As if on cue, David Thornton descended the graceful sweep of the staircase, his strides sprinkled with just a hint of quickness a Thornton should never show, because Thornton’s never hurried for anyone. But he hit the bottom landing and made a beeline for his daughter.
“Cordy.”
I looked away as he embraced her and brushed her perfectly rosy cheeks with kisses. I focused on removing my own coat and handing it to Jameson with a quiet murmur of thanks.
“Gabrielle.”
David had released Cordelia and had finally noticed me, but the appraisal he gave me was nothing like the one he’d given her. There was nothing fatherly about his once over. There never was. Instead, it left me feeling violated and dirty. The long-sleeved dress that went nearly to my ankles wasn’t enough fabric to protect me from his dark, soulless eyes. I had to resist the urge to cross my arms, knowing any attempts to cover myself from him would result in repercussions much worse later. All I could do was offer him my best smile, just the way he liked it, ignoring the slimy sensation in the pit of my stomach as if I’d consumed a nest of snakes. It took all my senses to maintain eye contact the whole time.
David had always been a ruggedly handsome man. He’d gone from being a wealthy, athletic lady’s man in school, to a cunning businessman later on. He’d always been the ideal candidate for any gold digger. Even in his later years, he stubbornly kept to his fit figure and took monthly trips to touch up any undesirable blemishes that came with age. He forever remained that arrogantly smug lacrosse hero from his youth, the one with dazzling blue eyes and a head full of perfect hair. The only thing he’d allowed to change was the graceful graying in the strands. He considered it his greatest feature, the ability to keep all his hair, unlike his counterparts.
“Hello Father.”
The corner of David’s mouth bunched as it always did when I used the F word, a fleeting wince that contradicted the very strict instructions he’d given me my entire life to always call him Father. Never David. Never Dad. Father. Yet, he flinched every time I did, as if I’d cussed. Now was no exception, except it was followed by his focus reverting to the driveway through the open door behind me.
“Jameson, did one of the maids leave their car in front again?”
I turned as well, not entirely sure why, but secretly hoping there was another car he was referring to. But no.
“That’s mine,” I said.
To his credit, David almost didn’t make a face. It was more of a subtle little tick just above his right eye.
“Of course.” He drew in a breath and turned away, turned back to Cordelia where his flourishing smile returned. He offered her his arm. “Come. I have instructed the new cook to make all your favorites.”
“New cook?” Cordelia chuckled and slipped her slender hand through the crook of his elbow. “What happened to that fellow from the Mediterranean?”
The two of them glided away, leaving me no choice but to follow. I checked my watch and timed my departure exactly one hour from the moment I set foot in the parlor.
Sunday dinners were a mandatory affair. All Thornton’s, legitimate or not, were required to attend. Sundays were days for rich, lavish meals and talk of their many successes that past week. It was filled with chatter about politics, charity events, and me. But never directly. Always with an added little barb too underhanded to actually address.
Cordelia was the queen of underhanded insults.
“So, of course, I boarded the plane straight away and got to Paris just in time to save the entire magazine before it was an absolute disaster,” Cordelia was saying when I took a corner seat out of the way.
David, for Cordelia’s twenty-fifth birthday, had bought her a magazine. Not simply a glossy booklet, but the actual company. And not just any company, Le Fever, a pristine and highly popular fashion magazine that had once humiliated her for wearing fall shoes in the spring. The first thing she’d done upon accepting her new CEO role, was to fire the columnist who had written that article. Then she’d taken to the business like a true daughter of David Thornton.
The magazine was thriving, much to most people’s surprise.
“I hope you fired the editor,” David reprimanded, from the drink cart where he poured one glass of whiskey and a martini with extra olives. The martini was pressed into Cordelia’s perfectly manicured hands. “That’s inexcusable.”
I didn’t get myself a drink.
Everything, including the water, came with a price I literally could not afford. And I knew if I so much as looked at it, Cordelia would make some pithy remark about scraps and beggars, because nothing in that house was mine.
I was an unwanted freeloader, an unwelcome leech sucking the family dry. My only purpose was to be present, be quiet, and leave as quickly as possible.
The front doors blew open. The resounding bang of heavy wood creating a dent in the plaster resonated through the entire manor. It was followed by the riotous laughter of too many male voices.
I instinctively rose from my seat and tucked myself away by the picture window, the one nearly out of view of the doors when the small crowd barged in.
Eric strolled in with the strides of a king. He was followed by two of his obedient friends, Alton Grant and Knox Laird, the spoiled sons of an oil tycoon and an investment banker. Judging from the crimson in their cheeks and the touch of unsteadiness in their stance, I wagered they’d had their own party before arriving.
“Eric.” David’s disapproval silenced the cackling. It was nice to see that look aimed at someone else for a change. “I was not made aware that you would be inviting guests this evening.”
“Just a few school friends, Father.” Eric grinned. “We’ve always got plenty.”
School friends was stretching it when none of them had seen the inside of a school in seven years, and barely even before that. But to be fair, Eric had gone to university with the pair. They’d spent the majority of it partying and sleeping with every girl that crossed their path. It was a wonder any of them graduated. I had a suspicion the school had been properly convinced to make sure they did.
David pursed his lips, but we all knew he couldn’t say a damn. “Of course.”
Eric and his hoard of idiots stampeded into the parlor, dragging mud and filth across Mother’s antique rug. They took the entire length of the sofa I’d been sitting on. But no sooner had Eric’s backside touched the cushion when he sprung right back up and made a path to the drink cart. The clink of glasses being filled interrupted the silence that had unfolded since Eric’s arrival. The drinks were brought over and distributed.
“So,” Eric took a slurping sip and smacked his lips. “What did we miss?”
“Just waiting on your mother,” was David’s curt reply.
But it wasn’t Marcella Thornton who stalked into the room after nearly five rigid minutes of Eric and his friends making inappropriate jokes about the co-ed they’d tag teamed the night before. It wasn’t her stubbornly kept figure occupying the threshold, or her floral scent washing into the room.
Instead, the shadow was of a man who meant everything and absolutely nothing to me. The mere sight of him propelled my lungs to promptly forget their purpose. They sat in my chest, confused while my heart struggled to make up for their inadequacy. My stomach jittered, a frantic little dance that made my nerves tingle and my skin prickle. I was aware of him in a way I had absolutely no right to, in a way that mortified me, shamed me into folding myself deeper in my tiny corner.
The chill from outside bit through the cotton fabric of my dress and burned the bony curve of my spine where it flattened against the glass, but I didn’t dare pull away.
I didn’t dare move in fear that he might notice me.
“I hope I’m not too late.”
His baritone hum vibrated through the room, masculine dominance swaddled in silk. The sheer force of it was like the perfect tease of a lover’s fingertips gliding over exposed skin. Not that I had any knowledge of that, but my skin never f
ailed to prickle when he spoke.
“Kieran, my boy!” David sprung to his feet and closed the distance to shake the other man’s hand with a vigor he never showed anyone. “You’re right on time. We were just having drinks before dinner.”
Kieran Kincaid.
He’d walked into my life one balmy, July afternoon seven years before dressed in torn jeans and a leather jacket, and I was never the same. He no longer dressed with reckless disregard, but the form fitting suits were no better at keeping at bay the seductive pull of the man beneath. He still made my heart jump at the mere sight of him, which was every Sunday like clockwork.
I wasn’t the only one.
The Thornton family adored him, and not just because David and Kieran’s father had been close friends before Walter Kincaid’s untimely passing. The Kincaid’s were influential, wealthy beyond reason, and one foot away from being practically royalty. Kieran was David’s wet dream. With ties like the Kincaids, David could run for world leader and win.
My needs for Kieran were far more complicated. I was almost certain they were borderline immoral. I just wasn’t sure how exactly. But everything about my feelings for him felt wrong, dirty even. Not out of anything he’d ever done, but because of who I was; someone like Kieran deserved someone better. Someone not tainted by things out of their control. Someone who wouldn’t embarrass him to be seen with.
I was not that person.
I never would be.
Kieran was directed to the high back armchair while David went to get him a drink. Long hands with tapered fingers undid the glossy button holding the dark blazer closed over his crisp, white dress shirt and the soft material parted. The silver buckle of his belt winked once before he bent at the waist and accepted the cushion.
“Hello Cordelia,” he said politely. “You look lovely this evening.”
The second martini in Cordelia’s dainty grasp was lifted to her lips and drained before she answered, “You’re looking quite charming yourself, Mr. Kincaid.”
Eric said something to his friends and the trio snickered like teenage delinquents.
The sound redirected warm, amber eyes over the coffee table to the grown men in the opposite sofa.
“Eric.” Kieran fixed the man in the middle with his full attention, a terrifying place to be when that stare had the power to look straight into your soul. “How’s life?”
It was an odd sort of question given that we’d all been sitting in that exact room, in those exact seats only a week before. At the same time, it really wasn’t that strange. Eric lived life the way I always imagined a man with not a care in the world would, with abundance and extravagance. I’d always envied him that ability. He’d been everywhere, seen everything. Minus the drugs, booze, and women, he lived the way I’d always wanted. So, for Eric, a week was practically a year in the life of a normal person.
My half-brother scoffed. “You’d know if you hadn’t gone all upstanding citizen on me.”
Kieran offered him the ghost of a smile that tipped higher on the right side, reminding me of the old Kieran, the one Eric was talking about. That Kieran had been nothing but trouble in all the ways that mattered. That Kieran probably scared me more than the Kieran seated before me now, because the old Kieran could melt the panties off a girl from a hundred paces with that grin alone. I’d never been on the receiving end of it, but I’d felt the brush of it from a distance, the backwash as it homed in on someone else like a laser.
The old Kieran had been a lot like Eric back then. They’d been identical, best friends. Practically inseparable, but that Kieran had been gone for years. I never got the chance to know him, but I’m not so sure I missed him when left with the now Kieran.
“Perhaps next time.”
Eric snorted, believing Kieran nearly as much as I did. “You’ve washed out. We used to have some crazy times. We’re too young to be tied down.”
There was a hard edge to Kieran’s firm mouth now, even while it curved in a passable show of amusement. “Thirty-five is hardly that young and we all have to grow up eventually.”
I almost laughed at the idea of Eric ever growing up. So long as he had Mother paying to get him out of every problem and David’s money to ease the way, he would squander everything life handed him. I doubted anything would ever make him change his way.
It was a shame, really. He was the eldest, the heir to the Thornton fortune. After David’s death, it would all go to him, not that David was stupid enough to do such a thing. Odds were, everything would be left to Cordelia, and it would be up to her to decide where and who had access. Eric would most likely wind up with nothing, except maybe liver problems, and a coke addiction.
I would get nothing. Not even a paperclip. The illegitimate bastard didn’t deserve any more of David’s family money. He’d already spent enough the last eighteen years just by keeping me, of which I was to be eternally grateful.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t want his money. I didn’t even want to be in that family. Had I been allowed a choice, I would have stayed in my little apartment, as far away from that place and those people as possible.
But appearances were everything. What would people say if I didn’t make the mandatory weekend dinners? Never mind that there was only the one person who would actually witness my absence and it wouldn’t do for Kieran to know I wasn’t a Thornton, especially not with the plans David had for him. My bloodline was a secret that needed to go to our graves with us.
“I’m sorry!” Mother clacked into the room in her black wrap dress and velvet pumps. Her hair bounced around slender shoulders in a wave of silky sunshine. Her blue eyes shone just a little too brightly against the heart shaped contours of her face. “I’ve been on the phone this entire time. I hate that I kept everyone waiting.”
That may have been true, I mused, but it was unlikely. Mom didn’t have any friends. It was unclear if that was a personal choice, or something David insisted on. Most likely the latter. After all, I was never allowed to make friends. It was an unspoken warning growing up.
But Mom always needed an extra few minutes before making her way down, medicated and mildly intoxicated. It was never at the point anyone would notice, but I’d spent the majority of my life watching this family that should have been mine as the fly on their wall. I saw shimmers of imperfection in an otherwise flawless masterpiece. This world, the one I’d been dumped into with no regard, was a picture hidden within a picture. Nothing the first picture said was true. That one was the polish, the veneer that kept people from seeing the truth.
My world was a lie baked on top of a lie.
My mother was part of that lie. Marcella Thornton hadn’t been lucid a day in her life. She wouldn’t know what to do with the demons living in her head.
I sometimes wondered if David didn’t prefer her drugged and subdued, easily controlled. Granted, my mother had never been a strong woman and needed constant reassurance to her worth, so it must have worked for them both.
David and Kieran rose at her arrival. Eric’s friends attempted to do the same, but wound up teetering into each other and tumbling back laughing.
No one paid them any mind.
“Kieran.” Marcella beamed. “I’m so happy you could join us.”
The way my parents went on, one would think Kieran rarely visited when in fact, he was there every weekend for as far back as I could remember. He even had his own stocking at Christmas.
“It’s always a pleasure,” he told her with an inclination of his head.
“Is it time to eat?” Eric sounded from the sofa. “I’m starving.”
“Maybe you should have a few more bottles of vodka,” Cordelia snipped. “You’re clearly too coherent.”
Eric flipped her off, which earned a hiss from their mother and a sharp bark from their father.
“Enough!” David warned. “Everyone to the dining room.”
Eric and his friends got to their feet with a lot of shoving and tittering, and ambled out before anyone else.
David offered Marcella his elbow and allowed her to lean into him as they followed the pack.
Then it was just me, Cordelia, and Kieran in the parlor alone. I remained perfectly still. So far, no one had noticed me and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible until I could leave.
Cordelia waited until the footsteps had faded down the corridor before getting fluidly to her feet. The movement was a beautiful dance of slender limbs unfurling and straightening. She could have easily been a ballerina on a brightly lit stage, a performer acting out the role given to her from birth. She stepped around the coffee table to Kieran’s side, her blue eyes pinning him in place.
“Walk a lady in?”
Even her voice was sultry and seductive, the husky purr of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and made no apologies about doing whatever it took to get it. And Cordy wanted Kieran. He’d been her goal for years. Not just her goal, but David’s as well.
I sometimes wondered if she wanted him because she wanted him, or because it was what David wanted. Kieran certainly wasn’t hard to look at. He had money. He had the position and power. He was the perfect catch for any woman. But I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t yet another desperate act to earn more love from her father, which I never understood. David loved Cordelia more than anyone, including his wife.
Kieran pushed to his feet with a whisper of expensive fabric, startling me out of my reverie. I blinked and focused as he offered my half-sister a smile I would have given anything to be alone in a room with.
“I would be delighted.”
Cordelia flushed, and I didn’t blame her. I’d have been a puddle at his feet. Her ability to remain upright was impressive.
But neither paid me a single glance as Kieran held his arm out to her. The pair made a striking set, a play of her light to his darkness, her softness to his raw masculinity. They were perfect. The prince and his princess. A modern fairy tale of class and elegance. Cordelia was exactly the type of woman Kieran deserved. She was everything I never could be, beautiful, graceful, sophisticated ... wanted.
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