Final Cost (The Winter Trilogy #3)

7. Tamsyn

7

Tamsyn

My interaction with Daniel kills most of my appetite, but I’ve got to do something with my morning, so I continue downstairs anyway and just grab some yogurt, an apple and coffee from the breakfast buffet. As usual, it’s laid out like some grand feast, with pastries, meats, eggs, potatoes and more items than I typically see at the hot table at my local Whole Foods back in Brooklyn. I marvel once again at the indulgence on display here, but then I put it out of my mind. Not my issue. I already know that these are rich people issues that I’ll never understand.

But when I take my little breakfast and start to head back upstairs, I discover that I don’t feel like being cooped up in my room. I glance around the quiet foyer, thinking hard. With Lucien jogging, Maddie and her minions occupied with Ravenna’s dresses and Daniel having issued his dire warning and departed for parts unknown, it seems safe enough for me to linger downstairs long enough to eat. So I head to the solarium and settle at a little table in the corner. The beveled windowpanes give me a perfect view of the clouds cutting across Manhasset Bay. I can’t quite tell if it plans to rain or not, but there’s a little sailboat out in the distance that looks as though it should probably return to shore soon. But that’s another thing that’s not my problem.

By the time I finished eating, I’m ready to face something that is my problem: my severe lack of funds and need to start work so I can get the hell out of Ackerley as soon as possible. I can’t help but think that the paparazzi issue was a manufactured excuse for Lucien to get me back to Ackerley. After all, it’s more of an annoyance issue that a true safety issue, right? I know Lucien is also concerned about my possible legal jeopardy, but I don’t have to live here to worry about that. And I only really agreed to come back because I wanted to see him. Well, now I’ve seen him. And it’s been a disaster.

Time to go, Tam.

I grab my phone and dial my new boss at the hospital, expecting to get his voicemail. To my surprise, he answers on the first ring.

“Tamsyn, how are you?” booms Dr. Crawley. “Good summer so far?”

“It’s been great, thanks.” I take a deep breath and try to steady my nerves. There’s no need for me to sound this nervous. I’m just calling with a simple request. “How about you?”

“All good here. How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if it might be possible for me to start work before September 1. My summer job ended earlier than expected. Plus, I’ve had a change of my living arrangements.” I hesitate, then decide to lay it all out there. “I could use the funds, to be honest.”

I hear his answer in the pained pause before he even starts talking again. “I wish I could, Tamsyn, but the nurse you’re replacing doesn’t retire until the end of August. So I’ve got no budget for you until then. Sorry about that.”

It figures. “I totally understand.” I have a sudden flashback to the other day, when Lucien’s doctor friend offered me a job at a local hospital. I should have taken it. Look how thin jobs are on the ground now. Oh, the irony. “Have a great rest of your summer. I’ll see you on September 1.”

“See you then.”

We hang up. I swallow my disappointment and drum my fingers on the table, running through my options. This is a minor setback, but I still have options. I could check in with one of the temping agencies in the city. RNs are always in demand. Maybe someone could hire me for a few weeks. But it’s such a short timetable…Wait. I have a better idea.

I hit another couple of buttons on my phone and call Todd, the supervisor at the campus restaurant where I worked as a server all through undergrad.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you again,” he says when I explain the situation. “I thought you were gone forever. I wish I’d known. I just hired someone new the other day. And things are quiet around here during the summer. You know that. I can’t use another server right now.”

“No worries,” I say, my morale now firmly in the negative digits. “But maybe you could keep me in mind if something opens up? I could really use the extra money right now.”

“Absolutely. Gotta go.”

“Bye,” I say, putting my phone on the table, slumping against the back of my chair and covering my face with my hands. “Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck .”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” comes a voice from the hallway.

Oh, God.

I drop my hands and sit up in time to see Lucien’s brother Roman stride in with his own breakfast and coffee. Rearranging my features into a pleasant nothing to see here smile takes a bit longer because I’m so busy giving myself a swift mental kick in the ass. Why didn’t I go upstairs when I had the chance? And why is it so hard to find a quiet common space on this giant estate? That’s another of the problems with Ackerley, along with its eeriness at night: it’s overrun with Winter brothers. And they’re both hot and sexy. Roman, for example, has most of Lucien’s height and broad shoulders, although he’d never be as darkly intriguing as Lucien. On the other hand, he’s got an easy smile, wavy sandy hair and big blue eyes that make a lot of engaging crinkling around the corners.

“Roman. Hey.” My awkwardness is intensified by the fact that I don’t know him well at all. I met him the other day and spent a little time with him before my unceremonious dumping. Oh, and then there’s the fact that, unbeknownst to him, Lucien and I caught a glimpse of him enjoying a vigorous menage a trois with a couple of curvy hotties out on the pool deck the other night. There’s nothing like secretly seeing a man’s impressive package (yes, he’s got plenty to be proud of, not that I stared or anything) for making your cheeks flame and your ears burn. “Good to see you.”

“Good to see you.”

He puts down his plate, and there’s the answer to my question about where all the food goes around here at Ackerley. He’s got most of the buffet well represented on that china. Then he leans in and kisses my cheek, his lips warm and the bristle from his unshaven jaw causing little sparks of sensation along my skin. Luckily, he pulls back quickly and settles opposite me at the table, his expression open and engaging and so unlike his brother’s. “I heard you were back.”

“Not for long, hopefully.” I give myself another swift mental quick kick. The last thing I want to do is sound ungrateful. “I don’t want to impose, I mean.”

“Yeah, what was all that about on the phone?” he says, shaking out his napkin and digging into his food with the gusto of a man who’s missed his last five meals. “Didn’t mean to overhear.”

I hesitate, fighting the urge to confide in him. I need to remember who he is. His loyalties are and always will be with Lucien. I have no real allies here at Ackerley, and I’d better remember it. “It’s fine,” I say, waving a hand and trying to sound upbeat about my situation. “I just want to get settled back in the city and get out of your hair as soon as possible. I’ll figure something out.”

He gives me an incredulous look over his sip of coffee. “Tamsyn. Look around. It’s figured. We have plenty of room. You can stay here as long as you need to.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure it’s good for me,” I say before I can stop myself.

“Oh.” He nods, his expression darkening. “Well, you’re being gone isn’t good for Lucien.”

I’d taken my own sip of coffee, but now he has my full attention. “What do you mean?” I say, trying to act like this is only of passing interest to me.

“I mean, I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but he’s been a fucking mess since you left. That’s why I’ve been sticking close.”

Yeah, okay. I thought he was serious. “Lucien doesn’t do messes,” I say around a derisive sound.

He stares at me long and hard. There seems to be a lot going on behind his eyes, but it’s been long established by now that I suck at reading the Winter brothers. “You’d be surprised.”

“Okay.” I impatiently shake out my napkin and put it on the table, now eager to be done with this pointless conversation. I’d dying to escape back to my room, but I don’t want to be rude. “If you say so.”

“I’m hoping you can work things out. You’re good for him, Tamsyn. He’s alive again.”

If only that were true. On the other hand, if only Roman seen how coldly Lucien excised me from his life the other day. Then he wouldn’t be talking about this nonsense. “There’s nothing to work out, Roman. And I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want to talk about Lucien anymore. Okay?”

He leans in, hunching over the table. “Bear with me for a minute because I don’t think you understand. You light something up inside Lucien that I’ve never seen before. Don’t roll your eyes. I’m dead serious. Don’t get me wrong. I was skeptical when he told me he’d met someone. But now I’ve seen you together. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve seen the way you make him laugh. How easy the two of you are together. You think he was like that with Ravenna? Let me assure you. He wasn’t.”

I hesitate, my head spinning with all this information and my cheeks on fire. My disbelief is every bit as strong as my desperate desire for it all to be true. “You’re his wing man. You’re supposed to say stuff like that.”

“Fuck that.” Roman gives me a hard look. “Between the marriage screwing up his head and Ravenna’s unsolved disappearance tying him up in knots, I don’t think I’ve seen Lucien laugh—really laugh—in four or five years. Do you get that? My brother needs you.”

“Then why did he push me away, Roman?” I demand before I can stop myself.

“Maybe he did it to protect you. Especially after the fire. Did you ever think about that?”

I hastily look away because I have thought about it. And I don’t know if that possibility makes things better or worse. Lucien loves me but he was willing to live his life without me? He loves me but he was willing to ruin my life by brutally rejecting me and expecting me to bounce back in a day or two? After he swooped into my life when I was minding my own business and made me love him? Made it impossible for me not to love him? How is that supposed to work?

“Sorry, but I’m done with this conversation, Roman,” I say, working hard to avoid direct eye contact.

“Hang on,” he says sharply, eyes narrowing. “You don’t think he did it…? Is that what this is about?”

“No,” I say, frowning and shrugging, but it’s not exactly a wholehearted denial. “Not really.”

“Tamsyn. He didn’t do it. Lucien’s not a killer.” I open my mouth but he reads my mind. “And he didn’t hire anyone to do it. How could you think that? Even for one second?”

I’m ashamed of myself, but the thoughts are there. “Because I saw how much he hated her. And he’s the most powerful man I’ve ever met.”

“ Tamsyn .” He takes my wrist in his hard grip. “I don’t know what happened to Ravenna, but Lucien didn’t do it. Think about it. He hated her for years before you showed up. Why would he do it now?”

Whoa. Why didn’t I think of that before? He’s got enough of a point that I feel a swoop of relief. Until I remember how enraged Lucien was when Ravenna tried to kill me. But I don’t want to mention that. It seems so overblown and self-important. Most of all, I want to cling to any theory that makes Lucien an innocent man.

“Can we move on?” I ask Roman. “It’s not even noon and my head feels like it’s exploded six or eight times already.”

A gleam of respect. “You’re the boss. Thanks for listening. What do you want to talk about?”

Sighing, I slump back against my chair again, slam all that Lucien stuff into my darkest mental closet, lock the door and swallow the key. “Well, for one thing, I need to figure out what to do with myself today. What about you? Are you headed back to the city?”

“Nope. I need to give my horse a workout.”

This information perks me right up. Lucien mentioned they have horses here, but I never got to see them. “Oh, really? You have a horse, too? Can I come with you to see him or her? I’ve never met a horse in person before.”

He snorts into his coffee, then lowers the cup and wipes his mouth. “You’ve never met a horse? How is that possible?”

“Your wealth is showing, Roman. I don’t know if you’ve ever actually been to Brooklyn, but horses are thin on the ground where I come from. They aren’t growing on trees like they are out here in Great Neck.

That gets him. He bursts into laughter. “Sorry about that. I had no idea that such third world conditions were possible in the great state of New York.”

“Well, they are,” I say, laughing with him.

Until a loud and icy new voice enters the fray. Lucien’s voice.

“What the fuck is this?” he demands.