He saw himself.
Which was entirely impossible. He was drunk on those whiskey eyes; that was all.
Drawn short by his own wild thoughts, Isaac stopped in the middle of floor. And still, he needed to drag more of her into the light. He needed to feel the lash of her tongue, the bite of her indifference, again and again. All of a sudden, he was exhilarated; he was feeling. He’d wasted countless days and thousands of pounds on thrill-seeking and foolishness to cut away the scar tissue of numbness that surrounded him, and all he’d gotten for his troubles was a bloody reputation and a hundred tabloid articles. But now? Now, he felt like he could pick up a pen and write for hours, thanks to ten minutes with this awfully beautiful, silently vicious woman. He wanted to see those pretty lips form more insults. And she looked happy to oblige.
"Vulgar," he echoed, his tone thoughtful. "Me. I'm vulgar.” He stepped closer. "True. I'm common. You see it. Don't you, Elizabeth?" Her name was acidic on his tongue. Unsweetened lemonade. How did she draw words from him in a way no-one else could? There was only a metre between them now, yet she looked right through him. Infuriating. "Or is it the headlines?" He prompted, moving further into her space. "The things they say? Or my past? My record. Is that it?” And then, frustration burning away his sense, he growled into her silence: “Tell me.”
She continued to behave as though he wasn't even there—right up until the moment when his space and hers merged, when he stepped within a breath of her. Then, her choices narrowed radically: she could look at his chest, or at the floor, or into his eyes. She chose the latter. And so, when she spoke, he saw the length of her dark lashes. He saw the trio of tiny little moles beneath her right eye. And he saw her disgust.
"It is vulgar," she said, "that you killed a man, and now you profit from it."
Fuck.
If she had said anything else—anything at all—he could have turned away. Written her off as one of many; a beautiful bitch who didn’t know if she wanted to step on him or sit on his face. She’d have been filed away with the wealthy women who’d asked to hire him for a night, or to bring him home to punish Daddy-dearest. And he’d have gone back to his flat and hate-fucked his hand thinking about the state of the world as represented by one vile angel.
But of all the things she could have done, she just had to echo the thought that haunted him with every breath.
You killed a man, and now you profit from it.
Isaac stepped back abruptly. What the fuck was he doing? Playing with fire as though the tabloids didn't burn him every other week? As though the whole world didn't watch him spend his money, live his life, enjoy everything he'd ever missed out on, and judge him for it?
Seconds ago he’d been on the edge of enjoying himself—it was rare to find a snob so passionate in her hatred. He’d always liked a challenge, a taste of aggression. But now she was something more than the box he’d put her in. Now she was someone he’d remember forever.
She was the first person to tell him the truth.
He spun away, dragging a hand over his face. "Fuck," he breathed.
"Are you alright?"
He turned to glare down at her, wondering if he'd misheard. "What?"
"Are you alright?" She peered up at him. “Your breathing—I thought… Is something wrong with you? Do you need help?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He scowled.
Her gaze shuttered, that momentary flash of concern hidden behind concrete-thick disdain.
“Nothing, I’m sure,” she murmured. But somewhere beneath the pounding of blood in his ears, he heard a voice whisper: The ice queen can care.
About what, he had no idea.
It didn’t matter now, anyway. She was frosty as ever, and clearly done with him. Graceful steps took her across the room, achingly elegant and yet so quick, he'd barely noticed that she was moving.
Isaac blinked, tracking her as she walked away. He would swear she was running, with the speed she travelled, yet every motion was fluid and controlled. In the blink of an eye, she was sliding through the studio’s back door without another word. And he hadn’t even moved to stop her.
How the fuck had she done that? Like a cat, she was, all subtlety and silken fur.
He bloody hated cats. Give him a dog any day.
Five
Clarissa called it the rose parlour. Isaac called it another useless fucking room.
It was easy to forget, out here in the bountiful hills of Oxfordshire, that England was only an island. That there was a housing crisis. That people were going hungry.
And here was Isaac, his belly full, his glass empty, and his arse parked on a cream, velvet sofa in the fucking rose parlour.
Ah, if Mam could see him now. She’d smack him up the head.
“Don’t be tedious, darlings,” Clarissa was saying. “You know I only want the best for you.”
Her daughters crowded round her, and it was like seeing a woman hold court with her past selves. The girls were lucky; they had nothing of their father’s unsettling looks. They were all respectably plain, just like Clarissa, with rosy cheeks and gentle chins and sky-blue eyes and sandy hair. They were little, taking up no more space than was proper, and when they spoke or smiled or entered a room, it did nothing to cause unease.
Oh, yes; they were so lucky. Imagine if they’d been like their father.
The man in question sat opposite Isaac now, watching his family with something that masqueraded as fondness. But it was a touch too cold and calculating to pass muster.
It had taken Isaac a while to see beneath Mark’s veneer—it was so refined, compared to those found on the streets—but now that the veil had been lifted, Isaac’s unease grew every day.
He’d sent the contract to Kev. It would be a while ’til the other man could go through it, maybe a while longer before he offered feedback. But Isaac knew in his gut that something was up.
Or maybe the churning waves within him were remnants from his conversation with the dance teacher—if it could be called a conversation. It had been more like a princess slaying a dragon.
God, he hated the way she hated him. Why couldn’t she be uninspiring and simple like everyone else? Why couldn’t she judge him for his rough hands or his blunt words or his background? Why did she have to be right?
“Let’s ask Isaac,” Mark said, his voice breaking through the fog in Isaac's head. “Here, Montgomery—my daughters want to alter their schedule. Ava and Alexandra don’t like extra dance classes on Saturdays.”
Isaac had seen the girls’ schedule, a long time ago. It was a physical thing, a whole whiteboard put up in Clarissa’s study, filled with the many activities and tutoring sessions and other obligations designed to make them true ladies.
Clarissa was the third daughter of a baron, see. Isaac hadn’t known all that shit still existed before he met Mark. But it did, and evidently it produced children with painfully high standards for their own offspring and the cash to to do something about it.
The girls were looking at him with wide, pleading eyes. He had no idea what the right answer was here.
“Audrey,” he said. “You?”
“I want to go,” Audrey said. “But alone. Ava and Alex don’t take it seriously. Ava isn’t even en pointe yet.”
“That’s not my fault!” Ava cried. “Lizzie says I have naturally weak ankles.”
“Lizzie’s just being nice. You’re lazy.”
The idea of Elizabeth—he supposed her nickname was a privilege for the privileged—being nice made Isaac want to snort in disbelief. Only, the last time he’d made an ‘indelicate’ noise in front of Clarissa, she’d looked ready to faint.
“Alex,” he said, swallowing his reaction. “What about you?”
Most people were content to allow Ava to speak for Alex. Lord knew, talkative little Ava was happy with that arrangement. Perhaps Alex was too. But for some reason, Isaac enjoyed pulling the gentle middle sister from her shell. Probably because he knew firsthand ho
w easily silence became an unwanted habit.
She chewed her bottom lip, her expression solemn. After a moment of thought—always thinking, was Alex—she gave her verdict.
“We like dancing. And we like Lizzie.” Again, Isaac found himself baffled. “But I think the extra classes only really help Audrey. She’s the one who wants to—’’
“Shhh,” Audrey hissed sharply, as though the whole room couldn’t hear her.
Alex clamped her jaw shut, looking guilty. Which was unnecessary. Everyone already knew that Audrey wished to be a dancer.
But maybe hearing the words aloud would make the dream too real to handle. It happened that way, sometimes.
Mark was still staring with his colourless eyes. Like a shark’s skin, they were. Clarissa was awaiting Isaac’s judgement in that birdlike way she and her daughters shared. This house was full of tiny, twitchy, sharp-eyed females, it seemed.
Although the sharpest of them all had appeared to be the softest, physically. Unbidden, a memory of Elizabeth—fuck it, Lizzie—floated to the front of Isaac’s mind. Curves, curves everywhere.
Not that he cared. Not that it mattered. Women who flashed like police lights over shattered glass were not the kind of women he wanted.
“Isaac,” Ava laughed. “You’ve gone all quiet. Is it so very hard to decide, then?”
Shit.
“No.” He cleared his throat, tapped his fingers against the heavy, crystal glass in his hand. “Let Audrey take the class. Alone.”
The girls erupted into victory cries while Clarissa rolled her eyes at their exuberance.
“Alright!” She called finally. “I’ll let Lizzie know. Now make yourselves scarce. You must have homework of some sort, I’m sure.”
“They ought to have a pile of it, the amount we pay for that school,” Mark muttered. Ever the exasperated father. But something about the way he shook his head mockingly, the way he grinned, was off. It was a performance.
The only problem was, Isaac couldn’t figure out why.
Had the man always been this way? Had Isaac simply been too grateful over the past few years, and too busy coping with his own growing success, to see it?
Or was something different?
Perhaps it was a combination of both.
The girls left grudgingly, with many a sigh and a huff, and then the adults were alone. Without the easy energy that children always brought to a room, Isaac felt a familiar anxiety tighten his throat. Now, there would be conversation. Direct questions, and no tactless interruptions or childish quarrels to take the spotlight off of him. But Mam had always said that he had to push past. That if he forced himself to speak, it would become easier.
It never had. But you don’t disobey your mother. He’d learned that lesson, eventually.
“Cracking dinner,” he forced himself to say, nodding at Clarissa.
“You’re a darling,” she smiled. “I’ll tell Lena you said so.”
Ah. Yes. Because this woman didn’t slave away over the stove when it was time to entertain; she paid other women to do that for her. He was always forgetting the rules of this new world, always embarrassing himself.
“Right,” he muttered. “Cheers for having me, anyway.”
“Oh, nonsense. The girls adore you, and so do I. You haven’t visited in so long!”
He shifted, brought his gaze fully upon Clarissa’s face. Stared in silence for too many seconds and watched a delicate flush roll over her cheeks. Oops.
But he was confused. Was this politeness? Or was she unaware of Mark’s informal ban?
Isaac twisted the ring on his little finger, caught himself, stopped. “Well,” he said. “After the summer—”
“Never mind all that nastiness!” She trilled. "I don't believe a word of it.”
And he didn’t believe a word of that. The ‘nastiness’ had been the scandal of the summer—even though no-one would admit to seeing a thing, and the journalist himself wouldn’t talk. Everyone knew what that meant, didn’t they?
No doubt it was easier for Clarissa to ignore Isaac's supposed guilt. That was how these people operated: they did whatever suited them, and for now, ignoring Isaac's nature suited them. They'd transformed him from a criminal to an angel, made a tragic sob story of him—one that relied not on his humanity, but how very worldly it made them feel to pretend to understand. And all the while they thought of him as a wild beast on a leash. Poverty porn 2.0. It made him fucking sick.
But there was a dance teacher with burning eyes and scalding words who thought he was the scum of the earth and didn’t mind telling him so. Why did that knowledge ease the pressure in his chest?
“Have you taken another look at that contract?” Mark asked, standing up abruptly. Clarissa was smiling expectantly, and now Isaac felt bad. She wasn’t a terrible woman. She wasn’t the worst of them. And it wasn't her fault that her husband was a snake in a suit.
Mark strolled to the sideboard at the back of the room, and Isaac resisted the urge to turn around. Letting a man get behind him went again his every instinct. Only, this wasn’t a fight in some dingy bar; it was his publisher’s family home, and he was in no danger. At least, that’s what Isaac told himself. But his sixth sense, the one that he’d relied on all these years, appeared to be screaming otherwise.
No time for paranoia, now. He pushed it firmly away.
“Not yet,” he finally answered. “Sent my advisor a copy.”
“Ah, yes; your mysterious advisor. More port?”
“No, thanks.”
“Sherry, Clarissa dear?”
“Please, darling. Oh, but you know I can’t stand to talk business.” She fiddled with her skirts, rearranging them neatly over their frothy petticoat. A Saturday evening at home and she was decked up fancier than the Duchess of bloody Cambridge.
“Sorry, my love.” Mark came to sit back down, passing his wife a glass of the amber liquid. The sun-shot, mellow brown reminded Isaac of something, but his mind wouldn’t let him focus.
Then Clarissa said, her tone artificially airy, her society smile in place: “The girls said you met Lizzie, earlier!”
Fuck.
“Yes,” he said, doing his best to sound neutral. It shouldn’t have been hard; he almost always sounded neutral. And yet, to his own ears, the single word was packed with feeling.
But no-one else noticed.
He hoped.
“What did you think?” Mark grinned. “Clarissa loves her, don’t you darling?”
“Oh, yes. I saw her dance, years ago, in Denmark. And again, last year, in Paris. We know her brother, don’t we Mark? Or you do, rather.”
“Yes, I do,” Mark said. “She’s from a very good family.”
Oh, Isaac bet. The woman walked as though the whole world lay at her feet. Fuck, it probably did.
“She’s a God-send, truly.” Clarissa took a fortifying sip of her sherry. “A while ago, Audrey began complaining that the dance school we sent the girls to wasn’t stretching her. She asked to go to London, didn’t she darling? To audition.” Clarissa’s voice lowered, as though the word were scandalous. “She wanted to join one of those awful colleges. Well, we couldn’t have that. And then Lizzie’s brother called and said that she was back in England and accepting students. It was fate! Wasn’t it, darling? The stars aligned!”
“They certainly did,” Mark murmured, nursing his port.
“Of course, she was very in demand. But we wanted her here, didn’t we darling? So that the girls could train every day. That’s what I did when I was a girl. Ballet is absolutely vital in developing the proper grace a lady requires.”
“Quite,” Mark agreed. Then there was a moment of silence as they both looked at Isaac expectantly.
“Yes,” he said quickly. I really couldn’t give a fuck.
At least the girls didn’t seem to hate this particular obligation—though he didn’t know how, with a teacher like that. But then, Lizzie was what they’d one day become, wasn’t she? Or what they were
expected to become. Cold. Controlled. Superior.
Maybe Lizzie had once been as exuberant as even Ava. Maybe joy had been drained from her drop by drop, like blood.
Not that he cared. Poor little rich girl never made much sense to him.
“So what did you think?” Mark said again.
“She’s fabulous, isn’t she?” Clarissa gushed. “I saw her in The Nutcracker. Her Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy... Oh, she was divine.”
Hm. Lizzie hadn't struck him as particularly fairy-like. But then, what did he know?
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “She… She seems great.”
“She certainly puts the girls through their paces,” Mark said, his tone jovial. But his eyes were sharp, so sharp. Two pale, grey spotlights, watching Isaac like CCTV cameras. They flicked down to Isaac’s hand, and he realised with a start that he was gripping his glass too tightly. Way too tightly.
He loosened his grip, took a deep breath. Fought back his resentment—both at her for being so fucking righteous, and himself for wishing that she were wrong. For wishing that he could’ve tasted her intensity on something other than a wave of disdain.
Pathetic. He was who he was, and nothing would change that.
“Anyway,” Mark said suddenly. “Never mind all that. I actually have some news for you, Clarissa.”
“Oh?” She turned towards her husband, her blonde hair shimmering as the setting sun poured through the windows.
“Mmm. I’ve been thinking about the trip on Wednesday. I was rather dreading leaving my ladies, you know.”
“Really?” Clarissa said dryly. “I’d have thought you’d be happy for a rest.”
“Bah! A rest!” Mark waved one manicured hand. “I’ll be managing the egos of my best sellers for a week. Rest is not the word.” He flashed a debonair smile at Isaac, as if to say, Ah, writers, eh? So very high maintenance.
And now another worry set up shop in Isaac’s head. He hadn’t even considered the presence of the other writers on this retreat, but he should have. Because he’d have to be around them, wouldn’t he? Have to interact. Shit.
“I’m very jealous,” Clarissa was saying. “Did you know that I’m to be left behind? Since it’s a professional trip.”
Undone by the Ex-Con: A BWWM Romance (Just for Him Book 2) Page 4