The Proviso: Vignettes & Outtakes

by Moriah Jovan

  “What’s her name?”

  “Vanessa.”

  “Where does she go?”

  “Notre Dame. There are a couple of other kids I take care of in some way. Eric. Dirk.”

  “And your cousin.”

  Knox shrugged that off. “Naw, more like Giselle takes care of me. She’s— Ah, well, she’s my best friend.” That disturbed Leah a bit, but she couldn’t say why. “You don’t need to feel threatened by her.”

  Threatened? Was that that feeling? How did he know? She said nothing for a moment or two.

  “Are there a lot of people in this world who love you?”

  He cast her a sharp glance. “It would surprise you if there were?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly. “It would.”

  “Leah, if this is going to be a problem for you, why’d you come back?”

  “I came back because I had nowhere else to go and nothing to do there anyway,” she snapped.

  “What were you doing before you ran up here to rescue Rachel from her stupidity?” he snapped back.

  “I had a job. Which I didn’t have when I got back.”

  He sucked in a deep breath, and rested his elbow on the ledge, rubbing his mouth while he drove. “Okay,” he mumbled. “I deserved that.”

  She stared at him unbelievingly, and the thought that had been only a vague mist in her subconscious began to gel: Was this an otherwise decent man whose unspeakably bad behavior was an anomaly?

  “You’re crazy,” she whispered.

  He barked a surprised laugh. “Yeah, Leah. That I am. The sooner you come to terms with that, the easier it’ll be to live with me for however long you want to do that.”

  “Do you generally like older women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how old I am?”

  “No.”

  “Forty-six.”

  He glanced at her, shock written all over his face. “Damn,” he breathed reverently.

  “Knox, I have an eighteen-year-old daughter. It shouldn’t have surprised you.”

  “I kind of figured you had her young, like, seventeen or eighteen. I thought you were only a little older than me.”

  “Is that going to bother you?”

  “Shit, no.”

  Leah felt pride.

  It was sinful, pride, especially in one’s appearance. A few times, at work, an attractive doctor had taken a second glance at her. She’d felt it then but quashed it, guilty about attracting a man’s attention, his lust.

  Men were vulnerable; it was the woman’s place to protect them from their lusts.

  A twinge of guilt got her, but she wanted to let it go, to wallow in the pride, to cast away her old life, which included her old thoughts and habits and fears. Then again, Leah had slept with a stranger to save her daughter’s miserable little life; after that, there wasn’t much to salvage of her old life.

  Kansas City International Airport was a series of circles, the boarding gates accessible only a few feet from the curb. Knox parked right in front of the terminal and craned his neck to look for this “sister,” and then he honked the horn and got out, the engine still running. A tall, lissome blonde with glasses perched on her nose huffed up at her bangs. The rest of her hair was wound up haphazardly in a fan-like arrangement on top of her head. She dragged her suitcases toward Knox, but he jogged toward her to pick them up.

  Then Leah understood the flip side of pride in one’s attractiveness: Jealousy. It bit Leah.

  Hard.

  That girl was gorgeous, no matter how haggard she looked, no matter that she scowled at Knox and said something with a curled lip. He only laughed, which made her scowl deepen.

  The back door opened and she threw herself inside. “Oh, fuck you, Knox.”

  “No thanks,” came the amused and obviously well-worn response before she yanked the door closed. The back of the truck opened and Knox threw the girl’s luggage in.

  “Hi,” she said, firmly inserting herself between the bucket seats. “I’m Annie. You are?”

  “Leah,” she responded because she couldn’t not.

  “How’d you get stuck with him?”

  Leah stared at her. Up close and personal, she was even more beautiful.

  “Don’t answer that,” Knox muttered as he got in. “Annie’s obnoxiously nosy.”

  “Call it what you want, but most people will tell you anything if you ask outright and act like they have a duty to tell you.”

  “He blackmailed me,” Leah said, just to see what she’d do.

  Knox shot her a look and Annie stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh. She rolled back to lie on the seat, giggle madly, kick her feet in the air.

  “She’s laughing because she believes you,” Knox muttered as he pulled away from the curb and drove around the terminal circle to the exit.

  “Knox, you are so fucked up.”

  “I pay for her room and board and this is what I get.”

  “It’s because you think I’m adorable.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  As Leah listened to them go back and forth, she had no choice but to let go of her jealousy.

  “Hey, where are we going?” Annie asked when Knox zipped past his exit. “I thought I was staying with you for the summer?”

  “Change of plans,” Knox said heartily, flashing a grin at Leah. “Since you’re working at Decadence, maybe Giselle will let you live on her couch for the summer.”

  “That woman’s a slave driver. I don’t know why I let her boss me around.”

  Knox laughed out loud. “You’d pay her to work at Decadence.”

  “Does she know I’m suddenly homeless?”

  “She might have a decent clue right about now, yes.”

  Giselle. Annie. Vanessa.

  “Do you have any male friends?” Leah burst out. “Your own age?”

  Knox laughed. “Yes, Leah,” he drawled, “I do.”

  Leah watched this man, happy, trading good-natured insults with a beautiful college graduate he thought of as a sister. She compared and contrasted it to the way he’d finagled her into bed, with that hard expression and cruel sneer, and felt as if she’d dropped into an entirely different man’s life.

  As if she were a natural part of it and always had been.

  He had no reservations about her being here, in his car, in his house, in his bed, even though he knew next to nothing about her and despised—struck—her only child. In lieu of putting her in prison. He had no reservations about including her in his life immediately, introducing her to his loved ones and being, as far as she could tell, completely natural.

  As if it were normal for strange women to show up on his doorstep unannounced, uninvited (not really), and expecting to be taken to bed immediately.

  “Anaïs, when do you walk?” he asked, jolting Leah out of her musings.

  “Not going to,” she sniffed. “I don’t care about the pomp and circumstance. Show me the money.”

  Knox threw a hand up in the air. “Why did I even ask?”

  “I do not know. And quit calling me that.”

  “I’ll call you whatever I damn well please. Anaïs. Nin.” The girl growled, but Leah caught the sly glance Knox cast her way. “Do you know who Anaïs Nin is?” he murmured.

  “No.”

  “You’re gonna find out.”

  Leah tingled at his purr, but she didn’t know why.

  “Eeww. Cut it out while I’m in the car. Not in front of the children. Geez.”

  “Oh ho! The Queen of the Frat Party objects.”

  “You do not know that for sure.”

  “Annie, you can’t go more than two days without a man. And you better be careful with that because you know Giselle won’t put up with it in her apartment.”

  “See, this is why I need to stay with you. You let me bring home whoever I want.”

  The two went on, nattering at each other and Leah suddenly felt as if she had lain on an unfamiliar mattress, stiff, tense, ready to find
fault with it, then the mattress had surprised her into relaxation. She felt as if she were melting into its unexpected warmth and comfort.

  This was not the same man who had blackmailed her into bed.

  So who was he?

  Soon they traversed a bridge over the Missouri River into downtown Kansas City, and only a few moments after that, Knox pulled into a parking slip in front of a charmingly renovated old building with a sign that said, “Decadence.” Leah waited for Knox to open her door and hand her out, and she was hit with mouthwatering scents.

  “Hot damn!” Annie crowed. “Books and chocolate all summer long.” She darted into the building and out of sight.

  “This is Giselle’s place,” Knox said softly. “In the middle, there’s a bookstore. That’s hers. On either side of her is a chocolatier and a patisserie. Those are her business partners’. She lives on the second floor.”

  Leah said nothing, staring up at him, still dazed at events she could have never predicted.

  Knox bent toward her and she closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and let him work his magic on her. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

  “Oh, I missed you,” he breathed into her mouth, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her close to him.

  And she missed him, that big, strong young body in bed next to hers, curled around her possessively, giving her pleasure and teaching her how to return it.

  “Forgive me, Leah,” he whispered as he pulled away and stared into her eyes, those cold blue eyes now somewhere in the range of sapphire. “I didn’t know how else to do it.”

  “I understand you want me,” she murmured. “I even understand you think I’m attractive. But . . . how can you know that you really want me to stay? How do you know—?” She waved a hand, unsure of her question.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just do. It’s always been like that for me.”

  “You’re so different now.”

  “No, no different. Just in a different context. I really am that cruel, Leah, that evil. Just not . . . right . . . now.”

  “Why are you?”

  He pursed his lips. “When we know each other better, I might tell you, but once you get settled in and then start exploring the city, you’ll hear rumors. Believe. Them.”

  She shivered in sudden fear.

  “I won’t treat you badly ever again, Leah, but being my lover outside the house isn’t going to be easy for you. Whatever you do in Chouteau County, wherever you go, if people know you’re my lover, it may not go well for you. If you want to distance yourself from me at any time in any way, I’ll understand. If that means you don’t want to live with me, that’s fine.”

  She swallowed. “I need to get a job. Will that hurt me?”

  “Possibly. Depends on what you want to do.”

  “I’m a dietitian.”

  “I don’t know. It’s up to you if you want to tell people. You don’t have to work if you don’t want to, but I’d like you to have a life outside of me and my family. Spend your time however you want to.”

  She blinked. “Are you serious?”

  He stared at her, confusion written all over his face. “Uh . . . Not sure which part of that you’re asking about.”

  “McLean, my husband, wouldn’t let—” She snapped her mouth shut with a click. McLean was no longer part of her equation.

  Comprehension washed over his features and settled into a modicum of disdain. “Oh.”

  “How are you going to explain me to your mother?” she asked dryly, attempting some humor to get out of the suddenly awkward conversation.

  Instead, the cruel young man with the cold eyes returned in a flash. “My mother is not part of my life,” he snarled. “If you meet her—which I doubt—you’ll understand a few things a little more clearly.”

  Leah stared at him calmly and, for no reason she could discern, she raised her hand and stroked his cheek, rough with blond stubble.

  He blinked, bemused, his anger vanishing. “I don’t need a mother,” he said gruffly.

  “I don’t want to be. I’m not trying to be.”

  He gulped and turned his mouth into her palm. Kissed it. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “You would do well to remember that.”

  JULY 14, 2001

  Two fires raged across town from each other, flames spearing up into the night.

  In the River Market at the north end of the city, fire chewed out a confectionary-bookstore-patisserie and the offices and residences above them. The brick held while firefighters went about their work, and residents, owners, and spectators gathered as near as they could to watch. One woman sat alone on a curb away from the rest, a laptop and purse on the ground beside her, watching as her life went up in smoke.

  She was grateful to be alive, even so, and she wondered when her business partners would arrive. She felt no fear, though she trembled in impotent rage. A man walked toward her, but she didn’t look at him, even when he turned and dropped onto the curb beside her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  Pause. “That’s . . . unusual.”

  Indeed.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself. When she felt she could speak again, she did, her voice hard. “That bastard tried to kill me and he’s taken away everything I own.”

  He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “When you lie down with dogs . . . Obviously he didn’t get the memo.”

  He was right. She began to cry, because she had nowhere for all that anger to go right then, and he folded her in his arms.

  At the south end of the city in Mission Hills, a man carrying three children struggled through the front hallway of a house to get to the door. A small child was tucked under each arm and he shouted encouragement to the third, who clung to his neck. They screamed in pain as flames spread over all four of them. He stumbled through the gaping hole of the front entrance, fire licking up his pant legs. Firefighters ran to him and tossed wet blankets over all of them, bundling them and then dousing them before racing them to the awaiting ambulances.

  “My daughter,” the man gasped as he was loaded onto a gurney. “She fell— My daughter!”

  “Sir, is there anyone else in the house?”

  “My wife,” he coughed, just before he passed out.

  THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

  June 2004

  “Taight, so help me, if you throw me out of my own company—”

  “It’s my company now, Roger.”

  “You put a gun to my head.”

  Sebastian slowly rose to his full height from where he bent over the CEO’s desk—his, now—and stared at Roger Oth with a well-practiced stare. Satisfied when Roger squirmed, he said, “Yes, I did. Knox Hilliard makes for a particularly lethal weapon—especially since he was the one who figured it all out.” Oth’s color dropped only at the latter piece of information, which was exactly the reaction Sebastian had expected.

  “He— Hilliard’s been through my books?”

  “Yeah, that’s always the risk you run with me. Family ties and all that. Man’s a genius with paper trails.”

  “Such a genius that even the FBI can’t find his illegal operations,” Oth sneered. “Unlike him, I didn’t do anything illegal and you know it.”

  Sebastian inclined his head. “You’re right. Your only crime is being stupid, but either way, I don’t give a fat rat’s ass. Get out.” When Oth balked, Sebastian tilted his head and blinked. “Fraud is a felony, remember. Knox could very easily convince the DA here that you were the mastermind.”

  “Fen Hilliard was right about you, Taight,” Oth snarled as he stalked toward the door of the massive office suite.

  “If you’re such good friends with Fen,” Sebastian said blithely at his back, “why didn’t you ask him to help you? He could have found your problem as easily as Knox did.” Oth stopped abruptly. “Except . . . if you had taken this to Fen, he would’ve done exactly what I just did.” Oth sucked in a sharp breath
, then continued toward the door, slamming it behind him.

  Sebastian strode over to the window to watch Oth be escorted out of the building and off the property by two Lancaster County, Pennsylvania deputies. Sebastian sucked up a chestful of air. He dreaded what had to be done next. He’d done it too many times and it never failed to nauseate him.

  As he left the office and clicked down the stairs, he called the next most important person in this entire fiasco. “Yo, Mitch. I’m getting ready to do the deed. How fast can you get your process rolling?” Sebastian sighed at the answer and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I know I didn’t give you much time. It was unavoidable.” Another sigh. “All right. See you in . . . ” He checked his watch. “An hour? Your office?”

  By the time he clapped his phone closed, he’d walked across the parking lot between the office building of Jep Industries and its factory. Three at a time, he took the metal stairs that led to the grated catwalk that overlooked the entire assembly floor, which was a hive of activity. None of the people on that floor had a clue that life as they knew it was over.

  There, at the rail looking down: Knox Hilliard, the Chouteau County, Missouri, prosecutor. Morgan Ashworth, economist. Étienne LaMontagne and his brother-in-law, Emilio Bautista, together the holders of most of the patents of Jep Industries’ specialized products.

  Two more Lancaster County deputies mingled around Sebastian’s four cousins and all six men looked to him as he approached, all of them grim.

  “Morg. You ready to front this and quash all the rumors?” Sebastian murmured. “At least until Mitch gets it done?”

  “Yes,” he said shortly. Morgan had his doubts about Sebastian’s sanity. “I hope this works.”

  “It will,” Knox grunted. “You just have to be able to follow it.”

  Sebastian and Morgan traded glances. Knox said that like it would be easy.

  “Étienne. Are you satisfied now?”

  “Non!” Étienne burst out in a tirade at Sebastian—in French.