59. West
CHAPTER 59
WEST
I push open the double doors to Fairhaven. The rain has just begun. Warm, heavy droplets, but it’s only going to get worse. It’s a classic spring shower.
I need a change of clothes, and then I’m heading back to where Ben Wilde is having his party. Nora has said she doesn’t want to confront him, and I don’t want her anywhere near him, so it works perfectly for me.
Can’t wait to see his smug face?—
High, feminine laughter echoes from the sitting room. The click of heels follows, and my sister walks into the entryway. Nora follows close by, the two of them smiling.
Amber pauses when she sees me. “Uh-oh,” she says, and looks down at her glass of wine. “This is absolutely not one of your fine vintages. I promise.”
I can’t look away from Nora. She’s done something to darken her eyelids, making her eyes look luminous. Her hair is swept back messily and she’s in a short skirt that leaves her legs mostly bare. Her top has long, draped sleeves, but there’s a stripe of skin visible along her midriff.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” Amber says.
“To drink and dance.” Nora’s eyes land on mine, and she shrugs once. “Maybe flirt a bit. Who knows?”
“Flirt,” I say.
“Yes, flirt.” She tucks a bag under her arm. “We’re bringing Sam and Amos too. I might even be able to get Amos to drink tonight.”
“No, you won’t. He won’t.”
She shrugs. “I won’t tell if he doesn’t.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “What are you doing?”
“I think this is my cue.” My sister gives Nora a wide smile and mouths good luck at me before stepping toward the front door. “I’ll wait outside!”
The door shuts behind her, and it’s just the two of us left in the large hallway. “What am I doing? I’m having fun,” Nora says. “I’m going out. Want to come?”
“I can’t.”
Her lips thin. “I’m not surprised. You’ve been avoiding me for days.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I say. It’s a fucking lie, but it’s also the truth, because she’s all I think about. I can’t avoid her even if I wanted to.
And I don’t.
She pulls a black card out of her bag. “Remember when you told me to spend more of your money?” She rises to press her lips to my cheek. “Thanks for tonight. Amber and I are going to buy the entire bar a round of drinks.”
Before she can dip back down, I grip her waist. My fingers brush over the bare skin of her lower back. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Do you?”
“You’re arguing with me.”
There’s a flash of fire in her eyes. “Yes. I am.”
“What are you angry about?”
“You disappearing from me. Not talking to me.” She brushes something off my shoulder. “If you want me to wear your ring, Calloway, you have to propose. And you have to actually be here.”
I grip her left hand, run my thumb over the knuckle. Stay here, I want to say. But if I tell her what I want, what I truly want, I risk driving her away.
Or worse… see that lovely fake smile on her face when she’s trying so hard to be nice. It would kill me if she ever aimed it at me.
“Go, then,” I tell her. “As long as you know who you’re coming home to.”
“That depends.” She walks toward the door, her heels clicking against the marble. “Will you be here when I come back?”
Always, I think. “Yes.”
“See you later, then.” She slips out the door, and I stand there for a long few minutes, fists clenching at my sides.
Jealousy and anger burn beneath my shirt, and I pull the first two buttons undone. At least there’s something I can do for her tonight.
A situation that needs solving.
It takes less than an hour to drive back to Wilde’s party. I park a ten-minute walk away. The party barely has any security at all. Just a single security guard by the door and a widely smiling man with a clipboard to check off guests.
The house behind it is empty. It’s for sale, from what I saw earlier, and I walk through their garden to get to the garden of the event space. I shrug out of the jacket I threw on for the rain and hide it behind the fence. Sneak through the hedge…
And then I’m in.
No one notices me walking through the garden in the rain. There’s no one on the terrace, anyway, despite it being covered. I move along the outside of the house, finding the back door. I pass by a waiter and turn the corner to find… there it is. The spiral staircase.
I’ve done my research on the venue.
The second floor is deserted. I find a small overlook cast in shadow, and beneath it the grand ballroom is on full, glittering display. Wilde didn’t skimp on the invite list. He’s turning sixty, and there’s an open bar and a band playing.
I lean against the wall. A shadow moves beside me, and it shouldn’t surprise me that he’s here.
We think the same way.
“Found your way here?” Rafe’s voice is low. Neither of us wants to be seen up here.
“For the same reason you did.”
“I doubt that.” He looks down at the mass of people below. I recognize a few of them. Others are strangers to me, but they’re still here. At a party he’s thrown, a man willing to terrify a young woman for the hope of maybe throwing the Montclairs off their game. They’re all guilty by association.
I cross my arms over my chest. “You’ve been considering how to play your hand. Admit it.”
Rafe blends into the wall. “I don’t need to admit anything to you.”
“You were thinking, just for a moment, how to spin this to your advantage.” My hand tightens at my side. “Use it as a bargaining chip.”
“You would too.”
“Not when Nora is concerned.”
“We’ve worked years on this deal.” There is anger beneath his usually controlled voice. “That company will be mine. Sooner or later. And it won’t be with that asshole at the helm. I want more than just a single night of embarrassment for him.”
“We agree on that.”
“I don’t want him to ever work again.”
“I don’t want him to draw breath.” My voice is flat, harsh. It’s the ugly truth, and it’s not something I will act on, but fuck if the anger I’m feeling doesn’t make me see red. “But I will settle for ruining him.”
He made Nora cry. He made her fear sleeping alone; he made her change where she lived, her habits, her life.
Don’t have to wait long. He comes walking through the room, a smile on his face. Ben Wilde is in a dark navy suit and purple pocket-square, with his graying hair slicked back. He clasps hands, nods, takes pictures.
He still thinks it’s his night.
Rafe and I have known each other for over a decade. He might hate me, but I know what he’s thinking. Can hear it in the silence between us. “You came for her tonight.”
“Yes. I want a shot at him.”
“I want to talk to him.” He’s controlled again. He’s pulled the dark threads back inside, like he’s so good at. “Let him know I’m watching. I want him looking over his shoulder for months, not sure when the blow will come.”
“Too mild.”
“It’s not your situation to handle.”
I turn to him, and the anger that I’ve kept at bay boils to the surface. “She’s spent months terrified and too afraid to talk to anyone about it, and I want him to pay. It’s all for her.”
Rafe’s green eyes slide to mine. “And you think I don’t? She’s my little sister. My flesh and blood.”
“I know that. Just like she’s my…”
“Your what?” His lips thin. “Tell me, West. What is she to you? You’ve always made your stance on relationships crystal clear.”
“She’s everything,” I say. “And you know how I felt about relationships. Not how I feel now.”
“Is that what you are, then? A couple?”
My gaze tracks Wilde beneath us as he half hugs, half slaps another man on the back. The self-congratulation hanging in the air feels suffocating. Dark and oily. “We need to get him alone.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
I turn to Rafe, and he’s right there, eyes barely visible in the dim lighting. “I’m here to scare Wilde badly enough that he or any of his hired men won’t set foot in the same city as Nora again. Will you help me? Because I’m not going to be subtle.”
The offer hangs between us, stretches taut. I know I’m overstepping, but I can’t step aside, not when she’s involved. Not when I know she wants this handled too.
Rafe gives a tight nod. “Bribe the staff?”
“Yes. I’ll do it. You’re too recognizable.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but you’re the one who shouldn’t be seen here.” I glance back down and toward the open door to the far right. “There’s a wine cellar at this venue. Looked private from the pictures.”
“I saw it too. I’ll make sure it’s clear.”
“Meet you there.”
Ten minutes later, I’ve slipped one of the waiters a wad of bills to tell Wilde that there’s a surprise waiting for him in the wine cellar. If he asks, tell him it’s organized by his wife.
No one sees me when I walk down the flight of stairs to find Rafe already there. He’s sitting by the barrel table in the middle of the cellar, surrounded by rows and rows of stacked bottles.
He’s opened one and set three glasses on the table. “Figured we’d welcome our guest.”
“Is there arsenic in his glass?”
“I was all out,” he says. His voice is tight and calm, but there’s murder in his eyes. It only takes a few minutes before heavy steps sound outside the door. I wait beside it, and as soon as Wilde wanders into the room, I close the door behind him.
He stops in the middle of the cellar.
“Good evening,” Rafe says. He pushes a glass of red wine in Wilde’s direction. “Let’s have a birthday toast.”
Ben is standing stock-still. Slowly, like a sudden movement might set Rafe off, he looks around the room. He clocks me and quickly looks back at the glass he’s being offered. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“It’s a party.” I don’t try to hide the distaste in my voice. “Our invitations were lost in the mail, I’m guessing.”
He takes a step forward, accepting the glass. It’s a stilted movement. “Gentlemen…”
“Explain yourself,” Rafe demands. His voice is almost friendly.
Almost.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Wilde says. “If you’re here about our negotiations, that’s for our lawyers to handle.”
“Lawyers.” Rafe takes a long sip of his wine and stretches his legs out. “Did you hear that, West?”
“I did, yes.”
“As if there’s anything legal about what you’ve been doing.”
“I’m not doing?—”
“You hired great people, Wilde. I’ll give you that. But our people are better. And everyone leaves a trace.” I walk around him, stopping a few feet away. “Nora Montclair.”
He looks between us, but his face whitens. “I don’t know?—”
“Don’t embarrass yourself with lies.”
“Family is off-limits. Always has been, always will be.” Rafe’s voice is steel. “What was the plan? Split my attention, throw me off my game? Make this deal so time-consuming that I walked away?”
Wilde’s face hardens. “We’ve never wanted to sell to Valmont. To you. This is business, gentlemen. You both know that. It was… a strategic move.”
This smug son of a bitch. The anger that flows through me then is cold as ice, but it’s a calculated move when I push him up against the barrels. “You threatened an innocent woman for a business deal.” I use my forearm to keep him there and revel in the way his eyes widen. “She’s had to look over her shoulder for months because of you. But for you? It’ll be the rest of your life. I’m going to come for everything you have.”
“It’s business, Calloway,” he wheezes. “The girl was never harmed. It was all just… pretend.”
“No,” I tell him. “Someone will be harmed.”
And then I punch him.
* * *
We exit the party the same way I entered it. The rain has picked up. It’s fresh and warm, and my fist aches. “Damn, that felt good.”
“It did.” Rafe glances sideways at me. “Did you have to punch him, though? Now we’ve left evidence.”
“He won’t do shit.”
“You haven’t punched anyone in over a decade.”
“No. We can’t all be you.” I glance at him. Rafe doesn’t often talk about it, the fighting he used to do at night. The underground rings where he’d work out his guilt and frustration. We’d all tried to get him to stop.
I don’t know if he has.
“That was years ago,” he says, so easily that I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. We’re on a leafy side street, but we might as well be back at Belmont. The years have fallen away, suit jackets turning into uniforms, racing from the headmaster’s residence with a stolen trophy in hand. “Fuck.”
“You swearing? It’s a bad night.”
“It’s a good night. It’s a really fucking good night.” He grins at me, and I grin back at him. “Nora will hate that you punched him.”
“No she won’t,” I say. “She’ll say that she does, but she’ll secretly be thrilled.”
“I hate that you know that.”
“I know you do.”
“She told me you spoke of marriage. So you’re getting what you want in the end.” His voice isn’t judgmental, but it is resigned. “And you’ll be my brother-in-law.”
“She offered.” Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. The rain picks up, and it’s seeping through the fabric of my jacket, slicking my hair to my head. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t want it to be your little sister. The woman I fell in love with. I tried very hard to make it not be her. For you.”
A car passes us. It’s the only one out in this weather.
“In love?” he asks.
I confess it to the night. “Yes. Love.”
He blows out a breath and curses in French. I catch enough of it to get the gist.
“Yeah. I know.”
“But she doesn’t know?”
“She doesn’t.” I run a hand over my face. “So I can’t let her marry me to do me a favor. I’ll only marry her if she wants it as much as I do.”