His blue eyes met hers, and his eyebrows lifted. “Is your dramatic emphasis supposed to mean something? Drink a beer if you want to drink a beer. What the hell do I care? But never—never—let yourself get trapped in a situation where you no longer have the power to choose.”
“I was choosing.”
“No, you weren’t.” Cyrus got out of the car, still looking nothing but cool and controlled.
Helen just stayed in her seat, stubbornly refusing to move. It didn’t do any good, of course, since Cyrus just walked around the car, opened her door, undid her seatbelt, and pulled her out of the car.
“I choose all the time. I’ve already had sex, you know,” she spat out at him.
Cyrus didn’t react. “No, you haven’t.” He took her arm and dragged her through the garage and into the house.
He was right, but she didn’t know how he would have known it. He didn’t know her at all.
He took her to her bedroom and told her to take off her shoes. She was still working on her boots when he came back in with a bottle of water, which he set beside her bed.
He peered down at her closely. “How many beers did you have?”
“Just three,” she said with a scowl, “But I didn’t even finish them. I’m not drunk.”
“You’ll feel better if you drink water.”
“Everyone is going to hate me now—since you ruined the best party of the year and called the cops on them.”
“My remorse knows no bounds.”
She gaped at him. He was rude and bossy and sarcastic and barged in where he wasn’t wanted. And he wasn’t even pretending to care about her feelings anymore.
Just five months ago, he’d been her favorite person in the world. Then she’d discovered how little he cared about her. Now she could barely stand the sight of him.
“I hate you,” she gritted out, as he was leaving the room.
He looked at her for a moment before he said calmly, “I can live with that.”
He shut the door behind him.
* * *
Helen lay on her bed, on top of her covers, still wearing her clothes, for about a half hour. She felt groggy and a little sick, but her mind and emotions just wouldn’t turn off. She couldn’t go to sleep.
Eventually, she was so thirsty she had to sit up and drink most of the bottle of water Cyrus had brought for her. Then she got up to go to the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror as she was washing her hands afterwards.
She looked awful. Her makeup was all smudged, and her eyes were red. Her top was wrinkled, and her lips were very pale.
She splashed water on her face. She kind of wanted another bottle of water but didn’t want to go downstairs to get it, since she might have to run into Cyrus.
Instead, she just filled her empty bottle from the faucet in the bathroom sink and took it with her back into the bedroom.
She sat at her desk in front of her laptop and opened a browser window to pull up a website.
Once the site came up, she saw they’d linked a new story, and she followed the link to an article on a blog that featured D.C. gossip. The story was about how Cyrus had been stopped by the police for reckless driving the night before, in the company of a gorgeous, nineteen-year-old model. No charges had been filed. No one—least of all Helen—was surprised. The story was run with a photograph of Cyrus, wearing all black and smirking arrogantly, with the model draped all over him.
The girl was exotically beautiful—lithe, dark-haired, and wearing a dress that looked like lingerie.
Helen was reading the caption under the picture, which called Cyrus a “notorious playboy,” when a tap on her bedroom door made her jerk in surprise.
Before she could react, the door opened to reveal Cyrus, carrying another bottle of water and saying, “Helen? Are you all righ—”
“Cyrus!” she wailed, breaking into his mild question. “You can’t barge into my room without knocking!”
“I did knock.” He hadn’t yet stepped into the room.
“But I didn’t answer!”
“Sorry. I was just checking on you. How do you feel?’
“I’m fine. Now leave me alone!” Helen turned back toward her laptop, feeling rattled and upset and still a little woozy. She also really wanted the bottle of water in Cyrus’s hand, but she wasn’t about to ask for it.
“Did you need—“ He broke off his own question when he had evidently focused on her laptop screen, where his photo with the model was prominently displayed. “What are you reading?” he demanded, striding over to stand behind her and peer at the screen. “Damn it, Helen. Don’t read that!”
“Why not?” she asked, staring at her laptop, sticking out her chin stubbornly, and feeling strangely vindicated. Let him lecture her on drinking and partying now.
“Because you don’t need to be reading that.” He reached down and closed out the browser window, making the story and the picture disappear.
But what appeared in its place was the site that had originally linked her to the story.
He gasped audibly as he processed the website on her screen. “What are you doing? Why are you looking at that site?”
“It’s interesting,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant, although she was getting more and more upset by his obvious horror and outrage. “I check it out every day.”
She’d stumbled on the website accidentally, when it was referenced in the comments of a news story she’d been reading about Cyrus at a club opening where several people had been arrested for drug possession. The site was called “Stalking Cyrus,” and it daily posted links on any story or reference to Cyrus on the web. There were also discussion boards where the members shared their thoughts about Cyrus and detailed any encounters they’d had personally with him.
Helen had read lists of Cyrus’s top ten desirable qualities. She’d read elaborate daydreams rehearsing the most romantic first meeting with Cyrus the members could imagine. She’d read many, many irate rants about his heartlessness, from dozens of women who claimed to have slept with him only to be dumped the next morning.
Cyrus had been leaning over her shoulder, scanning the front page of the website, featuring the links to the most recent stories and the first paragraph of a new blog post that speculated on the kind of woman it would take to finally “tame” him.
“Damn it, Helen!” he gritted out, sounding as furious as she’d ever heard him. “Don’t you ever look at this site again.” He closed out the window and then snapped her laptop shut.
She turned to face him, somehow pleased that she’d upset him. “Why not? Isn’t it true? Didn’t you almost crash your car last night? Don’t you screw girls once and then dump them? A lot of them have posted about it, you know.”
Cyrus had gone a little pale, and his expression was openly appalled. “It’s all twisted, and you don't need to be reading all that about me. Don’t go back there. Don’t ever go back.”
“I’ll go back if I want,” she muttered, starting to feel less pleased and more guilty. She didn’t know why she should feel guilty though. He’d done all those things. She’d just read about them.
He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned toward her, his expression changing. “Is this why you’re so mad at me? Because of the twisted stuff you read there?”
She took a shuddering breath, striving to sound cool and nonchalant. “Why should I care what you do?”
He grabbed one of her hands, not in an affectionate gesture but as an urgent insistence on attention. “Seriously, Helen. Is that why you’re so mad at me?”
She stared at him, her eyes burning and her throat starting to ache. He seemed so sincere and bewildered—like he had absolutely no idea what he could have done to upset her.
He probably didn’t know. It wouldn’t be important to him the way it was to her.
“Did someone on the site say I said something about you?” he asked, clearly thinking quickly and trying to put the pieces together. “Because, if they did, it’s a lie.
You can’t believe what some random person writes online. You know that.”
She sputtered, trying to scoff but almost on the verge of tears. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. It has nothing to do with the site.”
His eyes were boring into her, as if he were trying to search for some sort of answer on her face. Before she could stop it, a tear slipped out of one eye and streamed down her face. She brushed it away impatiently.
“Damn it, Helen. Tell me,” he insisted hoarsely.
“What does it matter?” She jumped to her feet in her emotion, angry because she hadn’t been able to control herself the way he always could. “Why do you care if I’m mad? I’m just a foolish, spoiled princess who will never be anything but a drain on a man's bank account.”
She hadn’t meant to say as much, but the words just came tumbling out. And with them more tears.
Cyrus had stood up too, but now he froze. He stared at her blankly for a long time. “Wait,” he said at last, his voice thick with confusion, “Who said that about you?”
“You did!” she sobbed, palming away the tears she couldn’t hold back. The words hurt so much, and they hurt even more since he obviously didn’t even remember saying them—they meant so little to him. “You did! I heard you.”
“I never said that,” he argued, looking vaguely horrified. “I never would have said that about you.”
“You did! You were talking to your dad about why I couldn’t go to Paris. I heard you. I remember it exactly.” She took a few breaths and recited the words that she’d never been able to forget. “You said, ‘The trip will be nothing but trouble. She’s a foolish, spoiled princess whose only talent is being a pain in the ass and draining a man’s bank account.’ Those were your words exactly.”
Cyrus rubbed a frustrated hand through his hair, his brow lowering as he tried to recall. Then his expression changed. “Damn it, Helen—you little idiot. If you’re going to keep eavesdropping, at least learn to do it well.”
“I eavesdrop fine!”
“I wasn’t saying that about you. I was talking about Maria’s father’s girlfriend.”
Helen had been about to make an automatic retort, but then she processed the words and stopped short. She stared at Cyrus’s outraged face and tried to make herself think. When nothing still made sense, she gazed up at him with bewilderment. “What?”
He sighed deeply and rubbed his head again, more slowly this time. “You must have missed the first part of the conversation. I was telling him that Maria’s father is living with a woman who is the daughter of the kingpin of one of the biggest organized crime families in Europe. I don’t know whether Maria’s father is connected to the business, but we couldn’t send you into that situation, not even with security.”
Helen swayed on her feet and had to sit down again as she processed the new information. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Maria is your friend. I didn’t want to get in the way of that.” Cyrus gave a huff. “Of course, that was before I knew she took you to idiotic parties.”
She still couldn’t wrap her mind around what this meant. Cyrus hadn’t said those awful things about her after all. He didn’t really think she was useless, silly, and a burden.
Then she remembered something else and stiffened in indignation. “No! That can’t be right. You were talking about me. Because then your dad said something about how I wouldn’t like it, and you said, ‘What the hell do I care what she thinks?’”
Cyrus actually groaned. “So you took that to mean I don’t care about you at all? For God’s sake, kid! I just meant that I didn’t care if you were going to be mad about the canceled trip. Even if it made you angry, you still couldn’t go if it might be dangerous.”
Helen sank her head into her hands, trying to make sense of everything. Her shoulders shook with emotion.
“Helen, please don’t cry.”
She couldn’t bear to look up at him. Everything she’d known about her world seemed to be falling apart. “Can you just leave me alone for a little while? Please?"
“Okay.” He stood and stared at her for another moment. She wasn’t looking at him, but she could feel him. Then, “I’ll be downstairs.”
Helen cried for a few minutes until she’d managed to work through her emotions. Since she felt like crap, she went to take a shower. By the time she finished and braided her hair into two damp braids and put on red flannel pajamas, she was actually feeling better.
Cyrus hadn’t said those horrible things. He hadn’t just been pretending to be nice all this time.
Maybe she hadn’t been a fool to like him as much as she had.
Sure, he did a lot of dumb things and was pretty sucky with the women he dated, but at least he hadn’t been faking caring about her.
She put some slippers on and then went downstairs. She found Cyrus in the media room. He was staring at the television, which was set to a cable news channel.
He turned when she entered. “How do you feel?”
She shrugged and sat down beside him on the couch. “I’m okay. Not great, but not fuzzy anymore.”
He peered at her closely but didn’t say anything.
She felt awkward and a little embarrassed as she thought over the events of the evening. To make conversation, she asked, “How did you know I was at the party?”
“My father has security assigned to you all the time.”
She blinked. “I’ve never seen them. So they tattle on me all the time?”
“They’re supposed to be discreet. They’re good at it. Their role is not to keep you from having fun. It’s to make sure you’re safe. They only tattle when you might be in danger, so don’t think about trying to sneak away from them.”
She thought about that but didn’t have the mental energy to process it all tonight.
“Helen,” he said, a little hoarsely, catching her attention again. He’d leaned toward her, meeting her eyes. “I know I’m not your father or your brother or anything, but I’m a guy who has done a lot of things I wish I hadn’t done. Have fun if you want. I’m not saying you have to follow every rule. But don’t let yourself become helpless. I promise you’ll regret it.”
Helen was deeply affected by the look in his eyes, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done that had made him helpless, what he’d done he now regretted. She couldn’t seem to speak, so she just nodded.
Cyrus relaxed a little. His mouth relaxed, as if he was relieved his advice-giving was over. “And I’m sorry you misunderstood what you overheard back in August and it upset you so much. I wouldn’t have said that about you. I like you, kid.” His smile broadened. “I always have.”
Something softened and warmed in her heart. She smiled back at him, widely, sincerely, for the first time in months. “I like you too.”
After a moment of smiling at each other, Cyrus picked up the remote. With a click of it, the opening credits of White Christmas started to run.
Helen felt even warmer, even fuzzier. She leaned over to grab a thick, cashmere throw from the floor and pulled it up over her.
“There’s some more water there, if you want it,” Cyrus said, gesturing toward the side table beside her. “We can get cider and cookies later, if you want.”
Helen didn’t know if she would be up for their normal snacks, but she took the water gratefully.
She didn’t feel too bad now, just a dull headache and some lingering fatigue. She was warm and comfortable on the couch, though, taking in the familiar images and music on the television screen.
And she felt safe, secure, sheltered with Cyrus there with her, on the other side of the couch, slouching back with his legs extended and his blue eyes focused on the movie.
“Will you wear your Christmas sweater tomorrow?” she asked out of the blue, grinning at him when he turned to look at her in surprise.
His lips parted. “Are you serious?”
Her mouth wobbled as she tried to suppress amusement. “Just to prove there’s no hard feeli
ngs?”
“Somehow, I ended up with the raw end of this deal,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes in exaggerated annoyance.
“Why would you expect anything else?”
With a laugh, he reached over and gave one of her braids a playful tug. “If you can stay awake through the whole movie, I’ll wear the sweater.”
Helen was getting very sleepy, but she wasn’t about to lose the challenge. So she managed to keep her eyes open until the movie was over, although it was touch-and-go there at the end.
She went to bed happy, looking forward to seeing Cyrus in his sweater the following day.
It might not have started off well, but it was a pretty good Christmas Eve after all.
Fourth Christmas Eve
five years ago
Cyrus wasn’t having a very good day, but at least it wasn’t snowing.
That morning, as he’d been wrapping up the final tasks he needed to complete before a few days of vacation over the holidays, he’d gotten pulled into a four-hour meeting about how to deal with an emergency situation at one of his father’s plants. His father had left for Clarksburg the previous day, so he’d told Cyrus to take care of the crisis for him.
Cyrus had been working at the executive level in his father’s company for seven months now, ever since he’d finished his MBA. The position had been created just for him, so at first he’d filled a mostly empty role, but a few months ago he’d started pushing his father to give him some real work to do, which his dad had taken as an invitation to dump any tedious, tiresome, or unwanted jobs on his son.
He’d completed them all without complaining, and he was satisfied he did them well. He wasn’t surprised his father was testing him, to see how deeply he was committed and where his limits and boundaries were. Cyrus was determined to make himself indispensable. If that meant managing a four-hour meeting on Christmas Eve day when he’d been planning to drive out to Clarksburg, then so be it.
He liked the work—the real work and not the empty tasks he’d been given at first. And, while he wasn’t fool enough to start believing his father really liked or respected him, at least they’d been getting along better in the last few months than they ever had before.
Eight Christmas Eves Page 5