by Anne Malcom
I did the same to her.
She was wearing a white lace and beaded dress, empire waist and flowing down her body. Her hair was a mess of curls. She’d dyed it again. A soft red that suited her.
“Char Bear,” she whispered. “You look...” She trailed off. “You look like a superstar.”
I smiled. “That’s you, sis.” I walked over to kiss her cheek, trying my best not to lock eyes with Jacob, who was standing stock still, arms clasped in front of him.
“Your date is smokin’ hot and a total fucking badass,” she whispered in my ear loud enough for him to hear.
I smiled tightly and straightened. “I see you met Jacob in the elevator.”
“Met him, bowed down to his badassery so he didn’t shoot laser beams at me and incinerate me on the spot.” She shrugged. “Whichever you prefer.”
I shook my head, closing my purse. “You don’t have a date? Color me surprised.”
She grinned. “Good thing I didn’t, whoever I brought would’ve likely had their manhood shrink up right in front of this one.” She jerked her head in Jacob’s direction, who still hadn’t moved or spoken, he was just staring at me in a way that made it hard for me to think straight.
“Plus, I much prefer to third wheel with the two of you.” She winked at me. “Never have your dates been so...interesting.” She glanced at Jacob pointedly. “Or silent. The last two I had to share an elevator with bored me with stories of their stock portfolios and summer in the Hamptons.” She gagged. “Seriously. Silence is absolutely refreshing.”
I shook my head. “What’s refreshing is that you’re actually on time and we won’t be running late, for once. We’ve got to go now.”
Jacob held the elevator door open.
We all got in.
He was somehow positioned behind me. And although my sister was chatting animatedly to the both of us, and I was responding, all of my attention was focused on Jacob’s heat at my back. My heart in my throat.
I stopped breathing the second I felt fire on the back of my arm. It was searing through the thin fabric of my dress.
His fingers only brushed my arm for a second, at the most, but I felt the touch the entire ride down and for the rest of the night.
The night was a blur, as most events such as these were.
It started with the flashing of cameras, the yells of photographers as soon as we emerged from the car. Molly and I posed for exactly thirty seconds, as was my rule—this was the only event I even acknowledged the paparazzi—and then Jacob led us inside.
And the role of being Charlotte Crofton began. Not that it ever ended.
Molly weathered two conversations with two of our biggest donors, and then ran off to the bar to likely flirt with the bartender and lecture some oil tycoon about what he was doing to the environment.
I didn’t begrudge her for leaving me to do all the schmoozing that was required. I was happy that she didn’t do it. I didn’t want her part of this world more than she needed to be. The fact she had her wild, chaotic and beautifully happy life was all I needed. This world hammered out all of that, with rules, with image, with the social structure.
I only played the game because I was at the top of it, and that was the only way to stay there.
We got a moment of peace, sitting in a corner that Molly yanked us into, shoving a glass of champagne in my hand.
“I’ve only seen you take one of these all night,” she said, sipping from her own. “That simply isn’t enough to handle these people.” She gazed around the room in distaste.
I grinned, making sure Molly was the only one to see the expression. It wouldn’t do well for New York society to see me betray something as weak as happiness. “These people are my people, if you don’t remember,” I commented dryly, but I took a generous gulp anyway. Not because of the number of people in the room demanding something from me. But the one who still hadn’t spoken a word to me all night, apart from burn holes into my beautiful dress. I’d already given the designer’s name to eight different fashion ‘it’ girls. I’d made his career in one night.
“You’ve changed,” she observed with a smile, her eyes saucers for all of the light and happiness in them. “Because of him.” She nodded behind me and I didn’t need to turn to know who she was gesturing to.
Despite my own sense of happiness that bloomed by seeing my sister like this, I frowned. “That’s ridiculous,” I snapped. “I barely know him. He’s been in my life for a handful weeks. I’ve been in my life for three decades.”
It was somewhat of a lie. One I was telling more to myself than Molly.
And of course, Molly saw straight through me.
“Time doesn’t mean shit in situations like this,” Molly replied, sipping her drink and gazing pointedly and the man behind me.
My brows narrowed. “Would you stop being so obvious?” I hissed.
She grinned wider behind her glass. “Why? He’s making no secret of the fact you’re the only woman in this room. To him, anyway. And he’s definitely making no secret of any murderous intentions he holds toward any men that even glances in the vicinity of your ass.” She paused, scanning the room. “Or even in your general vicinity.”
It took every inch of my considerable willpower not to follow her gaze and lock onto two ice blue eyes. I didn’t want to lose sensation in my knees right in the middle of one of the most important charitable events of the year. They were already weak at the weight of his glance on my back.
It was preposterous, but I felt it. Against my bare skin like an icy breeze in January in New York.
“You’re being dramatic,” I said, sipping my own glass, if only for something to do.
“Of course I am, I’m breathing,” she replied. “But not about this.” Her eyes turned serious. “This is something more than even I could conjure up. It’s like he’s been waiting for you all his lives.”
She didn’t misspeak. Molly vehemently believed in reincarnation and past lives. She’d been burned at the stake for witchcraft in one of them, apparently, which was why she didn’t like open fireplaces.
“That’s just his way,” I dismissed. “He’s intense.”
“Yeah, he is,” she said appreciatively. “But this is something more than that. You don’t need a lifetime for someone to change you. You only need a moment.” She drained her glass. “Time in the most general of terms is a construct made up by the same patriarchal assholes who wrote that women should have no rights other than to serve her husband. But in this specific instance, it means nothing at all. You change when something shakes your life to the core. Something that does that normally doesn’t last long. How many seconds did you see Mom hovering over Dad’s body?”
I flinched. Visibly. Ice settled over my entire body like I was standing in the middle of Central Park at midnight in January, naked. It was instantaneous and even more brutal than Jacob’s gaze.
It took a few seconds for me to compose myself. A few seconds longer than it normally would have. But I did it.
Outwardly, my features were carved into the same icy façade I was infamous for. Inside, I was screaming.
“You know?” my choked rasp all but destroyed my calm exterior.
“Of course I know,” Molly said softly, not moving forward to touch me. She didn’t need to, I could feel her warmth and support rolling through our invisible connection. She also sensed that touching me would completely crumble whatever decorum I was clutching onto.
“How long?” I whispered.
“When I started painting,” she whispered back.
I swallowed. Thirteen years.
“How?”
“You know how,” she said. “I could feel something horribly different about you, like something inside you hadn’t just broken as it would have losing a parent in a car crash. Something had been burned to embers. Destroyed. Something very integral. It was damaged in me too. I felt only a fraction of your pain and I could barely stand it.” Her eyes shimmered with a pain so visceral it speared through ev
ery part of me. “For that year, I tried to believe the lie, but I had to know. So I made it my business to find out.”
I clutched the stem of my glass so tightly I was surprised it didn’t break. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She smiled through her tears the way only Molly could. “Because, my dear Charlotte, my protector, my other half, my better half, you are so hard on yourself. You’ve achieved extraordinary things in your short life, and yet you hold yourself up to an impossible standard. You blame yourself for failures outside of your control. Surely you’d blame yourself if you thought you hadn’t protected me from the ugly reality of our mother. Of her illness. Of the world. You would do anything to keep me out of harm’s way.” She lifted her hand to lightly brush across my jaw. “The same holds true with me. My methods are somewhat different, that’s all.”
I rapidly blinked away the strange prickle at the backs of my eyes, searching for something to say to my sister. Searching for a way to regain my composure.
“Excuse me,” a smooth masculine voice interjected.
Both Molly and I snapped our heads to look at the handsome, groomed and grinning man standing in front of us.
“I was wondering if I could tempt you for a dance?” he asked Molly.
She beamed back at him like she didn’t have a care in the world, as if she weren’t just discussing our mother murdering our father, as only Molly could. “I’m always tempted to dance,” she replied. She turned to me, leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I love you,” she murmured. And then she took the man’s manicured hand and let him whisk her off onto the dance floor.
Molly never said no to a dance. Never found a reason not to smile. She didn’t run from the rain, didn’t stray from pain, turned it into beauty.
I continued to sip at my champagne watching her, if only so I didn’t lock eyes with the man I knew was watching me.
He still hadn’t spoken all night, despite being at my side for most of it, still playing his part as my date. I introduced him as a business associate when Molly wasn’t within earshot. He glared at the New York elite enough for them to almost run from the exchange, but they fought it because they were leeches trying to suck up influence and power from me. It was rather entertaining.
I knew this wasn’t a real date. All of this was for Molly’s benefit. And hopefully by the next time, she wouldn’t remember to ask about him, the threat would be over, and he would be out of my life.
That was the goal of all of this, right?
Having Jacob disappear from my life was good because that meant people weren’t trying to kill me anymore.
Why was I more afraid of him leaving than another attempt on my life?
Maybe the fascination with my demise had consumed me more than I thought. And maybe that’s why my fascination with Jacob was so intense. Because he was my demise. He was death in a human being.
“What do you think you’re doing?” an angry voice hissed.
I looked up at my uncle, who I’d been too lost in my own thoughts to see approach. That wouldn’t do. I’d never lapsed into a daydream in a public setting. I was always on, always aware.
It was the only way to survive here.
I focused on my uncle’s furious face. “I’m drinking some champagne and having a quiet moment to myself,” I replied. “Which I see is over now.”
“I got the memo you’re killing the deal,” he clipped. “I know the meeting we had was...emotionally charged, but I didn’t think you’d be so stupid as to kill a deal that would’ve made the company billions.”
I raised my brow. “May have. But I don’t care about the zeroes when the one man who would be responsible for them is Ethan Kershaw. I make clean money, Abe. Not blood money. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got guests.”
I started to walk away, but he snatched my arm.
“All money is blood money, Charlotte,” he hissed, eyes wild. “When are you going to learn that?”
I kept my composure, despite the fact this was the first time my uncle had ever gotten physical with me. The first time he’d focused such a menacing look in my direction. It didn’t upset me. But it did interest me. He had plenty of money, and sure, he was a man, he wanted more, but it wasn’t just that. This reaction signified a stake in the deal that was about more than the zeroes.
“You take your hand off her right now, if you want to keep it,” a low and deadly voice interrupted my moment of reflection.
I didn’t look back at the owner of it.
I knew the owner of the voice.
He was also the owner of wolf eyes, my attention, something I was so sure wasn’t even for sale.
He paid for it with my life.
With those eyes.
And he would never know that he owned it. I’d buy it back if it took everything I had.
Abe’s gaze went to Jacob, his hand automatically letting go of my arm. I wasn’t even sure if he knew he was doing it. It was instinct to survive, obeying a voice with that much violence in it.
“Who is this?” he demanded, straightening his blazer as if it would gather the face he’d just lost. My uncle was not known for public outbursts.
Which made this all the more interesting.
Abe hadn’t known about the attempts on my life, which surprised me, he was a man who made it his business to know everything. He was good at finding things out, but I was better at hiding things. Which was why he hadn’t met Jacob yet, he wouldn’t buy the story I’d been telling everyone else.
“This is your reminder to keep discussions about business polite and dignified,” I said, draining my glass and putting it on a nearby table. “If you have problems with the way I’m running my business, schedule an appointment with Vaughn.”
“I’ll do better. I’ll let the board know what you’re doing,” he said, voice cold, but his eyes didn’t hide his fear at Jacob’s presence.
“I welcome it,” I replied to his threat, trying to keep my satisfaction at his response to Jacob hidden. “Then I’ll be able to inform them the laundry list of crimes we’d become accessories to should we decide to get into bed with Ethan Kershaw.” I paused, refusing to break his stare. “My decision is made. And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m in charge here. Until that changes, my word is law.”
I looked to Jacob, who was still glaring at my uncle. “Shall we go? I’m rather ready to leave.”
I didn’t wait, I walked away.
I knew Jacob followed me.
“Are you sure we can’t drop you somewhere?” I asked, concern not showing in my words, despite the fact I was all but consumed with it. We were standing outside on the street, my car ready and waiting, Jacob standing silent beside me.
Molly grinned. “Nah, I’ve got friends picking me up.” She frowned at her phone. “Or I’m meeting them at a party close.” She shrugged. “I’ll go for a walk. Hang out with New York for a spell.”
“You realize it’s a city, not a person, right?” I asked, this time hiding the grin in my words.
She quirked her brow. “New York is all the people I know and love and all the people I dislike all rolled into one. It’s no one and everyone at the same time.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, be careful.”
She blew me a kiss. ”Never! Careful is too dull.” She gave Jacob a look. “Keep being awesome, dude. I’ll let you know if there have been any nuclear codes stolen that you and your biceps need to retrieve.” She winked at him.
It happened so quickly I wasn’t quite sure whether I imagined it or not, but the corner of Jacob’s mouth twitched.
Molly grinned between the two of us, saying everything and nothing in that grin.
And then she turned and lost herself in the crowd. Or tried to. Molly would never meld into a crowd. She was born to stand out.
I watched her for three seconds, it’s all I gave myself, I didn’t know who was watching, but it wouldn’t do well for anyone to see that Molly was someone who mattered to me.
Jacob saw it.
> Because Jacob saw everything.
“Thank you, Ralph,” I said as I got out of the car.
He gave me a smile. “Always, Ms. Crofton.” His eyes moved to Jacob. “I assume he can accompany you up to the apartment?”
It was safe to say that Ralph and Jacob didn’t enjoy a warm relationship. Primarily because Jacob had yet to show that he was capable of any kind of relationship with a human being, warm or otherwise. Also because Ralph was a man trained to distinguish threats and Jacob was a threat. It didn’t take an expert to assess that. He was on our side for now, but someone with Ralph’s training likely saw the cold killer that was barely hidden. He knew that Jacob was not a man you warmed to if you wanted to stay breathing.
I nodded to him. “I’ve kept you away from your grandchildren long enough.”
He smiled warmly. “You’ve saved me, more like. There are only so many Disney movies I can pretend to watch before I go insane.”
I wanted to smile. For the man with the hard life and the demons behind his eyes going home to a wife, to children to a family. To warmth.
I didn’t.
I nodded once. “See you Monday.”
“Six,” he said.
I turned and walked into the building.
I didn’t need to glance toward Jacob to know that he followed me.
It was as constant as my shadow, Jacob’s presence. But it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t easy to ignore. It was impossible.
He still hadn’t said a word to me all night. The ride back here was full of silence and me pretending to be engrossed in the emails I was sending. I expected him to ask me about the exchange with my uncle, any other person would. But Jacob wasn’t any other person. He never did as I expected. The only thing I could expect from Jacob was stony silence and a gaze to flay at my skin.
The elevator was scarcely big enough for the silence between us. My arm burned from where he’d touched it in this very elevator hours ago. We were alone in the enclosed space, without my sister’s warmth and constant chatter. I wanted him to touch me again. I ached to cross the distance between us. For my entire body to be branded with that brutal touch.