Chapter Twenty
Morning filters into the manor as if it’s been holding its breath all night, waiting to see if I survived. I must admit, there was a moment last night where I was so blissfully unresponsive, I could have floated over to the other side without complaint. What a way to go out. Death by dick.
Luckily for all, I wake in Rhys’ preferred guest bedroom with nothing more than a dull ache between my legs.
The boys stir, immediately presenting themselves to be in worse shape.
Clay must make a noise as he clamps his hands either side of his head, because Rhys tries to strike him, but he only gets as far as thumping me in the stomach.
I jerk upright, banding my arms around my middle and unable to withhold my laughter.
They both roll away from me, the mattress vibrating with their groans.
Continuing to laugh, I slip out from between them, refusing to spend another day in bed. Last night is proof of what restless energy can do, and I have some burning unanswered questions that demand to be sated.
Some more of my clothes are waiting for me on the dresser, a pair of ripped jeans and my #antisocial sweater.
I pick out my least sexy panties, the ones that Rhys didn’t find to replace for thongs.
If the stretch of cotton doesn’t label me as out of action, I don’t know what will.
Not that either of the men curled up in the king-size bed look like they’re in the mood for round two anytime soon.
Taking my phone and stepping out into the hallway, I grab the handle and slam the door closed as hard as I can.
“Opps, sorry!” I call through the wood. “Can’t hear how loud that was.” Sock sliding my way down the hall, my phone buzzes in my hand with a group chat I didn’t know I had.
Your New Master: You’re deaf, not the fucking Hulk.
Clayton: Aspirin. Bring aspirin. And water.
My grin stretches so wide, it aches. I can’t decide why I’m feeling particularly playful today.
After last night, another woman might be falling at their feet, ready to cater to their every whim.
They’re welcome to go find that woman. All last night did was reinvigorate me, giving back some of the control I’d lost. For the first time since before the birthday gala, I’m myself again.
I’m whole. Tucking my phone into my back pocket and skipping down the stairs, I pass by the kitchen and say good morning to Fiona.
She glances up from the eggs she’s cooking, and her face softens.
“Good morning, Miss Harper.” I read from her lips. “Would you like breakfast?” I inhale the smell of coffee and buttery toast, and my stomach immediately agrees.
“In about ten minutes, if that’s okay? There’s something I want to check out first.” I chew on my bottom lip.
If Fiona has any lingering reservations about me being in the manor unsupervised, she doesn’t show it.
Nodding kindly, she goes back to her eggs until I remember the suffering soldiers upstairs.
“Oh, would someone be able to take some aspirin up to the guest room? The guys are feeling a little hungover.”
“Ahh yes,” Fiona walks over to the recycling can and pulls out the empty whiskey bottle. In the light of day, I note the gold foiling and flecks of gold leaf around the rim. “Mr. Waversea’s favorite vintage whiskey. It was supposed to be locked away safely in the cellar.”
My eyes widen, and my mouth forms an ‘o’ shape.
In my defense, I didn’t drink any. Fiona waves me off, the hint of humor hidden behind the professional expression she’s clearly spent many, many years perfecting.
I slide away, feeling a twinge of heat in my cheeks.
I don’t know what’s going to happen when Phillip Waversea returns home, but I doubt finding his cellar raided, sex room used, and doors broken are going to help the situation.
It’s that thought that brings my mood back down to earth long before I reach the theater room.
Last night left an itch under my skin, the kind that demands an explanation.
Rhys seemed surprised to find me in here, saying he’d forgotten about the hiding place, but there was more to it than that.
There must be a reason he wanted to take me to the other end of the manor rather than having our fun here, in the plush recliner chairs.
Stepping into the dim theater room, I flick on the single wall light and make my way toward the screen.
It’s not half as spooky during the day and when I’m not the prey of a hunt.
No shadows of my imagination forming creepy clowns.
In fact, the space underneath looks normal enough, although sorely lacking visitors.
Kneeling, I tug the velvet drape aside and use the torch on my phone to find the hidden alcove.
Bending forward on all fours, my fingers brush against the dusty box tucked inside.
It’s surprisingly heavy, the age of the cardboard wearing thin.
With a small grunt, I drag it into the room, dropping back onto my ass.
For a moment, I just sit and stare at it. If the contents were something to do with the theater, like fuses or lighting equipment, it would have been stored better. No, the level thumping of my heart tells me this is something else. Something more, and my curiosity outweighs my hesitation.
Prying open the lid, I carefully pull out a crinkled sketchbook from the top of a stack of miscellaneous items. The cover is soft with years of being thumbed, the pages yellowed but the sketch style is immediately recognisable.
Young Rhys was quite the artist, before he used his pen drawings to taunt me in class or sketch tattoo ideas.
I settle back onto the carpet, legs folding beneath me as I flip through the pages.
There’s a charcoal portrait of a dog, its ears far too big for its head, its eyes shining through the smudges.
Beneath the sketch is a scribbled name. Milo.
I press my thumb against the page, half expecting to feel the ghost of a pawprint as my throat tightens.
The next page is a half-finished drawing of the manor fountain, the stone cracked and mossed in the corners, the kind of detail only someone who spent a lot of time staring at it would bother capturing.
A bored, lonely kid wandering outside, trying to draw something stable because nothing else in his life was.
My heart punches inside my ribs. There are hundreds of sketches of the fountain, each individual part cast in small drawings that merge across the pages.
I close the book and set it aside, blinking up at the screen to keep the tears at bay.
Of course Rhys wanted to hide this. He shoved all these pieces of himself into a box and buried them in the same way he hides his true nature behind his facade. Collecting myself, I return to the box, my fingers skimming the other items held within.
A stack of ticket stubs, warped with age and moisture, stacked with absolutely zero organization.
A wooden bird, carved badly enough to be charming.
There’s a knitted cardigan which has long lost its scent to the staleness that coats it, and tucked beneath everything is a washed-out photograph of a little, barely toddling Rhys and a woman with his chestnut hair and blue eyes.
My chest warms in a way I’m not prepared for.
Suddenly, my hair is shifted, and the metallic click of my receivers snaps into place. I flinch, dropping the photograph at Rhys’ feet.
“Shit, Rhys. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Well, I kinda knew…
I just…” I stare at the box and the contents I’ve spread out across the carpet.
There’s no excuse, I was snooping. Permitting myself access to Rhys’ heart without waiting for him to grant it.
Picking up the photograph, Rhys lowers to sit beside me, his back leaning against the leather chair.
“It’s fine,” he says, but it absolutely doesn’t sound fine.
He sits with a stiffness that looks painful, and I’m certain it has nothing to do with his hangover.
For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything.
His thumb drags along the edge of the photograph, toying with a corner that’s already worn soft from years of being stroked.
I tuck my knees beneath me, resisting every urge to talk over his silence. I refuse to interrupt his thoughts.
“This is the last picture she ever took with me,” he murmurs at last, his voice flat in that way that’s somehow worse than anger. It’s devoid of all emotion. “Father says my mother hated having her photo taken, but I don’t know what’s true. Maybe she just didn’t want to be seen with me.”
“I don’t believe that,” I shake my head, causing my hair to ruffle around the receivers. “There must be a reason that she wasn’t present for you. She must have been coerced or bribed or scared–” Rhys sighs, his eyes glued to the photograph.
“You don’t have to make excuses for her.
People like us don’t rationalise our actions.
We just do whatever we want and waste no thought for those we hurt.
” My heart cracks at his words. People like us.
He truly believes, after everything we’ve been through and all he’s done for me, that he’s no better than his father, than the monster he’s convinced himself his mother is.
“You’re not like that.” I brush my fingers against his forearm. His skin is smooth, his hair curling slightly from a shower. I inhale the scent of the expensive bodywash coating him like armor.
He sets the photograph on his knee, but his eyes stay fixed on the curtain, the screen, anything except me.
I track the movement of his jaw, the tic beating there the only indicator that he hasn’t sealed himself shut completely.
I lean just close enough that my shoulder touches his, giving him the option to pull away but praying he won’t.
Slowly but surely, his knee tilts toward mine.
“She left when I was six,” Rhys continues, quieter now as if it pains him to talk about it.
“I don’t know the whole story. Ran off in the middle of the night, didn’t leave a note, didn’t take anything except her purse.
My father told everyone she was unstable.
” He snorts, shaking his head once. “In this house, that basically means she had emotions.”
My breath catches. I want to reach for him, to find the right thing to say, but instead I remain still and let him choose the pace. Rhys runs a hand through his hair, the exhale that follows causing his fingers to shake slightly.
“I kept thinking she’d come back for me.
Every damn day, I’d sit out by that fountain after my tutors had left and wait for the headlights.
I sketched it so many times, waiting for the day I could include her in the drawing.
” His throat bobs beneath the layer of ink covering his Adam’s apple. “It’s pathetic.”
“It’s not,” I whisper, though I barely trust my voice to stay steady.
“It’s human to feel emotions, Rhys.” He doesn’t acknowledge the words, but something about the way he folds the photo into his palm tells me he heard them.
Rhys draws his knees up, bracing his arms over them.
“Either way, she didn’t come back. Nor did she send help.
She must have known what he was like, and she left me here to rot. ”
“She might not have had a choice,” I try to argue, my mind racing to make sense of it all. “Or–” I start before cutting myself off.
“Or, what?” he eyes me. I swallow, not wanting to say the thought out loud, but his stare is unrelenting. Surely, he must have thought it himself at some point.
“I…I was in a house with her belongings, Rhys. Her documents, her clothes, ornaments and board games.” I hesitate, hoping he’ll connect the dots so I don’t have to.
“So?”
“So maybe she…I mean, is it possible that she didn’t leave?
Maybe she…died?” I wince at the last word.
It’s a horrible thing to say, and despite Rhys’ insistence that he doesn’t feel emotion, I see the flicker behind his blue eyes.
How that thought takes root and causes doubt to trickle behind his features.
There’s a thick pause, one I struggle to bear.
Cautiously, Rhys picks up the photograph and returns it to the box.
Then the sketchbook, the ticket stubs, the carved bird.
It’s all concealed by his tattooed hands closing the lid and pushing it back into the alcove beneath the curtain.
“If my father finds this stuff, he’ll burn it. Sentiment is the ruin of all good men,” Rhys says hollowly. Standing, he walks to the door, and I push to my feet. “Breakfast is ready.” I watch Rhys leave, the muscles in his back tense, his hands balling into fists.
Left behind alone, the weight of Rhys' sorrow and confusion rips through my being, and the tears finally spill over. I crumple into a chair, clutching my chest as the sobs rack my shoulders. It wasn’t just a box of old junk that I found.
It was the remnants of Rhys’ soul. The existence of a boy who deserved better.
The heart of a broken child who never had permission to cry.