by Moriah Jovan
Giselle had begun to set their places at the island when she saw it. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at what it must mean. There, at the front of the house stood a glossy black concert grand piano that had yellowing, well-worn music scattered all over it and on the floor surrounding it. Oh!
“I want to ask you something,” Bryce said, interrupting her wonder. “Why have you stuck with Knox all these years after you broke up?”
“History. Loyalty.”
“There’s more to it than that, I think.”
She thought about it while they gathered their food and sat to eat. After a deep breath, she began, “The proviso is all my fault.” At his questioning look, she explained and when she finished, he said,
“So you feel responsible for something you did when you were fourteen and here you are, twenty-something years later, still carrying it.”
She shrugged. “You have to take responsibility for what you do.”
He snorted. “And you don’t think you’re honorable. So let’s try this again. Define honor. Your definition. What are you comparing yourself to?”
She looked at him while she attempted to shake that answer out for herself. “A karate teacher I had at BYU,” she finally said. “I know he thought I had a crush on him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was too out of my league. I was in awe of him. I was so in awe of him, I couldn’t presume to have a crush on him. He was twenty-two and I was eighteen. I knew the minute I met him I wanted to be just like him. He had power. Real power, like the kind where men ten, twenty years older than he paid him deference. He was a true leader. He was a warrior. I think of him kind of like Alexander the Great.”
Bryce’s eyebrow rose. “Twenty-two?”
Giselle nodded, but he released a frustrated whoosh. “What?”
“Aw, Giselle. It took me years to get to that point and then to hear about some punk twenty-two-year-old who had it . . . ” He shrugged.
Giselle could empathize with that. “He’s the one whose example of honor I’ve been trying to emulate since. That’s why I couldn’t define it for you. To me, honor is not a ‘what.’ It’s a ‘who.’”
“And I’m looking at her,” he returned sharply, and she looked up to see his gaze boring into her. “I don’t know where you got this idea that you’re not honorable, but get rid of it. Whether you learned it or it was forced upon you or you already had it and just honed it to a science, I don’t know. Most people don’t earn real respect and admiration when they’re children, which, from what little I know, you seem to have earned from Fen. However or whoever you define honor, some nebulous thing you think you can’t reach—you did. You’re it.”
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and tickled her cheeks as they tracked their way down to her chin. He smiled at her and reached over to wipe her face with a napkin. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks. “I cry a lot.”
“Takes the edge off the Glocks.”
She laughed through her tears. “Yeah, that’s not a good thing. Warrior queens aren’t supposed to cry.”
“They probably don’t wear Badgley Mischka and Manolo Blahnik, either.”
“How did you know that?”
He laughed then. “Went through your very, ah, sparse closet. Reconnaissance.”
“Nosy, more like.”
“Semantics. So in this whole proviso mess, why didn’t you and Knox just get married? It would’ve been very efficient.”
“I was waiting for you. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
A pleased grin grew on his face.
“Something happened my junior year at BYU and it clarified what I wanted, one of those random slice-of-life things that makes you take a good look at what you want.”
“Which was?”
“It’s stupid. I saw a dude. A glance. That’s all. He looked at me like he wanted to shove me up against a wall and fuck me. But then I saw he had a wedding band on, so it didn’t go beyond that. I mean, we’re at BYU so I’m going to assume he’s LDS, which doesn’t necessarily follow, but the odds are good, right? He’s married and he’s looking at me like that? That’s some powerful mojo right there. It was like Hank Rearden incarnate. And I wanted that.”
“So you waited for it.”
“Yep.”
Bryce’s mouth twitched. “Which explains the vibrators and the erotica.”
She gasped and her mouth dropped open. “You know about that?”
A roar of laughter exploded from him and she huffed. “Knox told me,” he finally said once his humor had wound down a bit and he had wiped the tears from his face.
“That bastard!”
“You hid it very well. It took me a while to find your toy box.”
The heat rose in her face and she ducked her head. She felt his fingers on her chin then found herself nose to nose with him. “And I’m telling you right now. You’re gonna read for me, and then you’re going to use those toys while I watch.”
Giselle bit her lip, aroused and amused despite her chagrin.
Smirking, he released her and went back to his salmon. “So are there any other reasons you and Knox didn’t . . . ?”
She looked at him speculatively for a moment. “Are you feeling threatened? Still?”
His smile dimmed and he hesitated. “Yeah, a little bit, I’ll admit.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Indulge me.”
She supposed she could respect that. After all, she had to deal with Michelle’s ghost and she’d welcome any information that would help her do that.
“Well, I don’t know how to describe it. Knox builds his women and he couldn’t do that with me.”
“That makes no sense.”
Giselle took a deep breath. “He knows precisely what he’s looking for in a woman, which is a little teeny spark of fire hidden deep in her soul. Knox only ever falls in love with a woman’s soul. Once that happens, he overwhelms her, manipulates her, makes her vulnerable, breaks her down to expose her spark so she can take over when she’s ready to progress on her own terms, to fulfill the potential she already had.”
“Leah,” Bryce breathed as comprehension grew in his expression.
“Leah. She was sad and lonely and had never known passion in her life and she didn’t even know it. Knox saw her as a passionate woman, vivacious, and charming. He knew it the first time he saw her and that’s what he turned her into.”
“And you were already built, so it was a non-starter.”
“Between understanding what I really wanted and that, yes.”
“So what happens to his women once he’s built them? He gets bored and moves on?”
“Oh, no. They move on to accomplish great things because he taught them how. His gift is his curse. He loves them, but none of them love him enough to stay with him. Leah never loved him the way she loved her late husband, but she loved how he made her feel. And that was okay with him as long as she stayed with him.”
“So all his attorneys—they go to him, they learn from him, take everything they can, then leave him for bigger and better.”
“Yes.”
“But that, he doesn’t resent.”
“Actually, I think he does, but he’s never said. The only two people who’ve ever stuck with him are his wards.”
“He has wards?”
“Not in the legal sense, no, but he took care of them like they were his own.”
“He never told me that.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.”
“What about the prodigy pundit he’s in love with?”
“Justice? I don’t know and I don’t think he does, either. He fell in love with her three weeks before he was supposed to get married. I don’t know how he would’ve dealt with being married to one woman and in love with another, especially if he happened to be teaching any of her classes during her time there.”
Bryce’s brow wrinkled and he looked off into the distance, tense, troubled.
“Oh, pl
ease don’t think badly about him. He feels really guilty about that.”
“Um, no,” Bryce said slowly, looking down at his plate then, picking at his food. “I don’t, it’s just— I’m having a lot of empathy for him, but I don’t know why.” It was Giselle’s turn to be confused and Bryce waved a hand. “I lost some of my memory because of the fire or the coma; I don’t guess it matters which.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Eh. If it’s that important, I’ll either remember it or it’ll come back to bite me in the ass when I least expect it to. It’s happened before.”
She watched him for a moment. “Tell me about your fire.”
He barked a humorless laugh. “I’ll get you the trial transcripts.”
“I read them already. I want to hear it from you.”
“No.”
Giselle sucked in a long breath and stared down at her now-empty plate. She felt his hand cover hers.
“Giselle,” he breathed as his other hand tucked a stray curl behind her ear, “I can’t relive it. I had to once when I was arrested and I had to a second and third time for two juries. I can’t do it again. You read my testimony. Please let that be enough.”
She swallowed, knowing she would respect that even though it hurt. She nodded and looked up at him, only to have her mouth captured by his with a hot kiss that made her breath catch in her throat. She closed her eyes and plowed her fingers through his hair to bring him closer to her.
The kitchen was silent except for the sound of their kissing, Giselle’s gasps and Bryce’s low, throaty growls. “I will never get enough of you, Giselle,” he whispered against her lips. “I can’t imagine living my life without you in it.”
“Ditto,” she whispered back, then drew away slowly. “But I’m scared. I don’t have any real experience with relationships.”
“You? Afraid of something?” he asked, caressing her cheek with a crooked finger.
“I’m only here because Sebastian kicked my ass.”
She could see the surprise that flickered in Bryce’s beautiful eyes. “Kicked your ass?”
“He does that a lot,” she returned wryly. “He gets into Fix-or-Raid mode with me and I never get fixed. Just raided.”
Bryce burst out laughing and sat back in his chair. “Really.”
“Yeah, and Knox agreed with him, so I’m sure Armageddon will happen any day now.”
“Remind me to thank them.”
“You’ll have to do it twice,” she muttered. “They also kicked my ass to seek you out in the first place.” She speared him with a glance. “So knowing that, are you feeling threatened anymore?”
He continued to chuckle and finally said, “No, guess not.” He stood and took her hands, pulled her off the bar stool and enfolded her in his arms. “Let’s go get rings and get to the courthouse before it closes.”
* * * * *
38: SON OF A PREACHER MAN
Sebastian smirked when Giselle led Bryce into the house and swept her with a glance. “Oh, so you’re wearing Kenard’s clothes now. I’m guessing he ripped yours to shreds.” Giselle stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed. “Kenard, come with me. You’re useful.”
Bryce smirked and followed Sebastian into his office. Finally they finished plotting to take over the world— “Pinky and the Brain,” Giselle muttered dryly and Sebastian howled. Then Bryce took her to Tivol.
“That’s not really a wedding ring,” Bryce pointed out once she’d selected a platinum spiral band inset with diamonds. Three square-cut emeralds lay in a diagonal across the three threads of the spiral.
“It is if I say it is,” she returned smartly, then smiled up at him. “Matches your eyes.”
The crookedness of his grin told her that pleased him. In response, her soul blossomed with that indescribable joy she had when she looked at him, touched him, knowing he was in love with her, knowing she could make his eyes gleam like that.
“The god of the UMKC School of Law,” she breathed.
“What?”
She laughed. “You have no idea how this town sees you, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“At school. The litigation professors worship the ground you walk on.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious. And my tribe—Morgan’s gonna have an orgasm when he finds out I’m marrying you.”
“Morgan?”
“Ashworth.”
“The economist? On the short list for Fed chairman when Bernanke retires?”
“Yeah, that one.”
He stared at her. “Isn’t Ashworth related to Étienne LaMontagne?”
“Yes, the inventor. Our pet name for him is Edison.”
Bryce wiped a hand down his face, chuckling in bemusement. “Shit, Giselle. You do swim in a sparkling gene pool, don’t you? This isn’t a marriage; it’s a financial and political alliance. And you thought I’d be worried about your taking me for a ride. You should be worried about my motives.”
“Pffftt. I’m broke.”
“You can’t tell me your tribe wouldn’t bail you out if you asked.”
Giselle hemmed and hawed for a moment, then admitted, “Okay, well, that’s true.”
“And I’ll even bet they’ve offered and you’ve refused.” A blush crept up her cheeks and he chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”
Kevin Oakley saw her and Bryce at the courthouse getting their marriage license. After he’d congratulated them and gone back to his office, Bryce muttered, “So besides my motives for marrying your family, I’m marrying the model of the most infamous Ford painting yet who happens to have a senator in her pocket.”
“I’m not the one funding his campaign,” Giselle murmured, coy, and he burst out laughing. “Bryce,” she said once he’d handed her into his SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat, “I forgot to ask you if there’s anyone you’d like at our wedding?”
He shrugged and spoke as he maneuvered through the late Friday afternoon downtown traffic. “Geoff Hale. He’s my friend as much as he is my lawyer and I think he’d be offended if I didn’t.”
She caught her breath. “He hates Knox. He’ll fire me when he finds out we’re so close.”
Bryce cast her a strange glance. “No, he won’t,” he said slowly, “but you do realize you don’t have to work now, right?”
Oh! “Um, well, I hadn’t really thought about it, no.”
He shook his head.
“Okay, but what about your siblings? I mean, I know you said they aren’t particularly happy with you and won’t like me, but don’t you want them to come? Or at least tell them?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want them there, no. Besides, they have health issues and neither of them would be able to fly.” He paused. “We have nothing in common, nothing to say to each other. They were angry that I didn’t go to our parents’ funerals until I said, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, I was in a coma and my children died and I was arrested for murder and why don’t you know that?’ Even then, they had a hard time letting go of their assumptions. Being disappointed in me is a habit.”
Giselle closed her eyes and shook her head, figuring it didn’t matter if people like that liked her or not. “How did you come out of a family like that?”
“Don’t know, but it was a hard row to hoe. I was always trying to be good, to be Peter Priesthood, but I was too intense, too—”
“Passionate?”
“No. Savage. That’s the word Knox used. My father was very mild-mannered, very quiet and unassuming. He didn’t understand me but I wanted to please him, wanted to be like him, wanted to live up to Mark’s example, step into his shoes. When I was young, sports and school took care of that and all anybody saw was a good kid who excelled. But when I went to UCLA, it started slipping out. I tried to keep a lid on it, but it became harder and harder as Knox kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t, not really. Then I got married and got angry,
so add that to intense and savage and—” He shrugged.
“After that, the courtroom took the edge off and I started making my reputation right off the bat. I played a lot of racquetball to work through the rest of it, but nothing was going to cut it significantly enough that I could be comfortable. It helped when I started my own practice because there was so much more to do than I had to do as an employee.”
Giselle sighed. “And all anybody saw was a hard-working man with a picture-perfect Mormon family. Did you decide to take a job here to get away from your family? So they couldn’t see what was happening to you?”
Bryce didn’t answer for a while, then, “Maybe. I never thought about it that way. My dad was proud of me, what I’d accomplished, but it was all in the abstract. I had a good education, good job, married in the temple to someone he thought was a good woman, had kids. I was on my way up the church hierarchy and he figured I’d be a bishop by the time I was thirty-five, like my brother. I was on the fast track and he was very happy with me.”
“Did you tell him you were getting divorced?”
“No. He would’ve been disappointed in me for not trying to make it work. I didn’t know what I was going to say, how I was going to explain it once it was done and over with. Mark and Serena still don’t know I was getting divorced.”
Giselle shook her head, unable to comprehend a bit of that. “I think that’s really sad,” she whispered, looking out the window then, her mouth tight.
“Giselle,” he said, “they’re a whole generation older than I am. They don’t really figure into the way I think about my life, my childhood. When I was in Scotland, I did some genealogy and I found out that I come from a long line of highland warriors. I never made the connection as to why I felt so at odds with my family. I think if I’d understood that in college when Knox was yelling in my ear, it would have been a lot easier for me to accept.”
“And the Apache?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, can’t find out beyond the fact that there is some on my mother’s side. I have to assume I get some of it from that bloodline, too.”
Giselle said nothing for a moment and then, “The grandmother I was named after, Celia. She was a privateer in the American Revolution. She reported directly to George Washington.”