by Celia Aaron
“It’s me,” Renee called.
“Hey. What’s up?” I rinsed off and stepped out, taking the towel she proffered.
“Nothing. Just wanted to come by and see you.” She smiled. Her warmth had dimmed as of late, but it was still welcome.
I glanced to the ceiling. “How is she?”
She lowered her head. “Worse, I think. Lucid less and less.”
“Did you know she chose Sin to compete this year?” I toweled off and snagged some lotion from the counter.
“What?” She canted her head at me. “No, she didn’t.”
“Yes.” I walked into my bedroom. “She did.”
Renee followed and sat on my bed, her mouth drawn into a frown. “That can’t be true.”
“Sin said so. The previous Sovereign chooses who will compete.”
She shook her head slowly as I dressed. “Cal Oakman visited last summer. It was odd. He only came to see Rebecca. The boys weren’t even home.” She lifted her wide eyes to me. “She did this? How could she do this to her own blood?”
I’d never seen a good side to Sin’s mother. When Renee described Rebecca talking and laughing about the boys when they were little, I couldn’t picture it. The cruel old crone on the third floor was the boogie man to me, but Renee still believed there was some good left inside her.
“This is what she does. What she’s become.” I sat next to her and took her hand. “Rebecca set this in motion. I don’t know if it was to keep the Vinemonts in power or what, but she chose him. I’m sorry she kept it from you.”
She stayed silent, though her thoughts were loud enough I could almost hear them.
I squeezed her hand. “Let’s go down to breakfast. Maybe Lucius can shed more light?”
“No. I’m going upstairs. I need to hear it from her.” She set her lips in a thin line.
I knew the look. There was no arguing with it. We stood and walked into the hall. She took the steps to the third floor as I descended to the first. The scent of bacon drew me toward the kitchen, but I stopped as I passed the dining room. Sin sat at the head of the table, his eyes already focused on me as I rounded the corner.
I couldn’t stop the happiness that swelled in my heart, but he regarded me with a cold stare. My joy at seeing him faded like leaves in the winter. Had he fallen for Sophia after all?
“When did you get here?” I strode toward him, wanting to touch him. Instead, I stopped and sat at my usual place. I couldn’t gauge him. The look on his face was stony, but the fire in his eyes was hot enough to burn.
“This morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I lay my napkin across my lap and met his glare.
“Why would I have to tell you anything?”
“What?” I stopped what I was doing as anger overtook my earlier happiness. “You watch me get beaten to within an inch of my life, watch me choose between killing my father or Brianne’s mother, and then you leave for a European vacation with that Oakman bitch? And now you’re back and don’t feel the need to even mention it to me?” My voice rose to almost a yell.
He stood and towered over me, hell in his eyes. “Don’t you ever refer to Sophia in that manner. You aren’t fit to speak her name, much less stand in her presence. In fact, get the fuck out of here. You can eat with the dogs where you belong.” He swiped my table setting onto the floor. My plate shattered at our feet.
I rose and stood toe to toe with him, craning my head back so I could look him in the eye. “You asked for my trust. I gave it. I believed this entire time that you were cozying up to Sophia to save Teddy. To save me.”
He gripped my throat, his palm clammy. “I said do not speak her name.”
I couldn’t see him anymore, not the real him. The devil who’d come to my house and offered me the contract was back, his mask firmly in place.
“What is wrong with you?”
He leaned down until we were nose to nose. “What is wrong is that I ever thought you were anything more than the whore daughter of a petty criminal.” The hand at my throat tightened. “Now get out of my sight.”
He shoved me back, and I stumbled into the sideboard. Lucius walked into the dining room and looked from me to Sin.
He bristled. “What did you do?”
Sin calmly returned to his seat at the head of the table. “Get your whore out of here before I do something she’ll regret.”
“What?” Lucius took my elbow and steadied me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You heard me.” Sin leaned back and gave me a withering glance. “I’d do it quickly, if I were you. Otherwise, there will be a bloody mess to clean, and that just wouldn’t do.”
“Wait just a fucking minute. You need to explain—”
“No.” I pulled away from Lucius’s grip. The room spun, but not from my hangover. “I’ll go. I don’t want to be in here anymore. I don’t want to be here at all.” I turned and ran as my heart hammered, my ears burning.
Bounding up the stairs, I almost bowled Teddy over. I’d forgotten school was out for a few weeks before summer term.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear his kindness right after Sin had treated me so horribly. I refused to cry, especially in front of Teddy. Explaining it wasn’t an option.
“I’m fine. Hungover is all.” I side-stepped him and continued climbing the stairs. “I’ll catch you later today. Promise.”
“Okay.” His voice remained uncertain, but once I reached the second floor landing, I heard his steps retreating downward.
I turned toward my room and hesitated. Raised voices from the third floor caught my ear. Throwing another glance toward the sanctuary of my room, I took a hesitant step up the stairs.
“Why?” Renee’s yell had my feet moving faster.
Was she asking about why Rebecca had chosen Sin to compete? I wanted to hear that answer. I hurried up the stairs and down the hall, the yelling covering any noise I made.
“Because he’s strong.” Rebecca’s screech raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“You’ve doomed him. You’ve killed Teddy.”
“No, no, no. Don’t cry. Come here. Let me hold you.” Rebecca’s voice switched to something soothing. The sweet timbre drew me closer and I peeked between the hinges as Renee sat on the bed. Rebecca pulled her into a hug and rocked her back and forth.
“Why?” Renee’s question was thick with anguish.
“I had to. It’s the only way.” Rebecca smoothed Renee’s hair. “Do you know I’ve always thought your hair is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen? The softest I’ve ever touched?” Tenderness suffused every word.
I blinked hard, trying to reconcile the calm, attentive woman before me with the raving lunatic of a few months ago.
“You’ve told me, yes.”
“I’ll tell you again and again, because it’s true. You’re the best thing in my life. You and my boys.” Rebecca continued rocking Renee, the two women locked in a loving embrace.
“But Sin, he could break. The same thing that happened to us could happen to him.”
“No.” Rebecca shook her head. “He’s strong. He can end it.”
“End it?” Renee pushed back and stared into Rebecca’s face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s strong enough and smart enough to win. And once he does, he will bring it crashing down.”
“How?”
“He already has what he needs to do it. Stella. He loves her.” Rebecca cupped Renee’s cheek. “My love for you broke me. His love for her will save him. I know it. He’s stronger. You’ll see.”
Renee shook her head. “But what do you mean by—”
Rebecca’s kind face twisted in disgust, and she slapped Renee hard across the face. “Goddamn bitch. Who let you in here? Why are you in my room?”
“Rebecca, please.”
She slapped Renee again, and I was about to walk in and restrain her, but Renee rose.
<
br /> Rebecca wielded her harsh words like a bludgeon. “You’re a curse. I wish I’d never laid eyes on you. I wish I’d left you where I found you so you could die in the gutter where you belong. You shouldn’t be here.”
Renee calmly walked to the repaired cupboard, unlocked it, and pulled out a syringe.
Spit flew from Rebecca’s lips. “Answer me! Where are my boys? Where’s Cora? What have you done to Cora? It’s all your fault. All of it. You did this.”
Renee returned to the bed, and before long, the screaming stopped as Rebecca drifted off to sleep.
Renee pulled the blanket to Rebecca’s chin and smoothed the hair from her face. She kissed her on the forehead and curled up in the bed next to her, holding her hand. “I hope you’re right about Sin and Stella, my love. For all our sakes, I hope you’re right.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
STELLA
SIN LEFT THAT MORNING. I pressed my fingertips to the window pane as his sports car retreated down the long drive.
“He thinks we fucked.” Lucius walked up behind me. “Wouldn’t listen to a word I said, but that’s nothing unusual.”
“He didn’t even ask. Just assumed.” I bounced my forehead on the glass. “And he’s been fucking Sophia this whole time so he has no right—” I bit my cheek to stop the waterfall of bitter words.
Lucius squeezed my shoulders and turned me around to face him. “I know, but I also know that when he gets like this, there’s no talking to him, no explaining, no nothing.”
“I’ve gathered.” I let him pull me into a hug. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He smoothed his palms up and down my back. “I figure if he already thinks we fucked then we may as well do it, right?”
“Lucius—”
“Or look at it as getting back at him.” He gripped my ass and pulled me up his body until I was eye level with him. “Don’t you want to?”
Yes. I wanted to punish Sin for assuming the worst, for being with Sophia while expecting me to stay behind, pining for his return. Trust me. His note asked for something he wouldn’t give me—trust.
I wanted to hurt him. But I wasn’t like him. I couldn’t turn off one emotion and turn on another like water from a spigot. He could exchange one mask for another as easily as changing clothes. I’d never had the luxury of a disguise. I was always out in the open, my heart on my sleeve. The foolish thing was, I didn’t want to change. I wanted to remain the same. At the end of the year, when I walked away from this cabal of vultures, I still wanted to be me.
I answered Lucius’s questioning look with a shake of my head. “Put me down.”
“Fuck, Stella.” He set me on my feet and scowled.
“I thought you were leaving on business.”
He sighed. “I am.”
I lay my hand over his heart and got to my tiptoes to kiss his rough cheek. “Thank you for last night.”
He peered down at me. “Nothing to thank me for.”
“It’s okay to be a decent person every so often, you know?”
“Keep talking like that and I’ll throw you on the bed and show you just how decent I’m not.” His eyes flickered to my lips in his usual, wolfish way.
“Stella?” Teddy pushed through my half-open door. “Oh, hey. Sorry. I didn’t know you two were—”
Lucius gave me one more long look before turning and walking away. He clapped Teddy on the back as he walked past. “No, it’s cool. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Where you headed?”
“Cuba for a little while.”
“Is everything okay there?” Teddy sat on my bed.
“Nothing me and a .45 can’t fix.” Lucius strolled out the door and down the hall.
“Is he kidding?” Teddy raised his eyebrows.
Definitely not. “Yeah. I think so. He’s just in a mood.”
Teddy lay back and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Seems like everyone is. Sin bit my head off about talking to Laura before tearing out of here. What’s going on?”
I plopped next to him. “Sin thinks I slept with Lucius.”
He stopped rubbing his eyes. “Oh, well then that makes more sense. Wait, did you?”
“Yes. I slept with Lucius as in he literally slept in my bed with me last night because I needed someone. No, we did not have sex.”
“Thank god. I was beginning to question your judgment.”
“Shut up.” I swatted his leg.
“What about Lucius? What’s his problem?”
“Naturally, he’s mad that he got to spend the night but didn’t get any.”
He laughed. “He’ such an ass sometimes.”
“He isn’t as bad as he seems.” I lay back so we were shoulder to shoulder.
“Huh. I thought I was the only one who knew that.”
“Nope. I know it now, too.”
“Neither of them are bad. Not really. Sin can be sort of…”
“Psychotic?”
“Yeah, something like that. But it’s because he’s had a lot of pressure, I think. Dad died when we were little, and then Sin became the man of the house. And then there was the Brazil thing that we don’t talk about.” He drummed his fingers on his chest. “And Mom. And now the Acquisition. He’s just really strong, and it makes him sort of, I don’t know, focused and driven to the point of seeming cold and, like you said, psychotic.”
“Not to bring up old wounds, but you seem to have changed your mind since our last conversation about him.”
He shrugged. “I’m doing what he didn’t do for you. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. There has to be a reason, some really good reason, for the things he’s done to you. Right?”
“There is.” That was the closest I’d ever come to telling him the stakes. I couldn’t say more.
“I knew it. If you think it’s worth it, then it has to be.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. “It is.”
“And the thing with Lucius… We’ll get it straightened out.”
“Sin didn’t even ask me. He just assumed the worst and stormed off.”
“Give him a minute to cool off. He’ll come back. And then you can explain it to him and see if he’ll, I don’t know, grovel or something to get back in your good graces.”
I laughed. “I don’t think Sin has ever groveled in his life.”
“He’d do it for you. I know he would. He loves you. He may be too caught up in this Acquisition bullshit to see it clearly, but I know he does.”
“You try to see the best in everyone. Sometimes it isn’t there. You know?” I sighed and shifted, my arm beginning to ache.
“It is.”
I had my doubts. But then I remembered the conversation I’d overhead between Rebecca and Renee. Maybe Teddy was right. Rebecca wanted Sin to bring the Acquisition down. There was light left in her despite the dark roads she’d travelled. I wanted to tell Sin what I’d heard, to let him know what his mother intended. Would it change anything?
“Maybe you’re right about seeing the best in people. Though, I must say, I’ve seen some pretty horrible human beings over the last few months.”
“I know. But maybe some of them could change?”
“What about Cal Oakman?”
He stopped drumming his fingers. “Okay, yes. I’ll give you that one. He is, without a doubt, an evil person. When Sin wins Sovereign, maybe he can clean house or something?”
My thoughts turned murkier as my mind clicked and whirred about how to end the Acquisition. I hadn’t seized on any solution yet, though I’d contemplated contacting authorities in Washington. Sin’s warnings that some of the most powerful people in the South, and the country as a whole, attended the trials tempered the idea. Maybe the only way to dismantle it was from the inside.
Farns cleared his throat in the doorway.
“What’s up?” Teddy asked.
“I’ve just received a phone call from Mr. Sinclair. He gave me instructions on how he would like the house prepare
d for the luncheon on Saturday. And…” He scrubbed a hand down his face in a move that was utterly un-Farnsian. He was always so put-together and stoic. “Mr. Sinclair also gave me specific instructions on how you are to be prepared, Stella.”
“What luncheon?” Teddy sat up. “What do you mean ‘prepared’?”
Dread settled in the pit of my stomach.
Farns continued, “Mr. Oakman wishes to celebrate his daughter’s return from Europe. The families and a few close friends will be here for the party Saturday afternoon.”
“Party?” Renee’s voice sounded from the hallway. She scooted past Farns and came to stand beside me.
“Yes.” Farns nodded. “But there’s more.” His eyes watered. “He asked me to-to tell you…” He sagged against the door frame and Renee rushed over and took his elbow.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” He straightened. “I’m fine. Mr. Sinclair instructed that you are no longer to have this room. Instead, you will stay in the barn, beginning today. He also said that you are to wear servant’s attire for the party and that you will wait on Ms. Oakman exclusively.”
Not only would Sin not speak to me, he also set out to humiliate me in front of the very people who saw me as nothing more than a plaything. I was stunned into silence, disbelieving what I was hearing.
“No. She stays here.” Teddy put his arm around my shoulders.
“Teddy, it’s best you don’t get involved. Mr. Sinclair’s word goes.” Renee knit her brows together, as if she disagreed with her own statement.
“I don’t give a shit. He can’t just order her around like this. She’s a person.”
“He can.” I found my voice, a thin, fragile thing. To disobey would make Sin look weak, lessen his stature in the running for Sovereign. I was caught between wanting to fight him and wanting to keep Teddy safe. I would always choose the latter. “I’ll go.”
“No.” Teddy tightened his hold. “This is yours.”
“It never was.” I disentangled myself from him. “I don’t belong here.”
Farns clutched his hands in front of him. “We are going to have several people in and out doing cleaning and such for the next three days. So the barn will be quieter.” Then he bowed his head. “I truly am sorry. I tried to talk him out of it, but that has never worked.”