can help him step toward his too…
Determinedly, I search the spaces again. Living room. Game room. Movie theater. All three guest bedrooms. Even the gym. Still nothing. No mementos from travels, nor artwork that is not abstract. No knickknacks that are not completely curated or more than a few years old, and everything in sync with the out-of-a-movie décor.
I only find one photo, atop the desk in the study that is as sterile as a research laboratory. The image depicts a younger Cassian, between childhood and adulthood, probably twelve or thirteen. He hugs a woman with the same thick gold hair and piercing green eyes. If she is not his mother, I am the Queen of Persia.
Is she one of his ghosts?
I lower into one of the chairs in front of the desk—the leather is so stiff, I wonder if my backside is the first to ever touch it—and stare at the picture, fighting a helpless despair.
“Tell me what to do,” I whisper to the woman in the photo. “I am certain I want the same thing as you. I just want him to be…happy.”
Deep inside, I wish her sweet smile would order me to leave everything alone. But it does not. It delves to something even deeper…confirms what my gut has already told me since the conversation with Kate.
Satisfying his body comes nowhere close to reaching his soul.
To do that, I must find the ghosts.
“But where?” I beseech it of the room itself now, sending the plea upward as my head falls back. I close my eyes and loll the gray matter to the left. Reopen them—
To find my focus yanked like a weight across a thread. Pulled out the study’s entrance, across the central hall, through the breadth of the living room—
To the handle of a door.
Leading to the stairway up to Turret Two.
I know this as a fact, because there’s an identical door on the other side of the living room—the one Cassian has led me through, that will forever hold one of the best memories of my life. But he has all but commanded me to forget Turret Two, dismissing it as “the joint’s required junk room.” Like a proper, smitten lover, I believed him. I still do.
But is not “junk” often another word for “the past?”
And in the past, there are ghosts.
I rise. My heart pounds at the base of my throat. This is it. The X on the treasure map.
On quiet steps, I cross to the door. Half-expect it to be locked. Exhale in relief when it is not.
The air beyond the portal is different than that of Turret One. Chilled and dusty, though my feet do not leave any imprints on the wooden stairs as I start to climb. Thank the Creator.
But there are creaks.
I wince, wondering why I did not notice the sounds when ascending the other turret. Because you were not trying to sneak someplace you do not belong?
A scowl replaces the wince. Cassian has not expressly “forbidden” me to come up here. And I am not “sneaking.” I am searching. There is a difference—
Which thoroughly explains why I jump like a criminal as someone rushes up the stairway behind me. Why my blood turns to ice and my cheeks flame with accusation, as Prim’s infuriated form comes into view.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
*
Cassian
“Mishella. What the hell were you doing?”
I clench my jaw to stop the query from spilling into accusation. She’s already been subjected to that treatment; a minute into the phone call from Prim has betrayed that much already. While still on the line with her, I’d ordered Rob to cancel the rest of my day and used the Court Enterprises on-call car to get home, instead of waiting for Scott and the Jag.
Wasn’t fast enough.
Prim’s wrath has already taken its toll. I see it along the taut slashes of Ella’s shoulders, in every glimmering sapphire surface of the gaze she’ll no longer lift to mine. Instead, she stares across the study and out the window, perched on the edge of that damn chair—reminding me all too much of how stiff and scared she’d been back on Arcadia, that morning when I’d returned with the new contract.
Only now, she’s afraid of me.
My jaw clamps harder. I get down a hard inhalation, battling the bizarre twist in my gut: the beginning of a tornado so distinct, it startles me as much as it terrifies me. I’ve only endured the tornado twice before. Once for Damon, once for Lily. This—thing—with Mishella is nothing like either of those times.
Is it?
I drop my head. Pinch my nose so hard, vessels are likely broken. I can only hope. A bloodbath from my nose is a thousand times better than a hemorrhage from my soul—which this cannot be. Not after a goddamn week…
You sure about that?
Are you absolutely sure that seven days ago, you didn’t walk into that reception hall on Arcadia, behold this woman, and feel every tangle in your brain fall free? Every sprint of your spirit reach its finish line…every hunger of your heart find its fill?
Hasn’t everything since then…just made sense?
Except…that it doesn’t.
“I—I just wanted to know more about you, Cassian.”
And dammit, how it should.
If she were with any other man, it would.
“I know.” Both words are growled, drenched in my defeat. I hate this. Hate that the secrets I must keep have made her feel like the one on trial here. I hate that Prim has become so obsessed with keeping those secrets, she’s turned into the Temptation guard dog. I hate that she and Ella aren’t up on the terrace right now, drinking wine and giggling about—whatever the hell women giggle about. Probably their men. In that case, Prim’s giggles should be about Hodge, and Ella’s should be about—
Not you, asshole.
But the thought of any other man making her smile, much less giggle, turns my ire into barely contained rage—an anger I have no goddamn right to. She’s mine for only six months—and there’s no room in that timeline for dredging up ghosts. She’ll go back to Arcadia with memories of fire, passion, magic, and romance, not with the miserable stories of how fate, helped by two drug addicts I was stupid enough to love, has fucked my ability ever to trust words that mean even
more than those. Words like commitment. And promises.
And forever.
Words she fully deserves in her life.
Not the goddamn misery. Or worse, her pity.
Sure as hell not with the story of how my wife threw herself out Turret Two’s window—and how I haven’t been able to leave her ghost behind for four damn years.
She sneaks another furtive glance up at me. Squirms but sits straighter, like Lily herself is lurking nearby, and gleefully wiggling the phantom flagpole up Ella’s spine.
“I…I am sorry, Cassian.”
“It’s all right.”
She stands in a rush. “No.”
“Ella, really—it’s all right.”
“I mean no, I am not sorry.”
Her fists bunch, pulling at the hem of the sweater she must’ve changed into when returning from Kathryn’s—and visiting me. Best five minutes of my fucking day. Her lips twist but she firms them before jogging up her chin once more.
“I—I am starting to…care about you, Cassian. Probably…more than I should.” She works a bare toe against the floor—making me long to reach up, strip the gray leggings from her, and screw the rest of her unsteady questions right out of her eyes. Yeah, right here. Yeah, right now.
“I care about you too.” My hands drop into their own tight balls. My jaw tautens again. None of it goes undetected by her darting gaze. By now, she has to discern the bottom line. I’m dancing around the real subject as much as she is. “Yeah,” I finally add. “Probably more than I should.”
Another damn placeholder. I’ve never just “cared” about this woman—unless the term encompasses a connection so strong, every circuit of my psyche has felt snapped into hers from the moment our eyes first met. Our mainframes completely synched—
Without any backup drive in place.
Fuck. So dangerous.
“So why is it a crime to want to know you better?”
“It isn’t.” When her brows jump, I emphasize, “It isn’t. Prim reacted the way she did out of—”
“Love?”
I square my shoulders. “Yes.” Pull in another breath. “Out of love. But not in the way you think.” Hell. Could I get any more cliché? The sad answer is yes, because now I have to attempt an explanation about the bond to Prim, without ripping back the scab over the wound named Lily. “You know the funny bit girls have, about friends being a rose garden?” When she gives a small nod, I finish, “Well, Prim and I aren’t a garden. We’re a briar patch. We both bleed a lot—”
“But it would hurt worse to leave.”
Is it a shock that she concludes the thought so perfectly? Rhetorical question. It’s also no news alert when my chest clenches from the aftermath: the look on her face depicting the briar thorns she’s clearly still picking free from her spirit.
Dammit.
I need to fix this.
Disconnecting the mainframe isn’t an option.
“Ella—”
“Cassian.” She takes a measured step back. “I—I understand, all right?” Her gaze turns dark and watery. “You have had years with her. I have had barely a week. She was right in reminding me of my place.”
“Your place?” I rush forward. She retreats again, nearly skittering now. Real smooth, idiot.
“It is fine. Truly.”
“No.” The boulder in my chest is now a quarry, piled with chunks of tension. “Ella…no. Your place here…” I barely hold back from even reaching for her. “You belong in every place.” I need you in all of them.
“Except Turret Two.”
I stab a hand through my hair. “It’s just not—safe—up there, okay?”
Truest thing you’ve spoken all day, mother fucker. She knows it too. Knows it. I feel her perception on the air like a mist before rain. “So we are back to where we started.”
She folds her arms. I spread mine out.
“If you want to know things, I’m right here. Just ask me, favori.”
Her dash of a hopeful glance injects something close to joy. Maybe this hurricane will be just a passing storm after all. With Hodge calming Prim with a run through the park and the door to Turret Two now soundly locked, the spark of trust in Ella’s eyes is my light in that storm. If all it takes now to get there is sharing my favorite color and some inane stories from my childhood, so be it.
“All right.” Ella lifts her head and nods. Sets her gaze steadily to mine. Despite the bid for confidence, she nervously wets her lips. “After my exam, Kathryn and I talked for a little while.”
I smile and mean it. “Good. I knew you’d like her.”
“Well…”
“Well…what?”
“She told me some…things.”
Continuing the smile isn’t an effort. Even if Kate spilled all her “things”—which I highly doubt, knowing Kate and her ethics—they wouldn’t be all the things. Nobody has all of it. Silo the explosives, and no one has the power to blow the world up.
“Things like what?” It’s still conversational. Okay…this really isn’t that hard.
“Like about how you two fought on your first date.”
I even let a full chuckle fly. “You mean our only date?”
“Because you were too serious.”
“Fair statement.”
“She says you still are.”
“Which is why I’m the only one laughing about this?”
“She also said intense.”
I widen my stance enough for a comfortable heel rock. And a heated turn of my stare. “Intensity can be a good thing…in many situations.” Just like that, I fixate on her leggings again—but she doesn’t follow the gist. Her brows are knitted, her gaze still clouded.
“She says you are driven to be that way…by ghosts.”
Fuck.
The quarry stacks up again—in my gut. Outwardly, I cop a cool-ass Clint Eastwood, bravado bullets across my chest, teeth clenched on an invisible cigar. “Ghosts,” I finally repeat. “Was she specific? Gory ones with red eyes or cute cuddly Caspers?”
Ella doesn’t flinch.
I’m not sure whether to be encouraged or unnerved.
Clint, don’t fail me now.
She diverts her gaze from me. Dips a nod at the photo frame on the desk. “Is she one of them? The woman in the photo with you?”
Her redirected sights give me a second to regroup my expression—and my thoughts. While there’s nothing to hide about the picture itself—it’s sitting in the open, after all—I predict the shot’s surface values will be just the start for my curious little Arcadian. Quickly, I start strategies for where she’ll take this.
Because as far as I’ve let her in…
she can’t be allowed to go all the way.
“That’s…my mother.” I feel my lips kick up as I lift the frame. “Her name is Mallory.” I trace a finger around Mom’s face. “She lives in Connecticut now, in a little place I bought her, with a garden and room for her cats.”
“But this was not taken in Connecticut.”
Still not a damn thing wrong with the sorceress’s instinct. Right now, because things are still easy, I give her what she wants. “No. Not Connecticut. This was taken at the Jersey shore.”
Suddenly, I’m there again. Maybe it’s the way Ella always smells a little like the sea or the memories-on-demand corner I’m in, but for one incredible moment, I’m just a kid again, on a grand adventure with my mom and big brother…
“We were there on vacation,” I murmur. “Just something last-minute Mom threw together. She did shit like that all the time.” I laugh softly as the recollection takes deeper root. “We stayed in this…dump…Christ, the walls were so thin, we heard everything the couple next door was doing. Let’s just say I got a crash course in the birds, the bees, and the entire animal kingdom.”
“Oh, my.”
For a moment, I simply gaze at the new flags of color across Ella’s cheeks. She steals my fucking breath. “Oh, yeah. Probably the best two nights of my life u
p to that point.” When she smacks my shoulder, I laugh. “Hey, you wanted to know!”
When her nose crinkles, my breath returns—in time to ignite my chest’s fucking fireworks show. “Indeed I did. But I believe the proper term here is…TMI?”
“Too Much Information?” I slide a sly smirk. “Nah. Too much information is bragging that my arm-fart of the national anthem kicked ass all over Damon’s. Even Mom agr—”
The abort button is five seconds too late. Ella’s curiosity is already in full bloom, though it’s still the open, did-I-miss-something kind, not the what-the-hell-are-you-hiding kind.
“Damon?” Her innocence cinches the fresh twist in my gut. Dammit, was I really that careless? “Who is that?”
For a second—maybe more than one—I weigh the merit of a simple lie. Simple? Really? How?
Fine. Maybe half the truth. He went with us to Jersey a few times. I was close to him in childhood.
Both statements are completely true. But neither is the full truth.
“He was my brother.”
And sometimes it’s just better to lie in the fucking bed one makes.
She would’ve learned this part sooner or later. Something would’ve given her more than a passing clue, then she’d mention it to her ‘net-savvy little friend over in Arcadia, who’d hunt deeper than the basic wiki and biography websites from which Legal has managed to suppress the information so far. This way, I’m controlling the feed—and exactly how much of my soul is lobbed off in the doing. The wound will be repairable. A more invisible scar after she’s gone.
“Your…brother.” Her murmur is dotted with bewilderment. “Oh. I—I did not know—”
“Few do.” My stomach clenches by another notch. I cloak the discomfort in a haven cold but familiar: the corporate photo pose. Powerful lean against the desk. One hand braced against the top, knuckles down. It says impenetrability. It says back the hell down.
But to someone like Mishella Santelle, it only says here’s your pause for more questions.
“Well, does he live in Connecticut now too? Is he older or younger than you?”
And fuck it, all my heart wants to do is answer—as my soul screams from the incision.
“Older,” I finally grit. “By two years.” My fist grinds so hard against the desk, I expect cracks to fissure the glass plane. “At least…he was.”