by Corri Lee
He was standing behind me so I couldn’t see it, but I felt him freeze. “He did?”
“Yeah and you were right, I had a right to know. That said...” I sighed and stared down into my mug. “I don’t think I should come to the funeral. I don’t want to rub their faces in it.”
“Come again?”
Turning, I looked up and narrowed my eyes at his frown. He looked so confused and I didn’t understand it. He was a compassionate man—he shouldn’t have needed it spelling out. “I’m sure everyone blames me.”
“But it was my fault.”
“Blaze. Baby.” Standing, I turned my back to the table and sat on the edge, pulling him closer to fill the gap between my legs. “She spent thousands of days with you and never came to harm. One evening with me and she tops herself. Of course we share a degree of responsibility but I walked into her home and stole her husband. Of course it’s easier and more logical for people to blame me.”
“Oh...” Still frowning, Blaze stared down at our hands and linked them. His thumb brushed over the underside of my engagement ring possessively and I reciprocated the gesture. I might have technically stolen him but I’d defy anyone who tried to dispute the fact that he was mine. “I need you there for moral support, cupcake.”
“I know, but it would be in poor taste for me to come with you. The home wrecker surfacing at the funeral of the wife she drove to suicide because she wouldn’t sign the divorce papers? Mona and Patrice don’t need that kind of insult. Not today.”
“Emmeline, how do I put this?” Releasing my hand, Blaze rested his palms on the table-top on either side of my hips and dipped so our faces were level. The eyes that usually shimmered with love that had once scared me had hardened to precisely focused emeralds, free of emotion, almost cruel and reticent. “I didn’t say I want you there. I said I need you there. You’ll be at my side.”
Something innate I’d never known existed inside me yielded. Blaze so rarely took an authoritative approach with me, exercising the tactic maybe only twice before. Even though I’d spent so many years trying to be independent, I had to acknowledge that I kind of really liked it.
So did he, by the looks of it, when he U-turned back out of his little spell of megalomania and studied me. “Are you turned on?”
My face flushed. He really didn’t miss a trick. “No!” I objected, which just made him grin.
“You are! You’re turned on by me bossing you around!”
“Am not.” I tried to look affronted but was only too aware of the smirk on my face. “I’m begging you not to take advantage of this.”
He scoffed with faux innocence. “Would I?” Yes, he would. Frequently, from the looks of him. The list of possibilities to be had from a discovery like this was endless and perverse. “I don’t want to be a tyrant, so maybe I can reward your compliance.”
“Would you punish my petulance?” My mouth snapped open. What the hell was I saying?!
Oh my God, was that my strange mind’s idea of retribution? To be bossed around and penalised for disobedience? I couldn’t pay with my life or legal proceedings, so I’d manufacture the scenario through some kind of sexually sordid role-play?
“Emmeline?” Blaze clicked his fingers around my head space until he had my attention. “Lost you for a minute there.”
“Sorry.” I accepted his assistance in climbing down off the table and noted how he moved my breakfast just fractionally closer to me.
That was the moment I realised he’d commandeered me from the very start. I’d been overthrown from the minute he walked into my bookshop and talked me into meeting him after my shift. I’d gone to places I’d hated and lived through experiences that caused a great amounts of anxiety because that was what he’d wanted. He’d picked my food, even my clothes. I’d even fled down Oxford Street with the intent to scam a businessman out of his lunch money because that was what he’d told me to do.
I trusted him implicitly and when he was as gorgeous as he was, a total power exchange to redeem myself for what I’d done to Natasha—whatever that was—wasn’t really a repugnant idea.
“So how would you reward me, sir?” My voice came out huskier than I intended, which seemed to catch him off guard.
“Uh... whut?”
“How would you reward me—my compliance? Sir.”
“You want me to—Oh. Ohh...” He crouched behind me, moving my hair to one side to access my neck. “You want to play the subservient, cupcake?”
My spine straightened with confidence. I knew his choice not to use the word many others would—’submissive’—was a conscious one, and one that made a distinction in our relationship. There would be no crawling on my knees, discipline or contracts, just me doing as I was damn well told. We didn’t have the sort of arrangement where I needed to be degraded and bossed around. I needed to be guided and he was the one to lead me.
Well, I suppose when I’d gone out of my way to disobey Henry for so long, I was bound to end up with a few daddy issues.
“I’ll play anything you tell me to.”
“You like board games?”
I faltered, wondering if our ideas didn’t match up quite as well as I’d thought. “Not really.”
“Then eat your fucking breakfast, shower and get dressed within the hour or I may do something to monopolise your sanity.”
Ah. We were on the same page after all. Almost. It might have just been a little fun to him but for me, it was absolutely serious. It wouldn’t be constant or permanent, but for now, he held all the cards because he knew how to play them better.
And I was completely at ease with that.
There’s nothing worse than being at a wake you provoked. As a sign of respect, Blaze and I had agreed that it was best I didn’t go to the ceremony as it was Natasha’s family’s chance to say a proper goodbye. That didn’t need to be impeded on, desecrated and trampled by my presence. There was no need to provide the reminder of why she was gone.
Blaze had twisted that to justify not being there himself. His excuse was that he had neither the inclination nor the energy to pretend to be mourning. He was glad to see the back of Natasha and it didn’t seem fair to impose his indifference and low-level happiness on her family. I’d have fought him on it but I knew he was right, and I knew it was a big deal for him to be going to the funeral at all. If he’d known just how badly she had treated him over the course of their marriage, I didn’t doubt that he’d appear only to spit on her coffin.
But I wish I’d remembered the wake would be in Natasha’s manor house before I’d let Blaze order me into going with him. The building looked twice as big as it had before and seemed to be full of an invisible, oppressive fog that was simply too intense to just be a result of the mourners inside. Everyone’s movements seemed sluggish, a universal apathy filling every square inch of space. It was almost as though when Natasha had died, she’d taken the life of the house with her.
As if that wasn’t enough, there were the whispers. Of course there were the whispers. They weren’t even surreptitious little jibes I could have been imagining in a fit of paranoia. Everyone was looking at me. Everyone was judging. Worse, with Blaze clinging to my hand, they were judging him, too.
We walked a circuit of the ground floor, pausing to receive condolences from those who had the decency to keep their thoughts to themselves. I didn’t recognise a single face but they all seemed to know who I was and had been given a reason to slyly check out my covered wrists.
My only suitable black dress had short capped sleeves. I’d pulled out the creased garment from my boxes with every intention of getting it pressed when Blaze had presented me with the dress I was wearing now. I’d been initially annoyed that he’d made time to shop for me, just assuming that I’d go with him. But now I appreciated that he had, and recognised that he’d wanted me to look good so I wasn’t self-conscious.
The satin pencil dress skimmed my knees, a demure yet sexy length. The top section from bust down to wrists was a high-necked sewn in panel
of thick patterned black lace. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d have ever bought for a funeral but between my outfit and Blaze’s choice of pure black suit and graphite grey tie, we were the best dressed couple in the room. Anyone who wasn’t staring because we’d driven Natasha Valentine into her urn had to be staring because we looked like we’d been transplanted in from Hollywood.
“Hey.” Blaze ground to a halt and turned me to face him. “You doing okay?”
“I’m...” I shrugged, unable to put a word to how I was feeling. “Are you?”
“I’m...” He laughed and shrugged like I had. Really, there was no way to adequately describe how weird the whole situation was. “I just need to hang around long enough for the will reading. Then we’ll leave.”
“Okay.” Even if he had an obligation to stay longer, I wasn’t going to push it. I didn’t want to be on enemy territory any longer than necessary.
“I’m going to have nightmares tonight. The last time I was here... Promise me you’ll stay out of the kitchen.” There was a note of amusement to his request but I didn’t take it lightly. If the shoe had been on the other foot and he’d tried to kill himself the last time he’d walked in there, I wouldn’t want him near the kitchen, either. The remembered anguish would be enough without the visual stimulus.
“I promise. And I swear, you’ll never have to see me looking like that again. You’ll never be patrolling the room at my wake.”
Blaze lifted his chin defensively. “Damn right I won’t. The only way I’m going to be at your funeral is if I’m in the coffin next to you.”
The conviction of that threat was chilling because it wasn’t one that came with a timeframe. Eager to move him away from the subject, I rested my cheek over his heart and closed my eyes to block out the sight of Natasha’s photographs on every flat surface.
“A seamstress is coming out tomorrow to take my measurements—the one you put me on to.”
“Caroline?” Blaze’s posture loosened on a sigh. “I’m glad. I thought Ivy might talk you into using her seamstress. Caroline made the dress you wore for Cornelia’s masquerade mixer.”
“Oh, really?” That stunning viridian gown I’d been wearing when I found out he had the wife he’d hidden from me. I’d crammed it into a bag when I’d gotten home and hadn’t seen it since. I wondered what had happened to it. “I could have gone to her last night but it seemed in poor taste to start dress shopping before... Well, you know. Before your first wife’s bon-fire voyage.”
“I understand.” He stroked a hand restlessly up and down my back, the other cupping the back of my head and impatiently flexing. It couldn’t have been clearer to me—or to anyone else watching—that he was trying to shield me with his own body. As long as he was with me, nobody else could get close. That suited me down to the ground. “Where the hell is this damned lawyer?”
“I’m sure he’s just been—”
“Who the hell does she think she is?”
My attention snagged on a conversation behind me, maybe just a few feet away. It wasn’t a voice I recognised but that question seemed so resolutely aimed at me. Blaze opened his mouth but I discretely held up a finger to quiet him.
“I mean, hasn’t she done enough? My sister is dead thanks to her.”
Patrice. Of course. I hadn’t spoken to Natasha’s sister when my friends and I sat on the opposite side of the dining table from her. In fact, I didn’t think I’d even acknowledged what she looked like. I figured I could be excused for not paying attention, though, given the abnormal circumstances.
“It should have been her. I’m not even kidding. She should have been the one who died and Natasha should have been found.”
“Hey, not cool.” I was less stunned by the reproof than by the person I was sure had snarled it. It couldn’t be... “You don’t have to like her, but that’s my little sister you’re wishing dead.”
“Tallulah. Of course.” Blaze murmured softly above me. The vibration through his chest caused me to lose my bead on their conversation, which bugged me to no end. It actually sounded like my callous sister was sticking up for me. “They’re the same age—they were best friends in school. That’s how she knew about Natasha.”
So they’d known each other for a long time. It was astonishing how frequently I forgot that we’d all grown up Cardiff. We may have dispersed after school, but we’d all somehow ended up back in the same place. As easily as I could have met Blaze at one of my mother’s dinner parties, I could have met Natasha or Patrice, too. We might have been friends.
“You wasted your blood on her, Tally. You should have left her to it.”
“Damn it.” Grabbing my hand, Blaze spun me on the spot and headed straight for the conversation. For the first time, I paid attention to the woman who’d allocated me at the number one position on her shit list.
Patrice was a less attractive version of her sister, or else I saw her that way because I didn’t perceive her as a threat. She wasn’t quite as lithe and elegant as the late golden-haired beauty had been but she was well polished and it showed. She was a ‘deb’; an upper-class socialite who made gossip pages by flashing their crotch climbing out of limos. The only clue I had that she might not be as dissolute as that was the young boy who stood miserably at her side.
Blaze had joked about the roller-skating aptitude of his seven year old nephew the first time he’d taken me out into ‘his’ world. I’d never questioned before whether that was a bond forged by blood. From the way the kid’s eyes lit up when he spotted us walking towards them—and the fact Blaze had no siblings—he was the fabled child and that had to make him Patrice’s son. It didn’t seem like Blaze would strive to maintain a connection with Natasha’s family; had the poor lad not only lost an aunt, but an uncle, too? Like I didn’t feel bad enough.
“Blaze,” Patrice hissed, wrinkling her nose like he’d arrived with a putrid stench. “Have you no respect, bringing that with you?”
“I had the respect to bring her, Patty. Trust me, having her here is the only thing stopping me from turning this wake into a party.” Blaze jerked his chin in her son’s direction, winking. “All right, Tommy?”
“Hi.”
Patrice took an obstructive step between them. “You have some nerve bringing your new bitch to your wife’s funeral. Natasha loved you—seeing that she’d lost you killed her. She died of a broken heart.”
“Oh, please. Her final mortal task was to promise Emmeline and me a future so bleak I nearly lost her, then she killed herself because she knew not even rail-roading our prospects would drive me to her. Don’t make out she was some kind of saint.”
“Blaze.” Grabbing any part of him I could, I tried to squeeze some decency into him before the debate became a spectacle. I could already sense heads turning and ears pricking. “Don’t do this. Not today.”
“Listen to your whore, Lundy. She might slit her wrists if you don’t.”
“Seriously, don’t even joke about that. She was nothing but nice to Tasha.” Reminding me she was there, Tallulah jumped to my defence for a second time.
I’d always struggled to see any of myself in my sister. She was a miniature version of Henry; all bulk with the same colouring and narcissistic tendencies. There as none of our winsome mother in her appearance, and our matching blood type was the only supporting evidence I had of us being related.
She’d never even acted like a sister. Only two years older than me, we’d never shared any precious moments of bonding that other siblings might. We’d simply coexisted for my twenty-two years and never actively interacted unless she was ridiculing, taunting and teasing me. She hated to see me smile. The first time it looked like I was happy, she’d tried to tear it from my hands.
“Crawl back into your Petri dish, Tally. I don’t need you to fight my battles for me. We both know you only tried to keep me alive because I wanted to be dead.”
“Are you shitting me?” Her clay brown eyes bore into me, betraying her tea-spoon deep emotional ra
nge. “My concern and my love aren’t two things you’re entitled to just because you’re my little sister. I don’t have to care about you and you’re damned lucky to have something you haven’t earned. Do you know where I was when I got the call from Dad telling me what you’d done?” I answered with silence. “Heathrow. On my way to Italy for an internship interview with Vogue.”
My cheeks heated with shame. I knew so little about my sister, including that she’d ever aspired to a career in fashion. “I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. You were mad at me for telling you your dumb boyfriend was married, but it wasn’t like anyone else was going to.” She turned her piggy gaze on Blaze. “You certainly weren’t. I gave up that interview to be by your side while you were dying and I offered to give you blood. I didn’t try to stop you from dying because I wanted you to lead a miserable life, Emmeline. I tried to keep you alive because you have too much to live for.”
What the hell was happening to my life? Every fact I thought I knew was changing, every person I thought hated me emerging from their deceptive cocoons as loving, worried friends. I seriously questioned whether I’d really died and was in a realistic afterlife of delusion, or even whether I’d caused a rift in space and floated into an alternate universe.
“Thank you?”
“Whatever.” She snorted and slipped back into the personality I recognised only too well. This conscientious phase seemed to have passed, though who knew what this meant for the rest of our relationship as sisters. “Just put me in a nice bridesmaid dress. They won’t consider rebooking my interview if I’m photographed at your wedding in a meringue.”
“Blaze?” The voice of an elderly gentleman split the atmosphere of what had become an extremely odd and befuddling encounter. Even Patrice looked like her heart had melted a little, which was amazing considering how arctic her mood had been just minutes before.
We all turned to the man, all reeling it seemed. He held out his hand to each of us and greeted us brightly in spite of the event. He had to be the lawyer. Only a man who’d scented a commission in the water could smile like that at a wake.