“Hey.” He tipped my face up. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I will fix it.”
How I wanted nothing else. I would have given my soul for the chance to be with him completely and freely. But it wasn’t just about David possibly hurting him. It was about him learning the truth about me that terrified me into silence. I couldn’t live in a world where he knew the things I’d done to get to where I was. The shame alone would kill me.
“It’s just...” I gave a heavy sigh laced with feigned resignation. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to find my way around this place. I mean, I set out to find the kitchen and wound up here.”
If he saw through my pathetic attempts, he didn’t call me on it.
“Wrong side of the house.” He took my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I let him lead me away from the waterfall, heading along the loop rather than go back.
“How did you find me?” I pressed, needing to destroy the silence clinging to our heels. “I thought for sure I would die somewhere in here.”
He snorted. “Cameras.”
“Cameras?” I mimicked warily, chin already tilting up towards the glass and steel overhead.
“How do you think we find each other in this place?”
I blinked. “Each other? Are there other people here?” which wouldn’t have surprised me, oddly enough.
He shook his head. “No, I live here alone now, but when I was younger, my parents were always doing different things in different parts of the house. Plus, the staff and crew. There’s an intercom as well, but it hasn’t been used in ages.”
“I don’t know if that’s amazing or terrifying.” I gave a shake of my head. “What did you do here as a kid?”
“I wasn’t here very often, especially during the school months, and rarely during the holidays and not if my parents could help it. They liked quiet,” he explained when I turned my face to him. “I was a wild kid, always running through the halls and knocking things over. I would drive the staff —and my parents — crazy. So, they sent me off every chance they got. Private schools in France, summer camps in Spain, winter breaks in Australia. I got to travel more as a kid then most people do their entire lives.”
Imagining of him as a rambunctious little boy lacked a warm glow when all I pictured was him alone in beautiful and exotic countries, or sitting in some dusty corner of that fortress, alone and forgotten. If anything, the thought made me hurt for the boy he was. It made me want to gather him up and tell him he wasn’t alone or forgotten. That someone did love him, want him.
But I guessed it turned out for him in the end. He grew up to be an amazing, selfless man with a good heart and a quick sense of humor. All things that made it impossible not to love him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
His head tilted a notch in my direction. “Why?”
I didn’t know how to answer that without sounding like I pitied him. So, I settled for the next best thing.
“It couldn’t have been easy having all this much space and no siblings.”
Kieran burst out laughing. “My parents wouldn’t know what to do with more than one of me. Besides, it wasn’t so bad. I did some incredible things, saw some amazing things. By the time I met Eric, I had already lived ten lives.”
I hummed quietly. “Eric.”
His knowing gaze slanted sideways at me. “I may not have been at my best in those days, but meeting Eric was the best thing to happen to me. Although, I have to say, you were such an odd little thing when I met you.”
“Hey!”
Those beautiful lips twisted into a grin. “I didn’t even know Eric had another sister until I spent that weekend with you guys, and that was almost four months of dinners, parties, lunches, hanging out. I looked down the dinner table one evening and there you were, this tiny, pale ghost. I was almost afraid to say anything just in case I’d lost my mind.”
I knew exactly which night that was. It was the first time David had let me out of my room when Kieran had visited. All the other times, I’d only seen him through the windows and the crack in my door. That night, David had barged into my room and warned me that if I did anything, he’d leave me down in the basement for the rest of the summer. I’d been so careful not to even glance at Kieran that whole weekend, just in case David noticed, terrified of being locked up again.
“Where were you?”
My spit tasted like ashes going down.
“Eric used to talk about this place,” I croaked out instead, feeling slightly nauseous. “He ... he mentioned wings.”
Kieran was studying me thoughtfully when I braved a glance up at him. But thankfully, he didn’t press.
“The east wing is for guests mostly,” he said as we finally stepped out of the conservatory. “My mom used to have enormous parties where people would spend the night and she’d put them there. The north wing is for family. That’s the top floor where my bedroom is.”
“Must be a nightmare to keep clean,” I muttered.
“There used to be a staff of fifty when my mom was in charge, but after she left, I kept a few who come in once a week to just do the main area. The rest of the house doesn’t see anyone.”
“The women must love it,” I mused, making useless chatter to keep the conversation away from me or my family. “It’s like a castle.”
“I wouldn’t know. You’re the only woman I’ve ever brought here.”
I faltered. “Ever?”
He bobbed his head once. “My mother wouldn’t allow it before my father’s death and after ... I already had my eyes on the woman I did want to bring so there were no other women.”
“In three years?”
My horrified disbelief made him laugh.
“I am capable of abstinence.” He shot me a grin. “Besides, why settle for less when the real thing is always better?”
“But three years?” I mumbled under my breath.
“Didn’t you wait twenty-two years?”
I blinked. “How did you know that?”
His eyebrows bunched. “You told me.”
I had no recollection of that, but I must have.
“So, you really waited three years for me?”
“Well...” he scratched at his jaw, filling the corridor with the sound of rubbing sandpaper. “Not entirely. After I took over for my dad, I was too busy for women. But yes, the other reason was you. Even if Dad hadn’t died, I’d made up my mind that I would have you and no one else would ever measure up.”
“Why on earth would you do something like that?” I stopped and faced him. “Why me when there are hundreds of gorgeous, sophisticated, wealthy women just dying to be draped over your arm?”
“I got that catalogue, too.”
“Kieran, I’m serious.” I nibbled on my lip, my fears bubbling up into my throat. “What if you’ve made a mistake? What if you realize—”
“I don’t make mistakes,” he cut in smoothly. “Because I don’t do anything half assed. I weigh every con, I study every angle, I plan every fallout.” He paused to study my face. “What do you think I’ve been doing the last three years, Gabby? All those dinners, all those parties. Do you think I do them for fun? I only keep going back to see you. Otherwise, I couldn’t care less about David or the rest of them.”
“You’re crazy,” I breathed, heart thumping wildly against my ribs.
“But I’m your crazy, baby.”
Grinning at my laugh, he tugged me forward.
We returned to the main part of the house and the foyer still littered with our discarded clothes from the previous night. The sight of it brought a hot warmth racing up my neck ... and other areas, but he stopped me from retrieving my dress when I headed towards it.
“I like you in my top.” Was his answer to my questioning glance. “The kitchen is at the back of the house,” he declared, pointing to the stairs. “So, when you get to the stairs, go left, or right, if you’re coming down.”
“What’s over there?”
/> I pointed to the secondary corridor branching away from the place he’d indicated the kitchen was.
“Mainly offices. My dad’s old study. The library. Several bathrooms and I think a sunroom.”
“Office? Why do you need so many?” I gestured to the way we’d just come from. “There were like three on that side.”
Kieran sighed. “Baby, I have no idea why there’s so many. There just is. Have you counted the bathrooms yet?”
I laughed at that. “Yeah, I passed a few of those, too.”
He shook his head. “Whoever built this place had a deep need to overcompensate, a nightmare for the cleaning staff, but great when you’re a kid playing hide and seek. Come on.”
I was taken further down through an arched doorway and into a cavern of a room glowing with enough sunlight to blind. It glinted off the rose stone tiles and the marble countertops, and stainless-steel appliances. It bounced off the dripping crystals on the chandelier and sprayed rainbows across the vaulted ceilings. Massive patio windows dominated three of the four walls, framing a sprawling garden as beautiful as the one in the conservatory. Towering treetops brushed an endless span of blue sky while the winds played with the neatly manicured lawns below. I couldn’t even see where the yard ended.
The room itself had been divided into three sections, a massive kitchen in the center flagged by a breakfast area on one side and a sunroom on the other for lazy mornings with the newspaper. The kitchen was state of the art large enough to feed an army. Every appliance was industrial, giant ovens and whole countertops built for grilling. There was even a walk-in freezer alongside the fridge.
“You live here alone?” I asked as he left me at the wide, U-shaped island dominating the majority of the main area to wander over to the fridge.
He nodded. “For the last three years.”
“Where’s your mom?”
He yanked the doors open, releasing a puddle of yellow light across the floor. “She has her own flat downtown. Likes it better there. Closer to the shops.”
It seemed like such a waste, all that space. I couldn’t picture me there at all with all those looming, empty rooms and winding corridors. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. My apartment wasn’t much to brag about. Even with its smallness, I still felt the pang of loneliness. I couldn’t imagine being here in the cold and dust, surrounded by things that would offer no comfort.
“You don’t like it.”
He was watching me when I blinked out of my reverie.
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” I clarified carefully. “It’s just so...”
“Ostentatious?” He brought out a platter of fruit and placed it on the wraparound counter. “Overdone? An eyesore?”
“Lonely,” I whispered. “I don’t know how I feel about you being here by yourself all the time. I’d lose my mind.”
“That’s the thing, love.” He rounded to my side. “I’ve been alone my entire life. You get used to it.”
“I still don’t like it.”
His hands found my waist and I was pulled to him. Warm palms glided up to my shoulder blades. The heat of them radiated through the thin fabric of my top.
“Then don’t leave me here alone.”
My breath caught. My heart tripped in my chest. It quickened with the light bump of his nose against mine.
“You don’t make sense,” I murmured, fingers lifting to curl around his bare shoulders. “Everything you keep talking about, marriage and moving in together after only one night ... men usually avoid those things, don’t they?”
His nose, his lips grazed mine with every slow rock of his head. “I don’t know about other men, but I’ve been waiting three years for you, Gabby. I’ve done my time. I’ve accepted that there’s no winning whatever pull you have on me. The want I had for you in the beginning is now a need I won’t deny myself. I need you. If not here, then I’ll find us a new place, anywhere you want. Whatever you want, it’s yours, just ... let me keep you.”
I kissed him.
Fuck common sense.
I hooked my hands in his hair and held him as he took me by the hips and hoisted me to the counter. My legs hooked around him, locking him to me.
“I HAVE TO GO OR I’LL be late for my second class,” I panted an hour later from my sprawled place on the kitchen floor.
Above me, hips still wedged between my thighs, Kieran grinned. “Or you can skip the whole day and help me christen this place.”
I laughed. “We’d need a year.”
He kissed me deeply.
“Then skip a year.”
Laughing harder, I nudged him off me and rolled into a sitting position. I reached for the top one of us had torn off me and slipped it on.
“I’m free most Saturdays, we’ll work on that christening then.”
He peered into my eyes. “It’s a date.”
Shaking my head in amusement, I pushed to my feet and padded towards the door. I heard him pull his trousers on and follow.
At the front door, I shook my dress up off the floor and pulled it on without my undergarments. My panties were a tattered loss at my feet and my bra was somewhere up in his room, where I knew if I went, I’d never leave.
I faced the man watching me, and for the first time, I blushed, no longer certain what the protocol was for the morning after. Part of me kept prodding to put out my hand in a shake, like ending a business transaction. The other part was still begging me to stay and let the rest of the world disappear forever behind the walls of that fortress. But I did neither. Instead, I twisted my hands together in front of me and offered him an uncertain smile.
“So, I’ll see you?”
“Oh, you’ll see me.”
Biting my lip, I located my coat, purse, and shoes, and headed for the door.
He followed me out onto the steps.
“No,” I protested, palms flattening between his breast plates. “It’s freezing out and you’re not dressed.”
His response was to pull me to him and kiss me, long, deep, and hard enough to make my knees buckle and my lips bruise. But I clung to him when he pulled away, no longer wanting to leave. Almost afraid to do so.
“What?”
I sighed into his shoulder. “It’s stupid.”
His palm moved down my hair. “Tell me.”
I closed my eyes. “I feel like if I leave, I’m never going to see you again. Like this is just some dream that’ll vanish if I’m not careful.”
He snorted into my temple. “That’s not going to happen. I promise. Hey.” He slipped his finger under my chin and waited until I opened my eyes. “I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
Pulling in a breath, I nodded and drew back.
With a final wave, I crossed the drive to my parked Honda.
He was still standing there when I pulled out, bare foot and bare chested, and looking stunningly beautiful in the morning light.
I wondered what I was doing the entire way back to my apartment. The consequences of my decisions became a weighing storm rising up over me, threatening to crush me. I felt it building up in my chest, expanding my ribs until they ached.
What was I doing?
How the hell did I go from deciding that being with Kieran was dangerous to never wanting to leave his arms? How had that changed in a single night? Yet, as much as I forced myself to regret what happened, I couldn’t. That insistence kept getting overshadowed by the warm, golden hues of anticipation I had no right feeling.
I wanted to see him again.
I wanted the peace and happiness he kept promising.
It was like offering a child a free pass to Disneyland and all its secrets.
I wanted all of it.
I wanted to dive into that pool of bliss and drown in it.
Even David’s threat seemed inconsequential, like it never happened, or it happened to someone in a movie a long time ago. The restrictions and fears I’d felt binding my soul were gone for the first time in my life. And it was stupid.
/>
It was reckless.
I was being intentionally reckless.
This was only the calm before the storm and I knew it.
I knew if I stayed and lingered, and allowed myself a sliver of the thing I did not deserve, it would destroy me. It would rip away everything.
Was Kieran really worth it?
I knew the answer even before I pulled into my parking spot.
He was worth all that and more.
He was worth everything.
All the pain.
All the suffering.
I would embrace it all for him.
At home, I showered and dressed for whatever few hours of school I had remaining. I knew I had already missed all of first period and most of the second. If I wanted to attend any that day, I needed to get there quickly.
I arrived twenty minutes before my third class. I slumped into the bench outside the classroom door and dug out my phone. I realized after I swiped it on that Kieran hadn’t given me his number. The insecure little voice in my head wondered if maybe he didn’t want to, but that was immediately shoved aside. Even I couldn’t convince myself of that.
There were eight saved numbers on my phone: Mom, David, Cordelia, my building’s super, the school, Mr. Thomas at the bookstore who always called when a used textbook came in, my cell company, and Cain. His was the only text message in months. The last one before that was from my mom almost a year before.
But I pulled up the messages from Cain and skimmed through them to pass time. Neither of us had texted the other since the photo of my soaked panties and his promise, “I’m going to fuck the shit out of you when I see you.”
Something about that made me pause. My mind flashed back to Kieran storming towards me and taking me on the back of his car with that savage intensity. I thought about how he’d felt the entire night, the familiar weight of him, the way he turned his head into my neck when he came. His smell.
No...
I may have been failing physics, but I knew basic math. Yet despite that ... I didn’t know how to add up what was right in front of me. Maybe because it was impossible. Maybe because the thought was horrifying. Maybe because denial was better than accepting that I was too stupid to see what was smacking me in the face.
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