16
Guess at some point, I drifted off, because I’m now stirring to a rash-like sensation on my chin.
I drag the back of my hand over my tingling mouth and wipe away a small smear of drool.
The strips of sleep are peeling away from my surroundings.
The airliner.
My family.
For a moment there, I forgot.
A white blur moves in front of my face.
I stare at it for a beat. The sharpness of my vision takes a second too long to return to me, but when it does, I realise that the attendant is offering a hot towel.
I must not have slept for very long at all if she’s handing out the hot towels.
It dangles from the pinch of the silver tongs.
I swipe it with a muttered ‘thanks’, then slap it to my face.
The relief is instant.
Hot, steamy warmth.
I take a moment with it.
The attendant waits. Patient.
I run it down my nose, along my chin, from temple to temple, and make sure to get at the drool patch on my chin.
I wipe down my neck, even into the collar of my shrunken sweater.
Then I hand it back to her.
Her smile is small, polite, as she sets the towel down on the silver platter with the other used ones.
But that smile clicks in my mind.
I remember her. A vague recognition.
She was new once.
Back on the old jet when we were leaving Versailles, and I didn’t think she would last long, since she was getting so flustered.
Now, she seems practiced. A veteran.
And by the stripes crossed along her sleeve, and the pin on her vest, I can tell she worked her way up to the top.
The dip of her head is polite and silent.
But before she can go, a smooth, cold voice orders, “Three coffees, oat milk, no sugar—and a double scotch on the rocks.”
I throw my gaze to Dray as he advances on my little section.
The breath pins to my throat.
Time has altered him.
Not changed.
Altered.
His sawdust hair is still gently wavy, but dimmer, too. The light golden strands are darker now, as though the sun hasn’t touched his hair in a while. Once soft, it’s now the shade of a wet sand beach.
The sweater he wears is a soft, black cashmere, that looks as smooth to the touch as the feathers of a crow. It’s not exactly tight fitted, but it is formed and cut well enough to his frame that I can make out the work he puts into himself.
I can tell he probably still practices martial arts, and swims often, especially if they ever built that indoor pool at Thornbury Park.
He drops onto the chair opposite me.
I am so focused on him that I don’t even notice that the attendant leaves us and that time ticks by—not until now that she returns with a silver serving tray.
She lowers it onto the table.
Dray slightly flicks his hand the moment the tray touches down; a disinterested dismissal.
She leaves.
Dray considers me in that distant, cold way of his. Then he shifts for the table between us, black marble threaded with gold, and starts to pour creamy oat milk into the three cups of coffee.
Real coffee.
Not instant, granulated dishwater.
My mouth floods.
“I wondered when the illusion would fade,” Dray says, then sets down the cold metal milk jug, slick with beads of condensation, “and I would see your true face.”
Instinct has my hand lifting to my cheek.
But that’s pointless.
Illusions don’t change what I feel. My face is still my own, just distorted to the eyes of others.
But not anymore.
And… it’s strange.
It’s strange to think that Dray can sit across from me—and see my real face.
I lived my life for so long wearing a distortion. Another mask.
Now, there is no mask.
There is only me.
Dray sinks into his seat, bringing the tumbler of scotch to rest on his thigh—but his gaze sweeps every centimetre of my face.
It’s something I’ve always hated about him.
The way he considers me.
Even now, years later, it all floods back to me, like no time at all has passed, and I’m just a deadblood at Bluestone that he has cornered.
He studies me, the sharpness of my cheekbones, the ashy pallor of my complexion, the dark circles around my hazel eyes, then his gaze shifts to the sagged ponytail that leans on my shoulder.
He considers the frizzy strands and split ends.
Dray looks at me like he’s inspecting me, learning every detail of my face, committing every crease and blemish to memory.
But there’s that inherent coldness in him, the kind that makes me think he’s going to caress my cheek, then snap my neck.
My voice is rough, “Why are you here?”
I clear my throat and snare a cup of coffee from the table. I take just one sip—and my lashes shut on the bliss.
The lush brew pours down my throat and warms my insides.
I open my eyes—
And Dray’s unflinching gaze hooks mine.
He lifts the tumbler to his faint pink lips. The sip he takes is small, it’s to savour.
He brings the glass down to rest on his thigh, his thumb gliding over the rim, back and forth. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”
I set the coffee cup down, then drag the glass of water closer to myself.
My throat is so hoarse, it feels as though I haven’t had any water in days. Maybe I haven’t. It’s hard to stay on top of things like that between raising a kid and working and generally being on the run.
Now, I feel… lighter.
No confliction in me, no dread or panic.
I wish I was better.
Because I just feel relieved.
Dray’s gaze tears from mine and he looks down at the glass in my loose grip.
A faint frown tugs his brow.
“You finish three coffees before you take water,” he says.
His observation churns something old and ugly inside of me.
I would think that it’s obvious, that life on the run might have affected my morning routine.
Life, it turns out, is different when I have to work for everything I have. Even bad coffee.
I sip the water, and I endure his piercing blue stare, a silent accusation.
A sigh grates me before I set the glass down. “Shouldn’t you be up there, sitting with them?”
Ignoring me, like the others do.
Father has barely spoken a word to me.
Actually, he hasn’t said a damn thing.
Oliver has been curt.
James hasn’t looked at me.
Mr Younge—he’s always a prick.
No change there.
But Dray should be like that, too.
Ignoring me, punishing me, furious with me.
“Are there seating assignments I’m not aware of?” He arches a dark eyebrow. “Or do you miss the old days of your exclusion?”
I spare him a dull look.
Dray takes another sip of scotch.
Then, coming down the aisle, James is as slender and stringy as he’s always been.
I can’t stop my stare from latching onto him.
He only looks at me with his sheepish brown eyes for a heartbeat. Then he’s tucking his head down and moving a bit faster.
He passes us.
Goes into the back area.
I hear the creak of a door, then a faint thud.
I turn a blank look on Dray, who apparently hasn’t taken his eyes off me, like if he does, even for a moment, I’ll lunge out of the plane.
“So you took James, then.” The accusation is in my flat tone.
It’s not a question, and Dray needs no elaboration.
The corner of his full, pink mouth twitches. Almost pulling into a smirk.
Back at Bluestone, when James revealed his sheer power, Dray probed me about him.
I suggested he leave James to Landon.
My advice obviously went ignored.
Not that I’m surprised.
Dray does nothing that doesn’t serve him.
“He comes in handy,” he says. “If it wasn’t for James, I wouldn’t know if Serena was telling the truth about that child.”
I stare at him from beneath my lashes. “You thought he was mine?”
Something shifts in him. Like an ancient rage stirs. “It was a concern.”
A concern…
I scoff on the frivolous word.
The moment they realised we had a child travelling with us, Father would have fallen into a frenzy. Dray probably raged out on something—or someone.
Their panic would have been scattered.
Is the boy Olivia’s, is it Dray and Olivia’s, is it Eric and Olivia’s?
That explains why Dray went along on their errands to find their problem daughter, when I’m sure he had a million other things far more important to be doing.
The Sinclairs and Cravens are obviously still besties.
The jet changed, but not their bond.
The door rattles again—and James comes out.
I look up at him, his acne-scarred profile, the nose that’s too big for his face, his narrow lips that he thins even more into his mouth.
“Hello, James.”
My cold greeting pauses him.
Still, he doesn’t look at me.
He blinks his wide eyes on Dray instead.
Dray downs the last of the scotch, then tosses the tumbler. It skids along the table before knocking into an empty coffee cup.
I flinch. Slightly, but he notices.
His smile is small.
And that is James’ cue. He scurries back up the aisle and disappears behind the partitions.
I slide a dark look to Dray. “So I’m not allowed to talk to an old friend?”
Dray tilts his head to the side, just an inch, but strands of sandy hair slip over his arched brow. “Are you not doing that now?”
I give a curt, bitter laugh.
“Shame you didn’t leave him to Landon,” I say, and recline in the chair.
Now James is living his worst nightmare.
All the people he has to be around, all the travelling, the time away from home, which is probably a room in Thornbury Park.
“And have an iitrin print wasted in the vineyards?” Dray’s smile is soft, relaxed. “James receives the appropriate time off,” he adds, “to do and see whatever he likes. Or should I say, to see and do whomever he likes?”
I snub the crassness. “The vineyards? Landon is still doing that?”
The vineyards were something of a hobby for him and his family.
Mildred’s family had it as a career. Production of some of the finest champagne in the world—but everything has an expiration date, people get bored and something better always comes along, so they started to slip.
Dray tells me, “Landon married Mildred Green, and together, they overlook the vineyards—and away from the temptations of gambling and debauchery, they enjoy a lovely, little life.”
His smile is cruel.
The jab is aimed at me.
So I jab back. “Last time I saw them, it wasn’t on the best of terms.”
It was when Dray backhanded me to the floor, then let Asta finish me off.
Our stares are locked.
That message churns through the silence, loud and clear.