Chapter 8 Fawn
CHAPTER EIGHT
fawn
I play with the stem of a single Juliet Rose as I walk towards Clay’s office, drifting hesitantly.
Bronson paid the deposit for the twenty-thousand roses—as I have no money of my own—and a bouquet now sits as our foyer centrepiece, their honeyed-pink shades will act as inspiration for the rest of the wedding. My colours are now: peach, ivory, and gold.
It's not like I’ve been dwelling on the conversation with my foster mother, but I have been rattled since. My new life and my old life clashed today, and I’m not sure how to feel.
I’m sure Clay already knows what happened; his henchmen would have snapped her image, run it through a database or something like that. I don’t know exactly, but I’m certain he’ll have read a report about my activities today.
I sigh, so glad my babies weren’t there. I don’t think I’d like Eleanor’s judgmental gaze lapping their perfect faces, trying to find similarities between them and her boys.
As if she cares?
Does she care?
Does she want a relationship with my babies because she believes they might be Benji’s or Landon’s or Jake’s, because her boys raped me in her basement!?
Yes, I’m rattled.
And I am dwelling.
It makes me question… What is a mother? How do you define one?
I am a mother, and I take it really seriously, but is that right?
Or am I creating spoilt brats because of my devotion and attention?
Should I let them cry-it-out? Should I be playing them classical music?
I just want… I just want a role model, someone who is a mother, older, wiser, and all-knowing to tell me exactly how to do this mother stuff? Is that too much to ask for?
Lingering at Clay’s open door, I fondle the flower, the stem gripped between my fingers, held close to my chest.
“Sir?” My voice is quiet, hands nervously fidgeting with the rose stem like I do my hair.
“Did you have fun?” he asks, before turning in his wingback chair, a cigar dangling from his lower lip as if it refuses to be anywhere else.
I get it, cigar, because—same.
“Yes,” I say softly, because despite Eleanor, the two hours I spent at the market today with Bronson were refreshing and weird and fun. Despite feeling Clay’s absence like a pinhole in my heart, I enjoyed myself. I got to spend one-on-one time with my soon to be brother-in-law—the wildest Butcher.
Clay stabs the cigar into the ashtray beside him on the desk. He smokes only in his parlour, office, or outside these days. Then, I have his unwavering attention. A blue gaze captures me before lingering on the rose.
“Is that for me, sweet girl?” His voice is potent, gravelly and dark, a rumble through the room.
I nod and blush.
“Come here and give it to me.”
“You want my rose?”
A wicked smile touches the corner of his lips, the kind of grin that purrs dark intentions. “Always.”
As my legs take me to him, I gaze around his office, every line a contrast to the rose in my hand: wood, geometry, angles and edges.
To my left a black wooden table large enough to seat several people, and to my right a bar with a coffeemaker, liquor, and cigars—such a clear expression of him, of his abundance and virility.
The words of my foster mother drift up from the dark: toxic masculinity... Is Clay’s masculinity toxic? Whatever the type, it makes me ache for more.
He wants my flower. That’s not toxic masculinity!
“Little deer?”
I blink the thoughts away and realise I have stopped mid-step, and his eyes are on me, a warm lick of comfort and demand and authority.
The thought becomes an awkward question: “Do you think…” I stammer. “Do you think I’m the kind of girl who… who needs…” The words get stuck. I bite my lip, eyes on the swirling peach-white rose. Ugh. Why did I start this?
“Use your voice. Needs what, sweet girl?”
I force it out, cheeks hot. “An overly masculine man?” There. It sounds as dumb as it felt.
He arches a brow, smooth, cool amusement crossing his expression. “An overly masculine man?” His tone is velvety, deep, delicious. “I do hope you mean me.”
“Of course,” I whisper. He never laughs at me, never makes me feel small for how silly my questions can be, never tires of my confusion.
He signals with nothing but a nod at his thigh—the Clay Butcher nod. A command as clear as the pull of a puppet’s string. “Explain your question for me, little deer. I’m not sure I can decipher this one.”
I kick off my flats and float towards him, barefoot. I climb onto his lap, nestling there, holding the rose between us, spinning it slowly. There are no thorns left. Bronson made sure, plucking them before I ever touched it.
“My foster mother said you have toxic masculinity.” The words feel like, ‘I don’t care.’ To be honest, even if he does, I don’t really care, but he is my everything, so I want to discuss this with him.
His eyes narrow, a cloud passing through, but he is always in control, composure never breaking. I think maybe that word annoyed him, but he’d never burden me with even a tickle of agitation. “What do you believe?”
My shoulders rise and fall with a little shrug. “I don’t know,” I breathe. “That I don’t care either way.” I can’t look at him; the rose is safer.
“Look at me.”
I do.
His stare is so blue, so serious yet—home.
“Women like her mistake your submission for weakness,” he says slowly, every word passing between his perfect mouth.
The skin shadowed by that salt-and-pepper beard.
“Because no one has ever loved them enough to take responsibility for their life, their happiness, their pleasure. Most men now see it as too much pressure; most women see it as too much risk. No trust in capability.”
I sit straighter. “Some women do everything themselves, Sir.”
He smiles, and there is a note of pride in it, mixed with something heavier.
“I don’t take care of you because you can’t—I do it because you already have.
For too long, and from too young an age.
My love isn’t calm, sweet girl. It doesn’t ask.
It isn’t rainfall but a flood. It demands.
It’s obsessive, possessive, controlling.
You surrender to my guidance, and in return, I shoulder every burden that would ever touch you. "
“I understand.”
But I look down again, blonde hair sliding forwards, acting as a shield, partly covering my eyes.
He won’t accept that. “No. I don’t think you do.
” With a hand, he tucks my hair behind my ear, and now I have to meet his gaze, those blue eyes scorching me again.
“I recall you saying that you liked the movie Titanic. When the Titanic sank, nearly seventy percent of women survived, while less than twenty percent of men did. That was an era of plain masculinity. Not toxic.” His words are measured.
“It isn’t masculinity that is toxic, but the individual.
What do you think would happen if it sank today? ”
I lean into his hand, lingering on my throat, his thumb stroking up and down my pulse. “I don’t know.”
“Men would save themselves, and the modern woman would wrestle for control.”
“But she didn’t before.”
“No.” His hand cups my jaw, soft this time. “Women then accepted authority, and men died for them. Stepped aside for strangers’ wives without a second thought. Is that toxic?”
My answer is swift. “No.”
He nods, gentle. “Not all masculinity is toxic, and chivalry is daily devotion.” He draws me closer until I feel his warmth, his presence like a heavy blanket.
“I open your car door because I’ve already checked for danger.
I pull out your chair to let you know you’re welcome, that you belong beside me.
I order your meal because I want you relaxed, and I know what you need. Do you think men do that anymore?”
“They do for me.” I beam at him.
He nods, just once. “Yes, sweet girl. For you.” A single kiss lands on my forehead, soft as a sigh, and his breath drifts over my skin, touched with sweet-smoke and warmth. “Am I ever unfair to you or with you?”
“No,” I admit.
“Good.” He leans back to stare at me. “You will use your voice if I ever am.”
“Yes.”
“I have two things to complete, then I’ll come to you.” His gaze flicks to the door behind me, dismissing me.
I pout, but slip from his lap, sulking towards the door, making sure he notices…
“Little deer?”
I spin. “Yes?”
He glances at the rose, eyes darkening. “My rose.”
I beam.
I rush to him and hand over the pretty single rose.
He accepts it, inhaling the flower deeply as if to claim it.
And somehow, the image of Clay Butcher, even in his weekend attire—in jeans, black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, so brutal and alive, holding the fragile single rose—appears more deadly than any normal man would while holding a gun.
“You like it?” I gush. “It’s the main flower for our wedding.”
His smile is smooth and satisfied.
He sets the bloom beside him on the desk. “It’s lovely.” Then, a command: “Ten minutes, little deer. Go to my sons. We will spend the rest of the weekend as a family. You have my word.”