And then those creeps on the beach had approached her and made her feel absolutely disgusting and Nick had—she swallowed—and stared down at her melting drink. She didn't want to think about Nick or the way he had looked at her.
Maybe it's good I'm going away, she thought, pressing her face into her hands. Maybe what I need to do is go away forever and never come back.
When she lowered her hands from her head, movement caught her eye. It was her reflection in the mirrored surface behind the bar, framed by gleaming bottles of spirits. There were floral patterns and swirls etched into the glass that were reminiscent of Victorian Chinoiserie, warping and distorting the image of her face.
She stared at herself hard but saw nothing remarkable. It was the same face she saw in the bathroom mirror each morning. To her, it was ordinary. Hazel eyes, curly hair, light brown skin.
And then, there was another face in the glass, startling her badly—Nick's, or what Nick's might look like in thirty years, if he let himself be lost to the vagaries of excess and time.
“Hello, Justine.”
Jay glanced at Damon warily—he was a tall man, standing around 6'3” and she had the feeling that he used his body to intimidate people. When he was out with her tiny mother, she looked like a child standing next to him. He was wearing a vintage Tommy Bahama shirt and slacks, and was the last person she wanted to see right now apart from her stepbrother.
“I was just about to leave.” She pushed her drink away. “I know I'm not supposed to be in the bar.”
“That's all right,” he said. “Stay. I could use the company.”
What about what I could use? she thought, irrationally angry. Maybe I want to be alone.
She slid her drink across its trail of condensation while Damon ordered an Old Fashioned, wishing desperately that she was alone in her room.
“So,” he said, once he had his drink—she noticed he didn't thank the bartender, glancing through her as she provided the drink as if she weren't worth his time. “Where's Nicholas?”
“I don't know. Probably in his room,” she said guardedly.
“I only ask because he seemed out of sorts. He wouldn't tell me why.”
Jay turned away so he wouldn't see her let out her breath. “Sorry. No idea.” When she turned around again, her stepfather was regarding her intensely and she wondered if Nick hadn't told him what had happened after all. But the line of his eyes was lower, level with her chest.
“You're wearing my necklace.” She flinched when he plucked up her pendant and the rough pads of his fingers grazed her breast. “It looks very nice on you.”
And now it's going in a drawer forever. Forcing a smile, Jay pulled away so the pendant fell back against her ribs with a hollow thud. “Thanks.”
“Congratulations on getting into Berkeley. I do wish you had considered Stanford, though. You'd be a legacy, you know,” he added. “You might have told me that you'd been accepted.”
How the hell had he found out? Had he asked her friends? Gone through the trash? The idea of being watched like that without her knowledge disturbed her. “I like Berkeley. It suits me.”
“I'm not so sure about that,” said Damon, to her irritation, “but it is your decision. Regardless, it is a good school and it will present well on paper. By the time you graduate, you'll have connections, your little projects. I wish Nicholas had your mind for philanthropy. It's crucial in small doses.”
“He seems to think he can do whatever he wants.” Like his father.
“Well, yes,” Damon said, leaning on the bar. “He can. He's a Beaucroft.”
And Beaucrofts get to do anything? Jay had never spoken this frankly to her stepfather before—not in so many words. He wasn't exactly making her like him. Normally, she wouldn't have dared talk back but she was angry and upset, and she knew she would soon be leaving.
“Why aren't I a Beaucroft?” Jay stared hard at the polished counter. “Why haven't you adopted me?” She could feel him looking at her and said, dully. “What?”
“It's an interesting question.” He stirred his drink. “I'm surprised you haven't asked sooner.”
“Well, why haven't you? Is it because I'm an embarrassment to you? I work hard and I've never embarrassed you or Nicholas or my mother. I was valedictorian. I got into almost every school I applied to. I work hard. Why am I the only one who isn't really a part of this family?”
Her eyes stung and she held back the tears with angry impatience. Don't you dare cry, Jay.
She waited, tense and hardly daring to move, as Damon turned back to the bar and downed a good portion of his drink in one long swallow. “I thought I was in love with your mother when I met her,” he said unexpectedly. “She was so beautiful up there on the stage. This beautiful blonde creature. Appalling fashion sense, but lissome—a rose in filth, I thought.”
You odious man, thought Jay.
“She seemed so delicate, wistful . . . innocent.” The way he lingered on that word made her lock her shoulders in a shudder. “Quoting prose and poetry. So interested in the marvels and the mysteries of the world, and so utterly uninterested in my money. Or so I thought.”
She called you her ticket to a new life, thought Jay. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Wetting her lips, she said hesitantly, incredulously, “My mother . . . she quoted poetry?”
“Yes,” Damon said, with a venom that surprised her. “She certainly duped me. At the time, I thought I had found the proverbial whore with the heart of gold. My own Pretty Woman. You would be surprised at how many men buy into that fantasy, Justine. The lure of the unjustly fallen woman. But you know your mother. It wasn't quite that fairytale ending.”
Jay shook her head, thoroughly revolted, but he seemed to take it for agreement.
“It clicked for me when I gave her that bracelet engraved with the quote from Jane Eyre. Her alleged favorite book—your favorite book.” That look, thought Jay, remembering her mother's heated gaze. No wonder. “That's when I realized that what your mother had actually done was craft a fantasy persona for herself . . . based entirely on yours.”
Jay couldn't think of what to say, so she said the only thing that came to mind. “My mother's not a whore.”
“Yes, she is,” said Damon. “She married me for my money, and now the blush is off the rose. It is what it is, but let's not mince words. She is a whore. An expensive one.”
“I'm going back to my room,” said Jay. “Have a nice night.”
“Oh, don't be dull. If you don't wish to speak of your mother, we can talk of other things. Tell me, have you given any thought to what you'll be doing when you leave college? I understand that you've been seeing Michael Valdez. Is it serious?”
Jay, clenching the underside of the stool and ready to leap off it, suddenly found herself wondering where the nice bartender was. Michael had told her that their fathers did business. Had he enlisted Damon to help get them back together? “We broke up,” she said flatly.
“I can't say I'm surprised. It never seemed like you were interested in being a society wife and Michael is very much his father's son—spineless and quick to bend.”
“I thought you were friends.”
“We're business partners, my dear. Not friends.” He glanced at her. “So what do you wish to do with your life, Justine? Do you want to go into business? Do you want to travel? Or would you prefer to stay closer to home?” She looked down and then up in cold horror. Damon had put his hand on her knee. Seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, although he must have felt her tense, he said, “There's plenty of room in the family business for you. You might not be a Beaucroft now—but perhaps, very soon, you could be.”
“I—” Jay looked at his hand again. For a moment, it felt like she couldn't breathe. This has to be a mistake, she thought wildly, despite the panic thrashing through her. “You mean, when you adopt me,” she said in a thick voice. “As your daughter.”
She thought, hoped, he would laugh and say, “Yes, Jay
, of course that's what I meant. What did you think?”
Instead, he said, rather coldly, “This coyness doesn't become you.” As her hand tightened on the cold metal bar beneath the wood, he went on, “You're already so close to Nicholas and you're an incredibly beautiful young woman. My colleagues are constantly coming up to me to inquire about you. And your mother is a ceaseless burden. No, surely you see, Justine, that this is the ideal solution. For your own sake. You could be married right after you graduate.”
“To you,” she said, in a high, faint voice.
“You're all alone in the world, my dear. I've seen how men look at you—you don't know the thoughts that go through a man's mind when they see a girl who looks like you . . . but I do.” Damon moved his hand higher, just beneath her thigh, and she saw his eyes dip to study her body through her dress. “Some women—vulnerable women—need someone older to take them in hand . . . to protect them from those who would take advantage.”
She was off the stool so suddenly that she nearly dragged Damon off his. With shaking hands, she tugged down the hem of her dress. “No—I . . . I think I'd be much more c-comfortable making it on my own,” she said, feeling like her vocal chords were rusty wires in her throat. “M-maybe I don't want to be a B-Beaucroft.”
“You're making a foolish mistake, Justine. I am sure you would rather have me as your ally than as your enemy.”
“Fuck you,” said Jay, shocking herself. The sudden narrowing of his cold eyes made her very sorry she'd given into the impulse.
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said, leaning back. “Perhaps you are as stupid as your mother.”
Jay let out a breath, closing her eyes briefly.
“It would be awkward to explain a sudden termination of your enrollment,” she heard him say. “So I will continue to pay for your university experience. However, should you ever find yourself in any sort of trouble, I assure you—you will find no quarter with me.”
Jay turned and fled then, heading into her room and slamming the door hard enough that her mother shouted something about her headache through the bedroom door. She heard Nick slam his fist against the wall they shared, and that was just a fresh reminder of how alone she really was. Even if she told her mother what had happened in that bar, she wasn't sure she would believe her, and even if she did, she would just be blamed for her own actions.
And Nick—
A sob burst from her throat and she swallowed it quickly when she heard the door open again. There was a series of footsteps, the sound of pure, controlled fury, and then she heard Damon slip into the room he shared with her mother, followed by the rhythmic, unmistakable rocking sound of a headboard slamming against the wall and her mother's low moans.
He wants me to hear, she thought, sick and terrified. Oh my God.
Suddenly, the daiquiri was frothing up her throat and Jay barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. When it was over, she washed her face and brushed her teeth, staring blearily at her red-eyed reflection. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to cry.
Chapter Nineteen
2017
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
“Come to my room tonight.”
Nicholas didn't touch her again on the ride home but she was aware of him in an agonizing way that seemed to hum like electricity against her skin, and she knew that he was aware of her. It was as if the two of them were caught up in their own personal storm. He might have loved her once, but she wasn't going to kid herself into thinking that would save her from him now. If anything, time had only tempered his obsession, honing it like a well-kept blade, and he was keeping her on the point of it, poised one thrust away from total devastation.
They walked in together in silence. Alone in her room, Jay changed out of her blouse and skirt with shaking hands. All she had were flannel pajama bottoms and loose T-shirts. Hardly the come-hither clothes he'd probably envisioned.
She brushed her teeth and padded barefoot into his room, cursing when she tripped over his brogues. The bed was empty, still unmade from this morning, and he'd thrown his briefcase on the small couch in the next room. So he'd been in here, then. Where had he gone?
Maybe he was going to make her wait.
Jay sat on the edge of his bed and slowly reclined against it. The mattress was comfortable. The sheets smelled like him, basil and grapefruit. Spicy, bitter, and aromatic, all at once. The grapefruit, she knew, was from a body wash he liked but she wondered at the basil. She stared at the ceiling until the darkness at the edge of her vision seemed to slowly creep in. This is stupid, she thought, clutching the neck of her T-shirt. Why am I even here?
She slid off the cool sheets and slipped back into the hall, noting the dim glow of light over the half-wall with the Louise Bourgeois sculpture. She peered over the edge and saw Nick sitting on the sofa. He'd dragged out one of his old console games and was playing something with lots of gunfire and explosions. Well then, she thought, surprised. Guess I get to sleep in my own bed.
She pulled one of the water bottles she hadn't needed out of her purse and set it on her nightstand, listening to the pounding of her heart as her cat curled up on her stomach. Her dreams were strange—surprisingly unpleasant. More of a series of vignettes composed in impressions and emotions, rather than something solid and cohesive; they made her feel as if she had forgotten something terribly important, although what that might be, she had no idea.
When she woke up, she thought she was a teenager, and she couldn't understand why the ringing of the school bell was coming from her bedroom, or why the sound of it filled her with huge bubbles of panic. I'll be late, she thought. It took her a moment to realize that the sound was actually coming from her cell phone. Someone was calling her.
It was 1am—had someone died? She swiped for it, startling the cat, who dropped off her to the floor. “H-hello?” she whispered. “Who is this?” Please don't let it be my mom.
“Come down to the pool.”
Nicholas? This was so far from what she was expecting that it took her brain a moment to shift. “What are you doing? It's the middle of the night.” I thought somebody died.
“Jay.” He stretched out her name, turning that one syllable into an exhortation to sin. “You said you would come to me.”
“I did come to you,” she mumbled grumpily. “Six hours ago. I waited for you, but you were playing video games, so I went back to bed.”
“That's what it's like at the top, little bird. You get to keep people waiting and they still have to jump.”
“I'm too tired to jump. I have to work tomorrow, and I'm going back to sleep.” You arrogant swine.
“Five minutes, Jay. That's how long you have before I come up there to get you.”
The phone went dead.
“Shit.” Jay pulled a sweatshirt on over her T-shirt, hating herself for giving in so easily to his demands. But Nicholas had never been one to make idle threats, which was exactly how she had ended up as his little blackmail mistress. The thought opened up a raw wound on her soul, making her ache. You bastard, she thought, as she padded through the dark and empty house.
She saw him immediately as she rounded the concrete planter filled with lilies of the valley. He was just wearing swim trunks and the sight of his bare, wet chest made her instantly wary when his eyes met hers as he stood. In the lights of the pool, his irises were a glowing aqua.
The sight of all that water running over his skin made her throat tighten. She looked away from the rivulets trailing down his abs, clenching her teeth at the obnoxious, knowing tilt to his smile as he began swimming again. He looped around for another pass before stopping to tread water a few feet away from the edge where she was standing. “Like what you see?”
“What,” she began, biting off the words, “do you want?”
“I'm not sure I like your tone.” His eyes flicked over her. “Where's your swimsuit?”
“I don't have one.” She jammed her hands into her pockets. “I didn't think I'd need o
ne.”
“That's too bad.” The fluid undulation of his pelvis as he propelled himself through the water made it impossible to look at him at all. His swim trunks weren't exactly indecent, but the wet fabric hid very little while he was on his back. “No clothes in the pool. Take them off.”
Keeping her eyes averted, she said, “I can hear you just fine from here.”
“Blue jay.” Nicholas slanted her a feral grin. “You know I didn't call you out here to talk.”
That stung. She blinked rapidly, trying not to let her humiliation show up on her face, but she had never been particularly good at hiding her feelings. Especially not from him.
She glanced at him unwillingly. No longer on his back, he was at the edge again, arms folded over the tiled lip of the pool. He raised his eyebrows.
“I'm serious. Lose the clothes or I drag you in.”
Jay backed from him, retreating into the shadows as she unzipped her sweatshirt. The metallic drag of it was so loud, it felt obscene. Only the pool was lit and she thought maybe he couldn't see her as well as she could see him, but she doubted it. She shot Nicholas another wary glance. He was watching her closely with his chin resting on one hand.
She made an impatient sound and turned her back as she peeled her shirt off, entering the pool in just her panties with one arm covering her breasts. The water lapped at her skin, warmed, but only barely. The smell of chlorine burned her nose. It had been years since she'd been in a pool. She kept to the edge, away from the lights.
Nicholas resumed swimming. She watched him, looking around the garden nervously. She could smell flowers, the roses and something night-blooming. Jasmine, maybe. A terrible thought occurred to her. “Don't you have security cameras?”
“Not out here.”
Jay swallowed. “It's cold.”
“I think it's quite nice, actually. Why don't you swim with me? That'll warm you up.” He circled her with the careless indolence of a cruising shark. “We can race.”
Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance Page 21