“Funny thing about love, eh? Sees one thing and doesn’t see anything else after that.”
I didn’t respond. If I did, I might have said, “yep.”
***
The top floor suite of the Charm Loft Hotel was extravagance within impeccability. I felt unsettlingly at home and wondered if the decorator who’d done our mansion this past summer also did this place. It was cream colors and smooth sharp angles, with pops of black and wood. 2,500 square feet of decadence and greed.
Wreck tossed his suit jacket over one of the many sofas, watching the bell hop with a blanket of rage in his gaze. I didn’t understand why until I felt his gaze on my legs. When he hung back, presumably for a monster tip, Wreck gave him one.
“You want a tip? The next time you check out my fucking girl right in front of me, I’ll rip your eyes out of their sockets bare handed.” He leaned forward an inch to read his badge. “You got that, Dax?”
Dax paled. “I’m sorry, sir. I—”
“Get the fuck out of my room.”
Dax did so alarmingly fast as Wreck pulled out his phone. I knew what would happen. Dax would be homeless before he pressed end call.
“I want Trudy exiled.”
He glared at me and brought his phone to his ear. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t like that she looks at you either. Or that you two have been together. Exile her.”
“Your point is pointless.”
“If you get him fired for something so petty as checking me out, when so many women do so to you, I’ll strongly dislike you, Cage. Please don’t do that to him. I think he got the point loud and clear. Don’t be our father’s.”
He paused, glaring so darkly at me I heard myself swallow at the rage coiled in his gaze. “Trudy then.” He hung up and started dialing again.
I walked over and grabbed his arm, peering up at him softly. “I don’t want you to be heartless. I want you to be only your heart. Let it go, please?”
He pinned me in place with his rage. “I don’t have a heart.”
“Liar.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him. “If you let this go, you get a free pass for your next secret. I won’t get mad at all.” In my heels, I was tall enough for my lips to line perfectly with his. I pressed a soft kiss to him, the smell of bourbon clinging to his mouth.
“Hallie.” He stepped away from me and put his phone back in his pocket. “No matter what it is? You won’t do that bratty ignore me thing?”
I refrained from doing it now. “I won’t even react.”
“He gets one pass. One. If I see him look at you one more time he’s going to be begging for change.” He kicked off his shoes and padded over to the bar by the glass wall of windows.
“I respect you more and the fact that you didn’t use your power for bad makes you ten times sexier.”
He snorted with his back to me. “I didn’t do it for you.” He tossed back a shot of something brown, letting it go with a growl.
He did it for his secrets. “Not even a little? You don’t like that I respect you the most out of every man I’ve ever met?”
“What is this shit?” He poured another shot, anger darkening the room. “Couples therapy?”
“Why are you drinking so much?” I tried to grab for his glass, but he stepped out of my reach. “If this were couple’s therapy, I think we’d never get past the Q&A.”
“You really think that?” He spoke with his back to me. “That we’d ever be a real couple? With all of the bullshit in our way? We’d always have to put our jobs first. Never be home. Never meaning anything we say? Don’t bother trying to be a part of this. I’m fine holding the reigns.”
Drunk Wreck was a pissy PMS’ing tween dignitary. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable. When you change your tampon, and take a Midol, come find me.”
I scooped up the bag he said was mine and took it with me into one of the four bathrooms. I locked the door and kicked off my heels and turned on the standing shower, washing the smell of barbecue sauce and the dinge of secrets from my body and hair. I dressed in a pair of silk white sleeping shorts that were so short and tight they looked like panties and paired them with the matching top, a white camisole with a silk plunge. Before tonight, they were simply pajamas. Now they were a tactical weapon the enemy picked out himself.
Cage was staring out at Charmant when I came out, long body stretched out on a chair with the glare of the skyline turning half of his face light and leaving the other half dark.
I pulled the other chair over and sat across from him, drying my wet hair with a towel and combing it out.
“Speaking of periods, yours is next week.”
“Yes, my stalker, it is.”
“Can I tell you my secret now?”
I prepared myself. “Yes.”
“Remember. No reaction.” I nodded warily, looking out the window and not at him. “I’m the reason your father cut Illa’s hours. I wanted Tula in, so I could use her if need be. The only reason you’re sitting across from me right now, is because of that deal, but that deal was my fault to begin with. You let me in for Illa, and now your father is using her to threaten you because he probably realized that when you came to me, it was the shove he needed.”
My eyes closed in a silent heartache. I did my best to uphold my promise. No reaction. But a small inhale of pain left my lips anyway.
“There are worst secrets, before you hate me completely. The worst aren’t even mine.”
After I thought I wouldn’t puke, or worse, kick his ass, I resumed combing my hair.
“Your turn,” he murmured.
“You told me that you loved me last night after I gave you something I could never get back.” My tears were begging to be set free. He inhaled sharply beside me. I let that secret go so I could let him go too. “But I don’t think you love me at all. I think you’re a mean heartless clone like your father. I’ll sleep here tonight. But I’ll get myself home tomorrow and I want nothing to do with you when I get there. Your father and mine can go fuck themselves.”
“They won’t—”
“Shut up!” I screamed, seething in his direction. “Don’t talk to me. Not even if there’s danger behind me. Let it get me, Wreckmond, like you already did.”
“They won’t allow that, Hallie.” He held my gaze; there was something in his so close to breaking his royal blues were glimmering.
“They won’t have a choice.” I stalked out of the room, slamming a bedroom door at random so hard the paintings on the wall fell and the frame shattered.
Then I screamed.
I screamed at Cage.
At my father.
At his father.
At myself for ever being stupid enough to fall for him for even a second.
I didn’t sleep that night. I turned on the fan in the bathroom and the television, so I couldn’t hear him whatsoever. I stalked my room, so incredibly angry the burn of it singed me. When the sun started to rise, I felt stupid in my outfit. I changed into a pair of jeans he packed and a V-neck tee. I donned my heels and found my clutch where I left it in the bathroom. Just as I was about to touch the door handle, I heard him.
“You don’t think I love you?”
The sound of his voice sent chills down my spine. Still, I didn’t look at him.
“How could you say that to me?” Drunken heartbreak filled the empty space of us.
“I’ve lived eighteen years knowing nothing good at all unless it came from you. I’m not like my father. I’m not!” he shouted. “I’m not,” he sobbed. “I love you, Hallie Goodford, more than I even love the dream of you.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to staunch my sobs. Giving in now wasn’t an option. I’d always be a pawn in my father’s games. I’d thought Cage and I were playing our own. But really, he was playing me. “I want the camera you have in my room disconnected by the time I get home. If it isn’t, I’ll move out of that house.”
Behind me, Cage
broke. “No. I need it. If I can’t see you, in some way, I’ll lose my mind.”
That he was begging to keep his obsession was the final straw. I had never cried harder than I did running down the Charm Loft hallway away from the presidential suite and the boy I loved.
A half hour into my walk, I ripped my heels off and walked home in Charmant barefoot and tear-stained. Let my father find out.
When I got home, my feet were bloody and blistered from the rocks on the canyon road. I was exhausted, and the last thing I needed was to find Tula stocking the pantry when I stumbled into the kitchen.
She looked over at me and smiled hesitantly. “Morning, Miss—”
“You’re fired.” The order in my voice barely penetrated my rage-filled haze. “Get out of my house right now. Go back and work for the Wreckmond’s.”
She was immobile.
So was I.
After a beat, she nodded. I didn’t relax until I heard the front door close. I bent my head and drank from the faucet, as real as I could get right now. Then I went upstairs and ransacked my room. The camera had felt like it was coming from the east wall. The only thing on that wall was my bookshelf. The only book that looked different was Wuthering Heights. I tore it loose and opened it, finding a device hooked up in the spine.
“Psycho,” I hissed, pointing the camera in my face. I knew in my blood that he was watching me. “I’m changing the lock on my door. If you step foot in my bedroom one more time I’ll burn it down. And stop watching me!” I screamed, ripping the camera out of the fake wooden spine and stepping on it barefooted. The plastic and glass cut me up worse, but I barely felt the pain. I kept up until it was pulverized.
My blurry eyes guided me to my bathroom. I filled my tub to soak my feet, sitting on the edge of my tub numbly.
Wanting to live was asking to perish. And I’d never make that mistake again.
***
On Monday morning, my star was adrift in the universe. I didn’t mind it today. There wasn’t much left to want inside. I dressed without looking and left my hair down from sleeping. Careless heartbreak was what I was going for, and one look in the mirror said I got it just right.
I didn’t look for any reason to implode. I avoided my locker and the cafeteria, hanging out in the library at lunch and after school. When I risked going out to my car, his was there, but so were all the other Charming Knights’ players.
I stood in the parking lot, my heels digging into the asphalt as I warred with myself. In the distance, I could hear them playing. The grunting of men and the clash of helmets on pads. I could picture him running, his sweaty muscles pumping, his eyes on the prize. Only Wreck had no reason to seek a gift, when he’d done his best to destroy our present already.
When I got into my Audi someone outside my window made me scream. My heart shattered in terror, but one look up and the ice-blond hair calmed me slightly.
It wasn’t him.
I ignored the small burst of disappointment and glared up at the occupant.
Storm knocked on my window. I rolled it down. “What?” I growled.
His eyes searched mine. “You know what you’re doing?”
I wasn’t in the mood. “Now you want to talk?”
“He’s going to burn this city down, Hallie. And he’s going to take us all with it unless you interfere. Can you live with that?”
I rolled my window up and drove away. I couldn’t save this city.
I couldn’t even save myself.
***
He had one thing right. Love saw one thing and once it did, there was nothing left.
I may walk past Cage Wreckmond in the halls every day, and it may look like I don’t see him, but I saw only him. I may look empty when he’s in the same room as me, but I am overflowing with rage and love. I wasn’t even sure they were different. To love is to rage, and to rage is to love.
W didn’t leave me anymore gifts. Wreck didn’t call or text. But I felt him everywhere. My body knew when he was there. In my bed at night, in my dreams, in the halls—he was inside of me and my heart wouldn’t let him go, even when I tried to rip him out.
A few weeks after Paulette’s, our fathers came back home. I avoided mine, leaving my cell off and only coming home if I knew he wasn’t there. I slept in the Audi and did my best to pretend his claws weren’t itching to feel my flesh.
14. MRS.
Wreck
Sacrifices weren’t easy.
They weren’t appreciated or understood.
Sacrifices were the epitome of suffering. The truest darkest part of every shred of pain.
I thought that if Hallie hated me, she’d hate her cage a little less. I thought that if I pushed her away, I’d hate the truth from a distance.
I thought wrong.
The years I spent without her didn’t prepare me for this.
For this heartache.
The first few weeks without her, I’d had resolve. Let her blow off some steam. We’d end up together. There were no other choices. But that wasn’t good enough anymore. The weeks following, I’d lost my rage and Storm was the only thing keeping me from breaking down her door and throwing her over my shoulder. I’d run away with her and we would live unhappily ever after. The weeks after that, I’d fallen into a constant state of blankness. I missed plays, I missed meals, I missed… her.
I knew something she didn’t want to know… how deep our bindings truly were.
The realtor in Athens didn’t know I didn’t know. When I showed up alone with an excuse as to why Hallie wasn’t with me, he shrugged it off and said it didn’t matter. As long as one of the Wreckmond’s were there to sign. I didn’t know what he meant until I signed the buyers contract for our college house. There weren’t two names on the contract, there was one. Mr. and Mrs. Cage Wreckmond.
We were fucking married.
I kept that secret, like so many others, buried in my dark charcoal covered soul. When we turned eighteen this summer, we’d turned into our father’s playthings. We were being manned by strings, and nothing we felt mattered because there were smiles painted on our face in garish red paint like marionette dolls.
If I pushed Hallie away now, she’d have someone to hate before she did something stupid, like fall in love with me. My father had a forever weapon in her. She still had a chance to fight with her heart. I’d never live with myself if she started to love her cage.
“There’s women everywhere,” Rip said cautiously, eying the empty beers on the ground around me without commenting on them. “Try one. Get back into the single life. You guys broke up like two months ago. You’re killing them on the field, but you’re even worse before her.”
Her.
“We didn’t break up.” We couldn’t. She was my wife on paper. She was estranged in real life. But she was mine, even when she wasn’t.
He was silent for a beat. “Are you in denial?”
“No, Geoff. I’m firmly rooted in reality.” I downed my beer and grabbed another. We were on Sparrow Cliff, and though I always found some sort of freedom there, tonight I felt like my life was scattered in the sky. “She hates me.” I was shitfaced, should stop talking, but I kept it inside so deeply, the beer was pulling it out.
“No, she doesn’t.” He took a drink of his own beer and swung his legs over the edge of the cliff. “What happened? The cliff-notes version,” he added, sensing my reluctance. “Master of secrets.”
My gaze flashed to his warily, and his narrowed in understanding.
“Did you put your own foot in your mouth? I’m going to take your silence for acquiescence. You’re only quiet when it’s real.” He sighed, dropping his head back and gazing at the stars. “I have a secret too. And since you don’t care about anyone but little Hallie Goodford I have to get it out—yeah, Wreck, you’re a good liar, probably one of the best, but you think I haven’t noticed how much you noticed her all these years? Storm and I aren’t as dumb as you think we are.”
“I don’t think you’re dumb. I
think you’re too smart for your own good, Storm too. Our upbringing made us that way, made us leery of our own intelligence because we know exactly what’s going on. But we’re so smart we know how to live every day like it isn’t.”
A low whistle sounded from his mouth. “You sound like me right now.”
I was surprised by the chuckle that touched my lips. “Yeah, I guess some of your inner bullshit reflections rubbed off on me. What’s your secret?”
He looked around carefully, and then he leaned in, the smell of beer and burnt weed thick on his breath. “There’s a new family moving into Charmant. The Spinoza’s. A Brazilian transplant who’s richer than half of Charmant. My father has got his hands so deeply in Raul Spinoza’s pockets, he’s been dropping hints, Wreck, that I can’t keep ignoring.” His fingers trembled around the neck of his beer. “He has a daughter. Lara. She’s seventeen. Her and her brother are both on their father’s chains the way you and I are. I have to get out of this city. I need that scholarship.” Fire suddenly burned in his gaze, desperate trapped rage. “I can’t do that with Lara Spinoza around.”
“Ah,” I muttered, putting the unspoken pieces together. “If they’re moving to Charmant, it’s probably already too late.” Our fathers pulled our strings. “What’s their business?”
“Avião Airlines.”
My heart lurched. Avião Airlines was the number one airliner in the world. Crossing both the Pacific and the Atlantic, it had implants in all major playing cities, it was responsible for flying the rich and the important, and that made them worth protecting. Made them important as well.
“Let me guess. Your father’s a shareholder in their company and they’re putting down roots in Charmant?”
He nodded limply. “I can’t become him.” His hard swallow penetrated my empty haze. “I can’t.”
Rip wanted out for his soul, not for him. He knew his father’s soul was gone and he’d do anything to keep his close to his heart, but love was a major player, and it was the hardest to walk away from, soul or not.
Wrecked: A Novel (Charming Knights Book 1) Page 18