Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAPHNE
H e steps back so suddenly, he looks as if I’ve punched him in the chest. “You can’t know,” he blurts out. His hand flies to his chest, his breaths turning sharp. His face contorts with pain. “I can’t tell anyone. I can’t let anyone find out. I can’t…”
Alarm rushes through me as I realize what’s happening. Everyone knows breaking a bargain is deadly, but one of the first repercussions of breaking a bargain—or coming close to it—is physical pain. I close the distance between us, my mind whirling to find a solution. I place a palm on his jaw, opposite where Gabby punched him. “You didn’t let me, Monty. Do you hear me? You didn’t tell me and you didn’t let me find out. I found out all on my own with no help from you, just like your lender.”
His breaths remain sharp for a few agonizing moments, then finally start to calm. Thank the All of All. With fae magic, intent and personal belief is everything. So long as Monty acknowledges that he didn’t do anything to compromise his bargain, he’ll recover.
Once his breathing returns to normal, he steps back until he comes up against the alleyway wall. The mushrooms on the opposite wall continue to glow, while curious dust-sized fire sprites in the same colors as the fungi flutter around us, descending from the mushrooms they’d been nesting on. Monty keeps his eyes closed, head thrown back, the drum of raindrops pounding relentlessly outside our refuge.
I stand before him, studying his face under a new light. Monty is half fae. That’s the big secret he harbors. The one he couldn’t tell his friends and loved ones. Not even Angela seems to know, nor do Briony and Thorne.
When Monty finally opens his eyes, they’re full of pain. “No one can know.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” I bite the inside of my cheek, gathering the courage to pose a potentially dangerous question. I lower my voice to a whisper. “Which of your parents is fae?”
He says nothing, but the answer is obvious. If both Lord and Lady Phillips are well-known human figures, then one of them was guilty of infidelity. And the parent he despises…
“Your father had an affair. Your mother was fae.”
He sucks in a breath, but again no answer.
I study him, the rain slicking his skin, the shivers racking his shoulders. He’s sensitive to rain but not necessarily water. It’s being drenched in cold water that makes him unwell. “She’s some kind of fire fae, isn’t she?”
His eyes turn down at the corners, his posture sinking with something like relief. He’s probably never had a soul to talk about this with. He rubs his chest, as if checking for any sign of pain, any sign that he’s compromising his bargain. But if his terms only required that he not tell anyone or intentionally let anyone find out he’s half fae, then the danger has passed. I already know the secret, just not the details. He gives me a sharp nod.
“Did you never meet her?
“I knew her for a time,” he says, voice weak, “but I never learned her name and I had no idea she was my mother. I couldn’t have known. I was raised to believe Angela and I had the same mother, yet Lady Phillips is the reason I found out the truth. She was overly fond of drink and made an inebriated comment about how I was just like my mother, and it was a shame she couldn’t watch me grow up. When I confronted Father about it, he tried to play it off, but I refused to give in. Finally, he explained the truth. That my mother was a courtesan, and he coerced her into giving me up upon my birth, convincing her I’d have a better life as a respected human couple’s son than the bastard of a fae prostitute. By the time he told me this, I was fifteen and my mother was long gone.”
“I don’t understand. You said you knew her for a time.”
His throat bobs. “She used to sneak onto my family’s property in unseelie form. She left because…because I treated her like a pet.”
Understanding crushes my chest. “Your mother was your animal friend. The fennec fox.” It makes sense now. Fennecs are desert creatures, and I imagine most fae ones are native to the Fire Court, where the dunes are located.
“My family’s reputation is built on lies. A lie Father made me bargain never to reveal, threatening me with how badly my little sister would suffer if this all came out. And he’s right. If the public finds out my father had an affair with a fae, that he kept his son’s fae lineage a secret and passed himself off as a man with perfect human values, the Phillips family will be ruined.”
I frown. “This shouldn’t be your secret to bear. It’s his. And if it gets out, he only has himself to blame.”
“That may be so, but he won’t be the only one to suffer. My sister will. Even Mother—Angela’s mother—will be hurt by it. Father is our court’s Human Representative. He’s supposed to represent the pinnacle of human propriety. If they found out he birthed a bastard and hid the truth, the Phillips name would be tainted.”
“Those are his actions, not yours. I understand you want to protect Angela from such awful repercussions, but you don’t need to bear that responsibility.”
“I do though,” he says, pushing off the wall and straightening. “I’m to blame for the position I’m in. Me. I made the idiotic mistake of taking out a loan that deals in secrets. I thought I’d have a choice of what secret to share, but I should have known better. Angela deserves to be heir. She can reshape our family name under her guidance. I want that future for her, as the head of all of Father’s business dealings. She’s already thriving in that role. If this secret gets out, it will be my fault. Her future will be ruined because of me.”
Irritation ripples through me. I understand his reasoning, yet it still enrages me. “Does your father know about the loan? Surely he’d pay it if he knew.”
He gives a mirthless laugh. “Oh, he’d pay it. Then he’d use it as leverage to bring me back into the family.”
I furrow my brow. “Then refuse.”
His mouth falls open, eyes locked on mine. There’s something like terror etched on his face, but I don’t understand the source. “It’s not as simple as that,” he whispers.
“How is it not simple? He’s already disinherited you. You’re bound to a bargain never to tell a soul his secret and never to marry, but you don’t have to obey him in any other aspect of your life. Offer him the chance to save himself by paying off your loan, and then cut ties with him on your terms, not his. Let him clean up his own mess.”
The terror in his face grows. “But Angela?—”
“You can still see Angela even if you refuse contact with your father. When he asks to speak with you, you can say no.” Protective anger flares when I remember how Lord Phillips demanded a word with Monty at the train station, and how Monty obeyed. He put on a flippant act, but he obeyed nonetheless. How does Monty not see how much he caters to a man he professes to hate? Why didn’t he leave the family of his own accord, instead of waiting until he’d vexed his father enough to convince him to disinherit him? Why agree to a bargain that he’d return to the family if he ever married?
Could it be…
Could he want to keep their bond intact, even as toxic as it is? Is he somehow afraid to lose his father completely? He pushed him away just enough without severing the relationship entirely. And Lord Phillips isn’t the only one he’s done that with. He did the same with his first love, Cosette, carrying on a sexual relationship when he could have refused.
Why is he afraid to lose the people who’ve hurt him?
Monty’s expression turns hard. “I can’t explain it to you, and you already know more than you should. You should go back to your date.”
I prop my hands on my hips and burn him with a glare. “I didn’t want to go on that date in the first place. I came to where I wanted to be.”
He rolls his eyes. “I told you not to chase after uninterested parties.”
“Am I chasing you, Monty? Or am I simply giving a shit about my friend? Whether you have romantic feelings for me or not, we are friends, and I’m not going to let you push me away. I want to care about you. As for your interest or lack thereof, you haven’t stated a damn word to convince me one way or another.”
“That’s not what I taught you. There’s no lesson in my book about getting verbal confirmation about whether someone likes you. You’re supposed to assess, judge, and react?—”
“I don’t care what you taught me. Maybe you think a lady should sit back and wait for a suitor to prove himself to her, and I understand the value in not fawning over lovers who won’t give you what you need. But this isn’t about your case study. This is about you and me. And you can do fucking better than that pathetic subtle rejection in the cab. If you don’t want me in a romantic way, say so. If you want to stay platonic friends, say so, but then treat me like a true friend. Don’t push me away. Don’t make decisions for me. Don’t be an asshole.”
He opens and closes his palms, his expression flashing between his icy mask and the vulnerability beneath it. The latter wins out, and he averts his face. “Why would you expect me to do better after everything I’ve told you about myself? I told you about my dangerous lifestyle. My crippling debt. I told you what I did to Cosette, how I used her?—”
“Don’t you dare bring her up as an excuse. You’ve learned from your mistake. You feel guilty for how you treated her, and I haven’t seen you treat anyone else that way, aside from the occasional flirtatious jest.”
“Even when we were together, I didn’t treat her well enough. That’s why she left me for someone else.”
I step in closer, leaning into his line of sight. “Cosette was an asshole, Monty. It was her choice to leave you. Whether you believe you deserved it or not, her rejection blindsided you. It hurt you.”
He swivels his face to mine, leaning close and speaks through his teeth. “Yes, she hurt me, but I hurt her right back. Because that’s what I do. I hurt people. Whether it’s through the silence of keeping my secrets or simply because I’m cruel, I hurt them. And I…” His expression crumples. “I’ll hurt you, Daph. I’ll hurt you and I can’t fucking bear that.”
The pain in his voice spears my heart. I lift a hand and rest it on the side of his face, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “Monty, don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve already hurt me by trying not to hurt me.”
He gives a subtle shake of his head, but he doesn’t pull away from my hand. “I’ll hurt you worse.”
“Why do you think that? Why do you believe you’re so bad and broken? Who have you truly hurt just by being you? And don’t bring up Cosette again.” I say the last part with a snarl.
His eyes turn down at the corners, and when he speaks, his voice quavers. “I treated my…my mother like a fucking pet.”
I can only imagine how much that pains him. How all those happy memories of playing with the creature he thought was his fox friend—who he only later found out had been fae all along—were tainted the minute he learned who his birth mother was. I brush a damp curl off his forehead. “She wouldn’t have come back again and again if she didn’t like the time she spent with you. She knew you couldn’t know who she was. She just wanted to see you.”
“Then why did she leave?”
“I don’t know.”
He closes his eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t know. I’d rather know I’m at fault than to be stuck with uncertainty.”
And that right there explains everything. The conflict in his heart, constantly at war between pushing people away and keeping them within arm’s reach. The way he acts, positioning himself as the reason why his relationships crumble. “You’re scared. That’s why you act the way you do in relationships.”
“Yes,” he says, opening his eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you. I’m no good. I’m involved in fixed fucking boxing matches. I’m drowning in debt.”
I exhale a heavy sigh. “No, that’s not it at all. You’ve never been worried you’re going to hurt me. You’re worried I’m going to hurt you . You’re worried I’m going to leave you and you won’t know the cause.”
His eyes widen, and all that’s left of his protective mask shatters.
I speak again. “You reject people before they can reject you. I know what that’s like. We may do it in different ways, but we’re just rejecting ourselves.”
He makes a strangled sound and lowers his head to my shoulder. I wrap one arm behind him, caressing his sodden back while the other smooths his hair. “How do you see so deep inside me?” he mutters against my shoulder. “All my flaws? How can you look at me so tenderly when you know how broken I am?”
“I like imperfect things. I like messes and rain and mud. I like eating with my hands. I like my steak rare. I like watching boxing matches and salivating when they get extra violent. I like climbing on furniture and taking off my clothes when I feel like it. I like the taste of small rodents’ blood in my mouth and the feel of their tiny bones cracking between my teeth.” I stop myself from saying more, afraid that the last bit was a little too intense. Then I swallow hard and relay the most raw and dangerous confession of all. “And I like…I love you.”
He stiffens in my arms. Silence stretches between us, save for the pound of rain on cobblestones outside the mouth of the alley. Panic laces through my throat but I resist the urge to change the subject. To take his silence as rejection. Finally, he lifts his face and meets my eyes. “I can’t marry you.”
“I never asked you to.”
“But your handfasting…”
“My career is enough. My life here is enough.”
And if it isn’t, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it so. Even if I must destroy every connection I made in my hometown. Even if I must break hearts and hurt the people I love. Understanding Monty has made me realize I’m not the only one who led others on. I’m not the only one who ran away from relationships or let them remain ambiguous instead of severing them completely. But I need to sever the ties in Cypress Hollow that no longer serve me.
I take a bracing breath, gathering my resolve to finish my confession. “You’re enough, Monty. Even if you don’t love me back, you’re enough as my friend, and I want to keep you in any form.”
His lips quirk at the corner, the first sign of a smile I’ve seen all evening.
I encourage it to grow. “I may want to fuck your brains out, but we’ll get through that, won’t we?”
He snorts a laugh, and all the tension leaves his body. Slowly, he stands taller and wraps his arms around me. “What have you done to me, Daffy Dear?” He leans down, and my heart leaps. I try not to get my hopes up. Try not to expect too much, even as his lips inch closer?—
“Isn’t this fucking sweet,” drawls a male voice.
Monty and I startle, whirling to face the mouth of the alley as two figures saunter toward us.