19. Henry
nineteen
The library is conveniently positioned next to the craft room, so I pull a random novel from Bronwyn’s shelves and sit myself in a chair near the open doorway. I’ve chosen an urban fantasy romance novel. I should put it back, but the blurb catches my attention. The story sucks me in fast, not only because the plot is interesting, but because it offers valuable insight into what things a woman might find romantic or sexy. It’s too soon to compile and test my romance theories. I’ll need a larger sampling than this, but I make mental notes as I read.
When Franki emerges from the craft room more than an hour later, I meet her as she heads for the stairs. “Do you need a hand?”
She shakes her head, then stops. “You know what? Yes. Can you carry these?”
I reach for the small plastic box she’s carrying, and she hands me her phone, as well. “It’ll be easier. One hand holding my cane, one hand on the rail.”
“Do you need help up the stairs or for your room to be moved downstairs? I should have thought of that.”
Franki shakes her head. “If I need help, I’ll speak up.”
She turns her head toward me and smiles. “Thank you for offering, though, and thank you for carrying my stuff.”
As we walk up the stairs, she’s much slower than I would be, but I match her pace. “Of course.”
She clears her throat. “I owe you an apology.”
I stop, surprised, then continue on as she takes another step. “For?”
She cringes. “I ran into someone who wanted to go out with me, and I basically used you as a shield. I let him think we were together even before we’d gone on a date. I didn’t think about how if you were looking for a wife, me confirming rumors about us might have made that more difficult for you. It was inconsiderate.”
We’ve reached the top of the landing. “You and I should talk.”
“We could go in my room.”
I usher her into her room and close the door behind us. She sets her cane aside, takes the box from my hands and places it on her dresser, then tosses her phone onto the bed. She smooths her hands down the soft fabric of her pajamas. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t apologize to me for this. You can use me as a shield anytime. And, since I want us to be together, I hardly see you telling people we are as a problem.”
Her lips part on an indrawn breath.
“Do you think I’d be kissing you today and looking for someone else to sign on the dotted line tomorrow?”
“You said you need a wife.”
Slowly, I crowd into her space. She backs up as I approach until her shoulder blades touch the wall, but the lift at the corner of her mouth and her narrowed eyes are pure sass.
I plant both my hands on the wall on either side of her head. It’s not a posture I would assume with anyone else. It leaves me open and vulnerable, despite the fact that I’m the one looming over her. “What I need”—I lean closer—“is you.”
She makes a huffy little sound. “Okay.”
I lean back, slightly suspicious. I expected this to go quickly, but something here is off. I’m not certain we’re talking about the same thing.
Her phone vibrates. She flinches, but makes no move to retrieve it.
“Why do you look afraid of your phone?”
She thunks her head back against the wall as the incessant vibration continues. “Because it’s one of two people. If it’s my mother, she’s calling to yell at me because I’m not in California. If it’s my father, he’s calling to yell at me for refusing to go out with one of his business partners.” She takes a deep breath. “I haven’t answered his phone calls all day, but I have to face the music sooner or later.”
“Do you?” I ask softly.
A new phone call comes through, and I glance over to see Jonny’s name as the incoming call. He’s trying again. I step back and tip my head to the phone. “By all means, Franki. Let’s hear what Jonny Lennox has to say.”
“Should I tell him we’re together? You don’t mind me doing that?”
I show her my teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “I’d accept nothing less.”
She picks up her phone and puts it on speaker. “Hey, Jonny. How are you?” Her voice shakes, and I could kill him for that alone.
“You’ve upset Leo,” Jonny barks.
Franki swallows hard. “He upset me. I guess we’re even.”
“I literally give you the clothes on your back, and you can’t throw me one fucking bone.”
“I said I wouldn’t—”
“And I saidyou would. Is this because I didn’t return your phone calls for a couple of weeks? Grow the hell up.”
He takes an audible breath. “He made it clear that he’s willing to accept you if you change your mind, even after you embarrassed him. He’s giving you another chance. I reassured him that Henry McRae is just an old friend of the family. Leo is going to pull out of this deal if you don’t cooperate. You will call that number he gave you and beg his forgiveness.”
“I’m not apologizing—”
“You will do as you’re told.”
I curl my hand in a fist and shove it in my pocket to prevent myself from barging over and scaring the shit out of Franki.
Jonny’s next words are more controlled as his voice becomes coaxing. “I’ll find you somewhere to live. I’ll pay for your health insurance, and I’ll pay for your grad school. All I need is for you to play nice with the man.”
I have a moment of pure self-loathing when I hear his words. No wonder she’d wanted to stab me with a fork. I sounded just like her piece-of-shit father when I proposed.
She shakes her head. “I don’t need—”
“Say, ‘Thank you, Jonny,’” he snaps.
I’ve heard enough.
When I reach over her shoulder to lift the phone from her hand, she barely startles. Eyes wide, she turns my way and watches.
I move my lips into a reassuring smile for her sake.
“Hello, Jonny,” I say pleasantly. “How are you this evening?”
“Who is this?” Jonny sounds wary. Feeling out exactly whom he’s speaking to before he lets the vitriol fly.
No one can say he’s unintelligent, and it makes me hate him more. He’s not an equal-opportunity asshole. No, he looks at Franki and abuses the power he believes he holds over her because he’s done so from the time she was a vulnerable child. He’s groomed her to accept his treatment of her as normal.
The same cold numbness that fills my veins when I snap on a pair of surgical gloves to torture someone for information, floods through me now.
“Franki didn’t mention she was living with me? This is her fiancé.” I affect a genial tone. Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth.
This, Franki reacts to. Gaze flying to mine, she drops to sit on the edge of her bed and chews on her lip.
I pause to let my words sink in and for Franki’s father to realize what it means. Then I clear my throat. “Henry McRae,” I say gently.
He’s silent for a long, satisfying moment while he absorbs that information. He knows my reputation. The carefully cultivated rumors surrounding me aren’t exaggerations. In fact, they’re mild compared to what I’m actually capable of. He has to know that, at the very least, I would dismantle his business and his reputation without blinking if I view him as my enemy.
Finally, he says, voice strangled, “She didn’t mention she was engaged.”
I sigh dramatically. “Understandable when you won’t take her calls. We would have preferred to share our happy news in person.”
I glance at Franki and say, “Isn’t that right, darling?”
I don’t expect her to say anything in response, but a martial light enters her eyes, and she says, quite loudly, “We were planning a family dinner where we’d share the news. It was a surprise.”
This time, my smile is slow, but real. I wink and mouth, “Good girl.” Color blazes in her cheeks in response.
It takes Jonny a beat too long to recover from my announcement before he says suspiciously, “She hasn’t been back in New York long enough for this.”
I laugh. “Have you heard of airplanes? Telephones? It’s amazing how two people who live on opposite sides of the country can manage to stay connected over the years.”
Franki chews on the inside of her cheek, frowning in response to my comment, and I’m struck by an uncomfortable realization. I shouldn’t have waited for her. I should have gotten on a plane and gone to her.
Instead of going through the motions and existing with a Franki-shaped hole in my life for years, reading and re-reading her reports every month, and wondering how she was . . . I should have picked up the phone and said, “You’re important to me. How are you?”
Franki’s father clears his throat. “Then, congratulations are in order. And of course I take her calls. She’s so dramatic if I don’t answer the phone immediately. Franki has been a little spoiled over the years. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. She’ll certainly have high expectations of you. You’ll need to put your foot down, or she’ll treat you like that little trained rat she calls a dog.”
Franki makes a sound of outrage.
“I could only dream of being so lucky,” I say.
He laughs, obviously taking my words as sarcasm. It’s clear that Jonny doesn’t realize he was on speaker earlier. Now he’s scrambling to figure out how he can leverage an “in-law” connection with the McRae family. And he’s definitely worried about what my fiancée might have shared with me.
“Franki’s not nearly demanding enough. There’s not a thing she could ask for that it won’t be my pleasure to provide,” I say.
He chuckles. “You say that now. But it’s better to start as you mean to go on. You have to be firm with them.”
I’ve got more than enough firmness going on behind my zipper when I’m near her.
It will make my revenge easier if he’s confident that he’s in control, so I play along. “I believe I’ll do just that.”
Franki marches over to me, expression calm, but mouth pressed tight, reaches out, finds my nipple through the cotton broadcloth of my shirt and twists.
Jonny’s laugh covers my yelp as I cup my abused nipple and squirm away from her.
I mouth, “It was a joke.”
She stomps away and searches through her suitcase for something I hope is not a handgun.
“We should definitely make time for that dinner,” he says. I can hear the way the tension has slowly leached out of Jonny’s voice under my pleasant demeanor.
Franki finds what she was looking for. A sketch pad and pencil. She writes me a note that contains two words: “Not funny.”
I nod sharply in acknowledgment and mouth back, “Sorry.”
She’s right that it isn’t funny. Even if I was thinking about something entirely different than what her father implied.
I’m in a confounding place at the moment. My mind is mapping out all the beautiful revenge scenarios I’ll enact on this asshole. I’m cognizant that it’s necessary to lull him into complacency for my plans to be most effective. I’m also unwilling to hurt Franki’s feelings in the process because then what will be the point of any of it?
I’m strangely giddy because I’ve found the perfect segue into her life, but it’s also enraging that it’s because her father is garbage. My emotions, which I’m used to having closed off entirely, are not only emerging, but have layers I’m struggling to navigate. Only years of practice staying cool under fire allows me to maintain a bland, unassuming tone with Jonny. “Hmm.”
“What did you say?” Jonny asks.
“Apologies. Your daughter distracted me for a moment.” How far to go? I run my hand over Franki’s hair and down her thick braid.
She shivers a little, leaning into my touch and peering at me with big, brown eyes wide behind her glasses. The Sexy Librarian in wiener dog pajamas. Who knew this is what would do it for me?
“One thing I need to make perfectly clear. Franki isn’t going to be entertaining any of your business partners. I’m a possessive man. You understand.”
This time, Franki grins and lifts her palm to hover in the air in front of me. At my puzzled expression, she lifts my hand for me and slaps it against her own.
She’s turned me into an idiot.
But context is everything. High fives are friend and sibling behavior. They’re “awesome job making brown belt, little buddy.” Not hot woman in nightwear, standing in her bedroom, and close enough I catch a faint sweet scent that reminds me of the panties in my pocket.
I shake my head and glance at the ceiling. She holds on to the high five, threading her fingers through mine, and I give them a gentle squeeze.
When Jonny grumbles his agreement, we both glance at her phone, brought back to where we are and what we’re doing.
“Francesca grew out of her ugly duckling stage. She’s pretty enough to be a trophy wife now,” Jonny says.
I’d believed myself as angry as I could be with Franki’s father. A full cup of cold-blooded, icy rage. Any more of his transgressions would pour over the sides. I was wrong, because I’ve leveled the hell up. The ice cracks, and beneath it surges molten hot lava. This man is why she called herself an ugly duckling that night. The parents who should have told her she was amazing were the very ones constantly working to undermine her confidence.
“She was never an ugly anything,” I bite out, losing the iron hold on my temper. “She’s a funny, intelligent, creative, thoughtful, beautiful person. And she’s nobody’s trophy, you—”
Franki rips the phone out of my hand, presses End Call, and throws it onto the bed.
I watch her, startled and wary, wondering where I went wrong and if I should protect my nipples. Then she grabs my shirt in both her hands, yanks me to her, and crashes her mouth against mine.