“Close your eyes,” he said at length. “Let me know if I need to stop the car.”
Jay whimpered quietly in assent.
Fuck. He drove with a tight jaw, keeping an eye on the speedometer. Even though Jake was a good friend of his, he didn't think he could count on the sheriff not to drag them in for underage drinking and driving without a license. God, his father would probably kill him.
By the time they'd made it home, he was wired and Jay was completely passed out. Out like a light, as her fucking mother would say. She didn't move except to groan at him when he got her out of the car and marched her up to the house. He wasn't quite strong enough to carry her and moving her was like trying to move a piece of furniture that could drag its feet and whine.
Fuck, Nick thought again. He glanced at the stairs but decided he didn't want to risk losing his grip and breaking both their necks. He went to his room with Jay still clinging to him and dropped her on his bed while he left to go change. Why did she drink so much? He wondered, tugging on flannel pants and an old T-shirt before savagely brushing his teeth. Trying to prove that she can have a good time? Idiot.
When he came back into his bedroom, Jay had taken his pillow and was hugging it.
“Jay.” He shook her, lightly slapping her cheek. “Give me my pillow back, you drunk nerd.”
She drooled on it and he leaned back in disgust. Fine, keep it.
Very grumpy now, Nick slid beneath the covers and glared at Jay, but the longer he stared at her, the more the lines gradually slipped from his face. Lying on his side, facing her, was curiously intimate and he found himself aware of her and her body in a way that he'd never been aware of anyone before. After a moment, he reached out and ran the back of his hand slowly down her cheek. He could still feel the fleeting burn of her mouth against his.
With her eyes closed, she looked very young. Not that much older than him.
“Jay,” he said, in an entirely different tone, as his hand slid down to the warmth of her throat. He didn't dare move lower, but his eyes drifted to the swell of her breasts, pushed up by her arms. Want slithered through him, cold and strangling, tying up his stomach in coils. “Jay?”
“No,” she murmured. “Go away. I don't want it.”
“Jay,” he whispered. “Are you even awake?”
There was a long silence.
“I want the jam,” said Jay.
Nick let out a rough breath. He patted her cheek before flopping over on his back and switching off the light, but he could still hear her breathing, could still feel the slight dip of her weight. Without a pillow, the mattress felt as hard as a rock, and so, strangely, did his stomach.
It was a long time before he finally fell asleep.
Chapter Seventeen
2004
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Jay was gone when Nick woke up. He ran into her in the kitchen with her hair in a messy bun, clutching a cup of tea. She shot him an awkward smile and mouthed, Thank you.
It made him feel almost, but not quite, guilty for his twisted, bent-up thoughts. You wouldn't thank me, he thought, not if you knew what I'm really like.
When Dave texted to ask what he'd thought of the party, Nick set his phone down and collapsed on his bed, closing his tired eyes. When he opened them again, it felt like there was a gnawing hole in his stomach. He'd been dead to the world for hours.
His dad came down when he was polishing off the last of his toast and Nick was relieved that he hadn't come in five seconds earlier when there were still a few pieces of rainbow sprinkles visible. Nick didn't think his father was the kind of man who would approve of fairy bread.
“So,” said his father, in a tone that said he couldn't care less, “how was the party?”
“Pretty lame,” Nick said carefully. “We came home early—me and Jay.”
“I see.” His father looked at him for a long moment, letting the silence build. Nick knew the trick was to create a silent vacuum, which others would feel the need to fill. It was a classic intimidation tactic, and it annoyed him to feel it working. “Who drove?” he asked at last.
When Nick still didn't respond, his father said, “I was coming out of my room for a nightcap and happened to look over the wall and see you sneaking into your room. I hope you didn't let your sister drive in that condition.”
“I drove.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Good.” His father headed down the hall. “You were lucky. Don't let it happen again. Follow me, Nicholas. I have a few more questions I want to ask you. In private.”
Nick followed his father into the office. He had never raised a hand to him before but he found himself wondering, fleetingly, is he going to beat me? But all he did was slide into his office chair and unlock the bottom drawer where he kept his scotch. He set out two cut-crystal glasses on the desk, filling first one and then the other.
“Take it. I know you've been sampling from my liquor cabinet—I monitor the levels. This is far better than anything you've tried.” He nodded at the glasses when Nick made no move to reach for a glass. “What was your sister doing in your room last night?”
Nick swallowed wrong and the burn of the scotch in his windpipe made his eyes water. “Nothing,” he rasped. “I didn't do anything. I just didn't want to wake you or fall down the stairs. I wasn't sure where else to put her.”
“Was there something wrong with the couch?”
Nick blinked. The thought of leaving her in the den hadn't even occurred to him. “I don't know. I didn't think of it. She said she felt sick and then she passed out.”
His father sipped his scotch. “You shouldn't have let Justine drink so much.”
“I didn't,” he said sharply. “She only had two shots.”
“You're a man,” his father pointed out calmly. “It's your job to protect her. People get the wrong ideas about a girl who can't control herself. Who sneaks off with boys.”
“We didn't do anything,” he repeated firmly.
His father looked at him, a glint of amusement in his cold eyes. “Be careful, Nicholas. Sometimes a denial can imply more guilt than a confession.”
Nick remembered the way he'd touched Jay's sleeping face and stared down at his glass.
Watching him very closely, his father said, “There are two types of women in this world. Those who will demand the world from you and those who will sit back and quietly accept their lot in life. I hope you know the difference.”
“I do,” he said, which seemed like the best answer.
“I certainly hope so. I don't want you to live with my mistakes. Your mother was beautiful, brilliant, but crushed by ambition. And Danielle—well, it's a shame that she isn't a better role model for you and your sister. Incessantly demanding and shallow. Superficial.”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “You said she was an actress but I've never seen her in anything. What's she been in?” He made a subtle face at his scotch. “Porn?”
“She's not an actress. She's a stripper I met in San Francisco.”
“She's a stripper.” Fuck, I knew it had to be something like that. “Why did you marry her?”
“She was very charming in the beginning. So romantic and starry-eyed. Have you ever seen Pretty Woman, Nicholas?” He shook his head. “She was an ingenue—innocent, sweet. Well-read, or so I thought. Poignant. I thought she would be more like—”
Nick waited, throat tight, but his father didn't finish his sentence. Like who? Like my mother? For some reason, Nick didn't think his father had meant his mother, Emma. Crushed by her ambition. As if the hemorrhage had been her fault. Anger sparked through him.
“Why haven't you adopted Jay?”
“Why?” his father demanded. “Did she ask?”
“No,” said Nick. “But kids think it's strange that we have different last names.”
“The simple answer is inheritance. Justine's mother gets half of what I have when I die. Assuming she follows all of the stipulations, and assu
ming she doesn't burn through it all, some of that will flow to Justine. I want the rest of the estate—and the business—to go to you. Justine is a smart, sweet girl, but that sweetness would be sugar in the gas tank fueling this business. She's painfully naive, can't lie to save her life, and she doesn't know how to be ruthless.”
“And I do?” Nick set down his scotch, deciding he didn't like the taste.
“That remains to be seen. Right now you're too wild. I would like to see you channel that energy into something meaningful and focused.” His father picked up his glass and emptied it into his own. “This is fifty-year-old scotch. Much too good to waste. When you put time, effort, and money into acquiring something, then it really ought to be savored.”
Nick pushed back from the desk. “Are we done?”
“For now.”
Nick left.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
The next couple months passed in a whirlwind. Jay got accepted into UC Berkeley, her first choice, and started going to student orientations and other campus events. Nick poured himself into his swim meets, which seemed to be the only thing that could boil off some of his relentless, restless energy. Maybe that was what his father meant, saying that he was “too wild.” Sometimes it felt like his anger was a starved beast inside him hungering for the taste of human blood.
Prom happened and Jay went with Michael as her date, along with the rest of the Lacoste Mafia, but he stopped by their house alone for prom photos, reeking of Drakkar Noir. “Hey man,” Michael said, wincing just a little when Nick shook his hand with more force than civility called for. “Jay said you'll be taking our pictures? I didn't know you took pictures.”
“Yeah,” said Nick. “I'm a good photographer. Let's go outside. I'll shoot you out back.”
He was a pleased when Michael's smile became strained.
Danielle claimed she had a headache, and retired to her room after creeping on Michael, and his father was working, so the house was empty except for them. Nick led them out to the back, next to the lilies and the pool. Jay wore a strapless lilac gown with silver screening that made her look like an angel. He snapped a few good ones of her and then took pleasure shooting the pair of them from unflattering angles that added imaginary pounds to Michael's slim build.
A few weeks after that, Jay graduated. He was forced to go, sitting out in the bleachers in the blazing summer heat, despite the tarp the faculty had erected. After that was a summer that felt far too transient because as soon as fall started, Jay wouldn't be living with them anymore.
She'd be in Northern California, in Berkeley.
She'd be gone.
And I'll be a sophomore.
Nick stared into his coffee. It was a Saturday morning but now that school was no longer in session, it could have been any day of the week. Danielle was fussing with her hair and Jay was poring over a catalog of college courses. At the head of the table was his father, holding a newspaper he wasn't reading, while he scrolled through his ever-present phone.
“You know,” he said, “I think we have a lot to celebrate this year, so I've booked us all into a luxury resort for a brief summer getaway.”
“A resort?” Danielle looked up. “Where are we going? Hawaii? Cabo?”
“Laguna Beach,” his father said, to the step-bitch's obvious disappointment. “The resort is called Sable Blanc. It's owned by a friend of mine. In fact, Beaucroft money helped them open their doors back when they were a new business that was still struggling.”
Nick shrugged, hiding his own dashed hopes. He'd been to resorts before with his dad and friends. If you went to one overpriced beach, you'd been to them all. He'd been kind of hoping they would actually go somewhere cool for a change, like Europe or Asia. It was so typical that his father would make this into just another business deal.
Jay closed her course catalog and looked up from her breakfast. “What do we need to bring?”
“Nothing much, Justine,” his father said dismissively. “It's just a resort. Some summer dresses and a swimsuit and something appropriate for dinner. Just don't bring anything that would embarrass me.”
Nick recognized the look of panic on Jay's face as she began fiddling with the pages of her book. She doesn't know what to bring, he realized. She must not have ever been to a resort before. Probably not even a hotel. Not a nice one, anyway.
Poor blue jay. She still wasn't quite used to his father. She was so used to having everyone like her; she hadn't figured out that some people didn't want to play the game. Their peers fell over themselves trying to please her, to get into her good graces, and Jay naively assumed everyone in the world was as nice as she was—but some people, like his father, just wanted to unnerve. Everything they did was a trap.
Angela bitched about Jay all the time, to anyone who would listen, and so did a handful of other people in town. Parents whose children had lost out on awards and opportunities that had gone to Jay. Guys she wouldn't date. People who wanted to make her seem as cheap and tawdry as paste, and were infuriated by the mounting evidence that she was flawless.
Nick could have told Jay a lot about the world and how ugly it really was.
He watched her stare down at her empty plate, her long hair drifting down past her shoulders. Her catalog was covered in circles and scribbles and Nick could see a sheet of paper sticking out of it, scrawled with notes. She glanced up at him warily, bracing herself. “What?”
“I'll help you,” he heard himself say. “I'll take you out shopping.”
“What?” His father spoke as the same time as Jay, his expression ominous.
Nick glanced at him. “She doesn't know what to wear. I don't think she's even been to a beach.”
“Yes, I have, you toad,” she broke in.
“Not a nice one,” he corrected her. “And not in Laguna Beach. Hippie beaches full of rocks and mud don't count. You're going to bring the wrong thing. I bet you were going to bring shorts and T-shirts. That's not going to cut it here. Let me help you. I know what other girls wear. I know what's appropriate.”
His father was still watching him but now his gaze had shifted and there was something like approval in the glacial depths. “Nicholas makes a good point. You probably don't have anything suitable,” he said to Jay. “I've seen how you dress. It's too bohemian. You may borrow my credit card and drive yourself and your brother to the mall so he can take you shopping.”
The step-bitch looked at his father hopefully, but he only resumed eating. Ha, thought Nick, watching her return to her phone. Nice try, gold digger.
“When do you want to go?” Jay asked.
“After lunch,” Nick decided.
When he came down from his room, she was waiting in the foyer, wearing pedal pushers and a little spaghetti-strapped surplice tunic top printed with butterflies.
Nick had worn baggy jeans and a tight T-shirt with his wallet hanging from his belt loops by a chain. It had his father's credit card in it and he was taking no chances. “That's nice,” he said, as they walked out to her car. He liked the way the bright blue straps contrasted against her smooth brown shoulders. “Doesn't seem like you, though.”
“Jordan gave it to me. I just washed it. It's from France.” She made a face. “I bet your dad thinks it's too bohemian, though. Whatever that means.”
“Tu es de toute beauté.”
She tugged at a strap of her top, pulling the bodice higher. He thought her face might have looked a little pink. “You should have taken Spanish. You're going to regret it later.”
“I'll think about that when I'm in the Côte d'Azur for the French VI trip,” said Nick. “I'll send you a letter written in the tears of my regret. Bonjour ma chère soeur. Je regrette de ne pas avoir suivi de cours d'espagnol. Il est temps de nager dans la chatte.”
“God, how are you struggling in French II if you can speak like that off the cuff?”
“Because I say things like nager dans la chatte. You drive like a grandma by the way.”
“I d
on't want to get pulled over.” Her hands tightened on the wheel for a moment. “Why did you offer to help me?”
“Because you looked pathetic and I felt bad for you.”
Jay wrinkled her nose and switched on the CD player. “Even when you're trying to be nice, you're still such a jerk.”
“I like to keep people guessing.”
“There is literally no guessing. You're just a jerk.”
“Mm-hmm. But how much of a jerk? They'll never know. And neither will you. What the fuck am I listening to?” he asked, nodding at the stereo.
“It's Letters to Cleo,” said Jay.
“Terrible.”
Jay muttered something as she parked her Honda in the giant lot of the Eden Hill Mall. They wandered past several shops, all with pop music blasting from the open doors. Eden Hill was an expensive mall, with a big, ostentatious fountain in the center that had two jumping dolphins intertwined over crests of molded sea foam. What dolphins had to do with Eden or hills, Nick wasn't sure, but it had cost a shit-ton of money and the developers—the Valdezes, he supposed—had put it right front and center for everyone to enjoy.
“Want to make a wish?” Jay asked, glancing at it.
“No. I don't believe in that shit.”
“I don't either,” she said. “I just thought it might be fun.”
You and I, thought Nick, have very different ideas about fun.
Apart from the fountain, the mall was pretty typical. Open floor plans and lots of big walls made of highly reflective glass so shoppers could look at their reflections as they passed. A look on his stepsister's face surfaced; he'd never seen it before and it took him a moment to realize it was fear. She was absolutely terrified of fucking up. Their conversation a couple weeks ago about working hard hadn't really been about him at all—it had been about her.
The dynamic between them had shifted at some point. She was out of her depth in this place and because of his name, and the circumstances of his birth, some things would always be easier for him than they would be for her. No matter how hard she tried. She glanced at him, causing her hair to ripple down her back, and in that one, eloquent moment, he realized that four years wasn't such a vast divide, and it would only grow closer over time.
Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance Page 19