Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Halston
Now . . .
By morning, I’m still sitting at the desk in my bedroom with the curtains still drawn, a lamp on, and the apartment holding its breath around me.
Outside, Manhattan has begun its daily performance of ambition and exhaustion. Horns, tires over wet pavement, the metallic groan of a truck taking a corner too wide. The city believes in the morning more than I do.
I have not slept.
That seems like an important fact.
I write it down.
Did not sleep. The body wouldn’t let me. Recognition is louder than fatigue.
Then, beneath it:
Creed knew my breath before my voice.
I stare at the sentence until the words blur.
There are truths a man can survive in theory and not in ink.
I close the notebook.
Then open it again because I don't trust closed things anymore.
The desk is covered with the contents of the drawer. Cornelius’s photograph too. He looks young. The sun in his eyes. One hand lifted as if he was trying to stop the person behind the camera from taking the picture and enjoying the failure. On the back, the phone number I dialed last night.
Creed’s.
Creed’s voice moves through me before I can shield against it.
Then I’ll remember for both of us.
I stand too fast.
The chair scrapes the dark wood backward, and the sound is indecent in the silence of the room. I press both palms to the desk and lower my head.
Do not fall apart.
Not here.
Not in this room.
This room is not mine, no matter how many times my stepmother has insisted otherwise. It was furnished for me after the accident by people who had opinions about appropriate color palettes for recovery.
They like pale rugs. Pale walls. Clean-lined furniture with no history. Art chosen for its market value and emotional restraint. A bed large enough for a man who sleeps alone and formal enough to punish him for it.
My phone sits on the desk beside the notebook. Now I call it the estate phone—not mine. The one with approved apps, approved contacts, approved everything. Last night, I searched for Creed Lafontaine on it. Fitzhenry Everhart.
Then I called a number I believed belonged to a lawyer and reached the only man in the world who could say my name like it hurt him too.
It was stupid—reckless.
But so fucking necessary.
I unlock the phone, open the notes app, and stare at the search bar.
Maybe I could search for her, Livia.
I type only the first letter before stopping myself. I don’t even have a last name. I could also put her in danger if anyone knows I’m looking for her. Isn’t that what they’ve been trying to do all along? Make sure I don’t remember my past.
I’m so focused on what’s happening that a knock startles me.
I go still.
There are two more knocks in a certain sequence that I know—it must be Everett. He knocks like a man granting permission to the person inside to believe the room is private.
“Halston?” he calls. “You awake?”
I stare at the desk. It’s a mess. The open notebook stares at me. Then there are the scraps and the picture . . . fuck.
Everything here proves I am no longer behaving within acceptable parameters. I’m no longer the person they need me to be, and that is unacceptable for the Saint Claire family.
I move as fast as I can. All of it goes into the drawer—not the obvious one. The bottom drawer of the built-in cabinet near the closet, behind cufflink boxes my stepmother bought, and I only wear during galas.
“Halston?”
“Give me a minute.”
My voice sounds normal.
That is something.
I close the drawer and walk to the bathroom. Splash water on my face. Look in the mirror.
The man looking back doesn't appear to have spoken to his . . . what were we?
He mentioned he loved me. Were we lovers? I then remember those hands, the way they caressed me. The weight of his body—hers. The three of us tangled together. I stare at the tattoo we all have. We were something more than casual lovers.
My soul tells me as much. If only I could remember.
Were they my long-lost lovers?
No.
I don’t think they were lost—they were stolen. The correction arrives from somewhere deep and certain.
Creed was not lost. Livia was not lost. I was not lost.
We lose keys. Receipts. Time.
People are taken.
I dry my face and open the bedroom door.
Everett stands in the hall wearing a charcoal suit, no tie yet, phone in hand. He probably came from the gym. He smells like shaving cream and dirty money. Behind him, the hall is lit softly by sconces my stepmother chose, because she said overhead light was unforgiving.
Almost everything in this apartment is designed to forgive everyone except me.
“You look rough,” Everett says.
“Good morning to you too.”
His mouth curves. Not a smile. Something practiced at the edge of one. “Bad night?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I shrug, as if it’s a natural thing everyone should be used to.
“Did you take anything?”
The question is casual.
It is never casual. This is a trap. If I’m taking something, then I’m falling back into the wagon, and I should be sent to rehab. If I’m not, then I need a retreat to remember how to take care of myself. These people are getting ready to send me away again, but why?
“No.” I shrug a shoulder again, then walk toward the kitchen.
His gaze moves over my face. Briefly. Clinically. “You should have called Dr. Sen.”
“I had insomnia, Everett. Not a cardiac event.”
“You know what lack of sleep can do to memory.”
There it is.
The word memory, placed between us like a warning.
I lean one shoulder against the doorframe and force myself not to close the door in his face. “Is there a reason you’re here before eight?”
“The Florence file.”
My pulse shifts.
I keep my face arranged. Then cock an eyebrow. “What about it?”
“You asked for it yesterday.”
“Oh, that one,” I say so casually, even I buy my I-don’t-give-two-shits mood. “Yes, I want to go through it.”
“It’s being assembled.”
“Assembled?” I snort. “They’re documents, not building blocks, Everett.”
“Some of the material is archived externally,” he states. “The Conservation Institute won’t just let documents be released without authorization. Margaret is coordinating with legal.”
“I asked for the complete file by five.”
“You’ll have what’s relevant.”
I look at him.
He looks back, calm as a priest.
“What’s relevant is all of it,” I say.
Everett’s expression changes by one degree. “You’ve become very interested in Florence.”
I frown. “Should I not be?”
“You tell me.”
I almost laugh.
“Foundation-funded conservation work is part of my purview.”
“It is part of Margaret’s.”
“And I sign off on board authorization.”
“Sometimes.”
“This week you’ve asked me to sign a load of documents,” I remind him. “If I have to sign, at least I should know what I’m agreeing to do.”
He gives me that look then. The one I know. Mild concern arranged over fucking irritation.
“About that,” he says.
I don't move.
“The board noticed you hesitated with several documents.”
“I didn’t hesitate. I refused.”
“Refused is an aggressive word.”
“Accurate ones often are.”
His mouth tightens. “Halston.”
The main door opens, and my stepmother appears in a cream silk blouse and trousers, hair pinned low, face immaculate.
She has always looked like someone painted by a man afraid of women.
Beautiful in the accepted ways. Soft in the places that photograph well.
A woman who can turn pity into a table setting.
I hate that I don’t have any privacy in this house.
They come freely because I can’t be trusted on my own.
I should count myself lucky that they allow me to be in this building during the week without supervision.
But am I really unsupervised? I sound paranoid, but no one should blame me.
These irritating assholes have been controlling me for years—maybe even using me.
“Morning,” I greet her, hoping Everett moves on from me to her. “I didn’t know we had a morning meeting. Perhaps you two should take this outside.”
She rolls her eyes and says, “Glad I didn’t have to wake you up.”
“Apparently, it’s happenstance.” I try to sound neutral, but the sarcasm drips from the last word.
Her gaze dips to my bare chest and shorts.
“You should change before we leave.”
“I didn’t know we were leaving.”
She checks her Cartier watch. The one Dad gave her a few months before he died. At least that’s what she said. It belonged to my grandmother—I know it shouldn’t be hers, but . . . I don’t remember shit, so there’s no way to argue about it.
“We have the donor breakfast at nine.” She taps the watch twice.
I did know that.
It probably sits somewhere in the approved calendar, a breakfast with patrons who donate large sums to cultural access initiatives and like to meet the recovering Saint Claire heir because the story makes the checks feel emotional.
When I can, I have to ask Creed if I used to enjoy these functions or . . . will he be able to tell me who exactly I was before the accident? Do I want to become that person again?
Fuck, maybe this is too much. I wish I could talk to a therapist, but how, when most of them tell my family everything? Which should be illegal, but I can’t even sue them because they own me. That’s fucking pathetic.
But today I feel like rebelling again, so I say, “I’m not going.”
Everett’s eyes move to her.
Still, after all these years, they glance at each other before deciding how much of me I am allowed to use.
My stepmother takes three steps closer. “You’ve had a difficult night.”
“No. I had a night.”
“We are not your enemies.”
That sentence is too rehearsed to be anything except a confession.
I breathe once. Slowly.
Cornelius’s voice moves through me.
Don’t sign anything today.
A second sentence follows it.
One I have not heard in decades.
I'm not even sure I have ever heard it.
But, of course, I am hearing it now, but not here. I’m in the kitchen of the house in Greenwich, on a Sunday I can't date, with the smell of the coffee Cornelius liked and morning light coming through the back windows.
Look inside yourself before you deal with the company’s paperwork.
Honestly, I don’t know exactly what that means.