Twisted

by Knight, Natasha

  “But I do know, Helena.”

  Helena stares back at her, not quite believing her, I guess.

  “I know what happened,” Amelia continues. “I know everything. He told me everything.”

  “Are you sure?” I can see that Helena’s torn. I know she doesn’t want to hurt her sister.

  “Yeah. I am. I know. I know about you, and him and them.”

  Helena’s gaze slips from her sister’s, slides to me for a moment.

  “I know all of it, and it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” Amelia wipes the back of her hand across her nose, stands. “Please don’t make me choose, Helena. I don’t want to lose you.”

  Helena watches her, and I watch the tear slide down Helena’s cheek and I remember that time on the island and I think again how fast things change. How love—no—how indifference can turn to hate so quickly. In the blink of an eye.

  Sebastian leans down, whispers something to her.

  She shakes her head, looks away.

  He whispers it again, kisses her cheek.

  “I know,” she says. She looks back at us. “I want to talk to Gregory alone.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sebastian says, as Amelia takes a step toward me.

  “Please just wait outside. Both of you.”

  Sebastian straightens, gives me a warning look. “Don’t upset her,” he tells me as he passes.

  Amelia reluctantly follows Sebastian out. When the door closes, Helena looks at me.

  “What?” I ask, raising my eyebrows, not feeling the hate I want to feel.

  “She’s young.”

  “She’s the same age as you.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “She’s not as naïve as you think. And she knows what she wants.”

  “And she wants you?”

  “Is that so hard to believe? Am I that much a monster?”

  She lowers her lashes and I’m not sure if her gaze falls on my hand by accident or not, but she gasps when she sees it.

  I shove it into my pocket pissed at myself for caring.

  When she returns her gaze to mine, it’s different how she looks at me.

  She holds out her hand.

  I stay put.

  “Please,” she says.

  “What do you want, Helena?”

  She shifts, winces as she pulls herself up a little.

  Crap.

  “Are they giving you something for the pain?” I ask. I don’t want to care.

  She nods. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” She looks back up at me. “I heard you, you know.”

  The tears collected inside her eyes spill down her cheeks and she wipes them away with the back of her hand and all I can do is stand there and watch her.

  “The night of the branding. I heard you.”

  I pull my hand out of my pocket, rub the back of my neck, look away from her.

  “Well, I was sorry too,” she says. “I am sorry. What we did, it was wrong. I knew it but I went along with it and it was selfish and I’m sorry, Gregory. I’m sorry we hurt you.”

  I meet her eyes.

  I hadn’t thought she’d heard when I’d whispered my apology. I’d thought she was passed out.

  She’s waiting for me to say something, but I simply nod my head. She moves again, clutches her belly this time.

  I reach for the remote to push the call button, but she pulls it away.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  “My sister—”

  “I love her, Helena. I’m not going to hurt her. But I’m not asking for your blessing. Neither of us are. I do know, however, how much it would hurt her to lose you again. Just know that I love her. That it’s real with her.”

  She studies me for a long time and finally extends her hand again. “Let me see your hand.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed, hold it out.

  She traces the pattern burned inside it and there was a time I would have felt something at her touch, but that time is past. She looks up at me.

  “You saved me from this.”

  “I put you in that position in the first place.”

  She’s quiet for a long minute.

  “Did you see the girls?” she asks.

  I smile. This is her acceptance. Her apology. Her forgiveness.

  Mine too, maybe.

  “My nieces?”

  She nods.

  “Not yet.”

  “Sebastian should take you,” she says, but her smile is pitiful.

  I shift my hand so I’m holding hers and squeeze. “They’ll survive, Helena. I have no doubt.”

  And I don’t.

  29

  Amelia

  Six months later.

  They do survive, all of them.

  And for all the generations of blonde-haired Willow daughters, they all resemble Helena, but only the littlest has the silver streak in her hair.

  “She’s tough, this one,” I say, handing her back to Helena.

  We’re standing on the dock, Gregory and I readying to leave. The sun is hot and bright and the water of the Adriatic glistens all around the island. It’s a magical place, this. But it’s not home.

  “Can’t you stay?” Helena asks again.

  “It’s past time I picked up my life and figured out what I’m doing with it.”

  I’ve been with Helena on the island since she was released from the hospital. Gregory’s been back and forth from Rome managing the final stages of construction on the house.

  “I’m going to miss you,” Helena says.

  “Me too.”

  We turn to watch Sebastian and Gregory walking toward us, Gregory carrying our bags, Sebastian holding another one of the quadruplets.

  It took a few weeks for Sebastian and Helena to fully accept that Gregory and I were together, but they did, and the brothers patched things up. I’m glad for it because as much as Gregory would never admit to feeling hurt or missing his brother, I know he did.

  “She was fussing,” Sebastian says to Helena about the baby. “I didn’t want her to wake the other two.”

  “Ready?” Gregory asks.

  I nod. As much as I’ll miss my sister, I am looking forward to the next chapter of my life. I feel like it’s the first one where I’m in control of it. Of myself. My destiny.

  Helena hands the baby to Sebastian who still looks strange holding the tiny little things, although he’s a great dad and takes wonderful care of Helena. She wraps her arms around me, and I hug her back.

  “Christmas in Rome,” I say. “We’ll have a full month together.”

  Helena squeezes me. “I can’t wait.” She pulls back and we watch Gregory loading the bags onto the boat. “You’re good for him,” she says.

  I just nod, not taking my eyes off him.

  She turns to me, touches my blonde hair. “And I like this better on you.” I dyed it back to my natural color shortly after our reunion.

  “Me too.”

  Gregory returns and Helena smiles. “You better take good care of my sister,” she says to him, and although it’s meant to be a joke, I know there’s seriousness too.

  “You take good care of my nieces,” he tells her.

  “You spoiled them.” He does. Gregory is better with babies than I guessed he would be.

  “It’s my job,” he says.

  “If you need anything—” Sebastian starts to say to me.

  “Christ,” Gregory cuts him off, wraps an arm around me. “If she needs anything, I’ll take care of it.”

  Helena takes both babies and Gregory and Sebastian shake hands, then hug like men hug, with a quick pat on the back. “See you in a few months, brother.”

  Gregory nods. “See you in a few months.”

  We get on the boat and Remy drives away, the engine loud, the breeze not quite cool. When they’re just dots in the distance, Gregory wraps his hand around mine.

  “Okay?” he asks.

  I turn to him. “Yeah.” I pus
h wind-blown hair back from his face. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me closer and the way he looks at me sometimes, it’s like he still can’t believe it’s real because I know I can’t. Where we came from, where we started, it’s the strangest thing. The most impossible thing.

  “I love you,” he says.

  He leans down and kisses me, and I wrap my hands around the back of his neck and kiss him back and when we break the kiss, I lean my cheek into his chest and close my eyes.

  “I love you too.”

  30

  Gregory

  Amelia hasn’t seen the house in six months. The sun is setting as we approach it and I realize it’s the first time she’s seeing it after the thaw of snow.

  This winter was harsh with more snowfall and ice than the city’s seen in a hundred years. It fits, in a way. For a long time, it felt like she and I were frozen in time. Like neither of us could get beyond what happened.

  I push the button to open the gates and she sits up, looking anxiously ahead, looking every which way, taking in the lush green gardens, the water flowing from the fountain which was once just crumbling rock.

  I park the car and we climb out and I look at her and smile.

  “Wow,” she manages when I go to her, take her hand. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Wait until you see the inside.”

  I walk her in and Irina comes to greet us, followed by Matteo. The smell of homemade bread wafts through the air and the rooms are bright with sunlight pouring in from the windows.

  “It feels brighter,” Amelia says.

  She’s right, it does, although physically, nothing has changed.

  Matteo takes our bags and we walk into the living room.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  Her gaze turns to the corridor that leads to the library. “No,” she answers absently. “Not yet.”

  Irina nods, disappears into the kitchen.

  “Come,” I say, walking her toward the library.

  She hesitates.

  I turn to her, meet her cautious eyes. “It’s all right.”

  She nods, lets me walk her into that corridor which is not as dark and not as cold anymore. I open the door to the library, and it’s flooded with light and she smiles wide because I’ve replaced the dark stained glass with colors matching the restored garden fresco above our heads and we’re bathed in soft blues and bright yellows and deep pinks.

  Everything that was dark is now light.

  The maze of bookshelves is cleared, the books that could be salvaged, salvaged. Three walls make up the shelves now, all stacked high with books and instead of the single old armchair, there are two in here now. One for her and one for me.

  “The door,” she says, looking to where the door that led to the catacombs once was.

  “It’s sealed off. The shelves built into the wall.”

  She looks at me.

  “Do you remember the crashing noise that day?”

  That day.

  She nods. She knows what day I mean.

  “It was the stones giving way. The little girl’s bones were buried behind them.”

  “What?”

  “The little girl who lived here.”

  “Maybe that’s where she was leading me all along. She wanted to be found.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you sure they were hers?”

  “Yes. DNA. Hers and her puppy’s. She’s been buried beside her mother in a proper grave.”

  “I’m glad. I hope she’s at peace.”

  She walks around the room, touches some of the spines of the books.

  I watch her and I think about the light here and I think it has to do with her. I think she brings the light into this house.

  Into my life.

  I reach into my pocket and walk to her.

  She puts the book she was looking at back and looks at me and she reads me so well now. Like she is so completely in tune with me. Like she’s a part of me.

  “What are you doing?” she asks with a smile.

  I hold out my hand, open my palm.

  Inside it lies a ring. A platinum band and diamonds surrounding a single perfect sapphire that pales beside her beautiful eyes.

  The design is complicated and unique, like her.

  She looks at it, touches her mouth with the fingers of one hand like she can’t quite believe it, touches the band with the fingers of the other. She turns her pretty eyes to me, searches mine.

  “I want to marry you,” I say.

  She laughs a strange nervous sort of giggle. Looks at the ring in my hand again.

  I take her left hand, slide the ring onto her finger.

  “Why?”

  I look up at her, laugh with a shake of my head. “You ask the strangest questions at the strangest times.”

  She looks down at our hands and I seat the ring on her finger. It’s a perfect fit.

  I take her face in my hands and tilt it up. “Will you marry me, Amelia?”

  A tear slides down her cheek but her mouth moves into a smile and she nods. “Yes. Yes, Gregory. I’ll marry you.”

  Epilogue 1

  Sebastian

  Christmas

  My brother makes me out to be an asshole, but I’m just protecting what’s mine. What’s always been mine. He would have done the same if he stood in my shoes. And he will now with Amelia Willow.

  But time does heal.

  We’re not close, Gregory and I, but we were never really close. Now that he has Amelia, though, everything is different. He’s different. Not so anxious or wanting. Not so much on the outside, maybe.

  “This thing’s uncomfortable,” Gregory says, stepping into the living room.

  I look over at him and I have to agree. The tux is uncomfortable. I tug at the collar of mine.

  “She won’t eat if she hears you,” Helena says. “Can’t you go somewhere else?”

  Gregory gives her a grin, walks over to where little Helena has just turned away from the bottle and is searching for her uncle. She smiles a huge smile as soon as she sees him.

  “Nope,” Gregory says.

  I roll my eyes as Gregory reaches down to take the baby and the bottle.

  She coos when Gregory tickles her neck and it’s Helena’s turn to roll her eyes.

  “That’s right, sweetheart. Your favorite uncle is here,” Gregory taunts, taking a seat and slipping the bottle into her mouth. “Maybe you can spit up on my jacket so I have an excuse to take it off.”

  “Not happening. I have a backup. If I have to wear one, you have to wear one,” I say, watching them together. Watching how Little Helena has her tiny hand on his chin and is staring up at him as she drinks her bottle.

  He’s watching her too, making faces. Silly ones. It’s the strangest thing to see him like this.

  Helena comes to me, perches on my lap, looks at them too, then turns to me to give me a warm smile, hugging her arm around my shoulders.

  “It’s weird,” she whispers.

  “I know.” I wrap my arm around her waist.

  It’s Christmas day and we’re gathered at Gregory’s house just outside of Rome. And today is the wedding. And I’m happy for him. For both of them.

  “You okay?” I ask Helena whose expression is more serious as she watches them.

  She turns to me. “Yeah. Everything’s just happened so fast. For us. For them. But it’s okay. It’s good.”

  Irina walks inside carrying Libby who’s wide awake.

  “I just fed her, but I think she wants her mama.”

  But when she walks toward us, Libby holds her arms out to me, her pretty little face beaming with a smile.

  Helena stands as I take Libby, my smile widening when she grabs my cheeks. Helena leans down to give her a kiss on top of her head.

  “I’d better get back to Amy,” she says.

  “We should head out soon.”

  “The priest will wait,” Gregory says. “I’m paying him
enough to do this today.”

  “I just want to be sure we’re back in time to open the mountain of presents for the girls,” I say, raising my eyebrows at him. “You realize this day is no different than any other day for them, right? I mean, they’re too little to know it’s Christmas or that their uncle spoils them.”

  “Don’t look at me. That was all Amelia.”

  “Like her sister. Spoiling you all,” I say to Libby, tickling her nose with mine, trying to get her to let go of the fistful of hair she’s got.

  The girls are all dressed in pretty white dresses, ready for the ceremony. Charlotte and Samantha are still sleeping in their car seats.

  I meet my brother’s gaze when he shifts the baby onto his shoulder, setting the empty bottle aside and rubbing her back. She lays her head on him, content.

  “Look at us,” I say. “Never would have guessed this is where I’d be. Where we’d be.”

  Gregory smiles. “Tell me about it.”

  There’s a quiet minute. “Are we good?” I ask.

  We’ve never really talked about this. Talked about how he left. Talked about the contract I made him sign to keep him away from Helena before relinquishing my rights over his share of the inheritance.

  “Yeah. We’re good, brother,” he says.

  “I’m glad.”

  Little Helena lets out a tiny burp making us both smile as we hear the sound of heels clicking on the stairs. We walk to the edge of the living room and I glance at my brother as he first lays eyes on Amelia and my smile widens. I shift Libby into one arm and pat his back with my other hand.

  He looks at me.

  “Give her to me,” I say, reaching my arm out for the baby. “Go get your girl.”

  He smiles, hands baby Helena over and turns his gaze back to the stairs as Amelia descends, wearing a hand-made dress of white lace with long sleeves, a high neckline and generous floor-length skirt.

  Helena follows close behind with the long veil collected in her arms.

  She looks beautiful, they both do.

  Once they get to the first floor and Gregory takes Amelia’s hands, Helena comes to my side and she has tears in her eyes and a satisfied smile on her face.