Chapter Ten
Lilith
The Crawford estate isn’t how I imagined it.
The mansion is old, sturdy, and imposing. The building’s center stands two stories tall, and two spires jut out of either corner, reaching much higher than that. Ornate, floor-to-ceiling windows stare back at us menacingly from their thick stone housings.
It looks impervious in every sense of the word. Just like the owners.
Mom squeezes my hand tightly with one hand, while the other swings the ancient brass knocker on the door. The squeeze is more for herself than for me, I guess. She started shaking like a leaf as soon as we turned into the Crawfords’ drive, and it’s only gotten worse on our short walk up the steps.
“I’m so excited,” she says. I can’t tell whether it’s genuine or if she’s trying to convince herself.
The front door opens and I expect to see some stiff-eyed butler coming to greet us.
Instead, it’s Mr. Crawford himself, bolts of silver running through his otherwise black hair.
His smile is warm enough, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
They’re cold and calculating, scanning us, not like a future husband would his bride and her child, but like a businessman sussing out a potential partner.
My attention doesn’t linger on Mr. Crawford long enough to reach a conclusion. It’s stolen in an instant by Colter Crawford, who’s standing next to him.
I’ve seen pictures before, but being in his presence knocks the wind right out of my chest. His dark hair is swept back, styled with deliberate precision.
He’s taller than his dad by at least a foot, and the way he fills out his suit with lean, tight muscle makes my knees feel more than a little wobbly.
Ink crawls up the left side of his neck, under his cuffs, and over his hands. There isn’t enough on view to see what they’re supposed to be, but that doesn’t matter to me right now.
Okay then.
I was wrong. There’s still potential that tonight can be saved.
“So, you’re my new stepsister?” Finally, someone speaks and breaks the tension.
Why did it have to be him and in such a deep, smooth and enticing way?
I nod, not sure that I could do anything else, anyway. The whole goddamned English language sounds like gibberish in my swirling mind.
It would’ve been way easier if he didn’t have such a stupid, handsome face. Or a smoldering gaze that melts my heart and turns my core into a puddle between my legs…
“Alistair.” Mom saves me from dying of embarrassment. She swings her arms over Mr. Crawford’s shoulders, and plants a fat kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for having us.” And just like that, Mom’s nervous demeanor vanishes behind the powerhouse image I’ve come to expect from her.
“Of course, Maybelle.” Mr. Crawford sounds delighted. “I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time.”
While our parents continue talking, Colter’s eyes drift over me slowly. Methodically. He’s studying me rather than gawking at me. My heart pumps blistering heat through my veins when his inspection lingers a little too long.
I can’t tell if it’s my body rejecting the gaze or basking in it.
“And you must be Lilith,” Mr. Crawford takes my hand, brushing his lips over my knuckles with old-fashioned charm. “Your mother has told me so much about you.”
“I can’t say the same, Mr. Crawford. I had no idea it was you,” I say, building up the nerve to turn away from his son.
“By design,” he says. “Until I was certain your mother and I were more than just fleeting fancy, I had to keep our engagements hush-hush. I didn’t want to jeopardize the future of our unity.”
What could that mean?
“But don’t let me get ahead of myself. This is my son, Colter,” he continues.
I have never met Colter, but everyone in the city knows of him. The prodigal heir to the vast, ever-expanding Crawford empire.
“I’m sure you two will have much to talk about.” Alistair steps to one side, ushering us in. “And there’s no better way to do it than over a bottle of wine.”
The inside of their mansion resembles the outside.
Ancient in its roots and Gothic in style, it’s cluttered with relics of the generations of Crawfords who’ve lived there before.
Portraits hang on the entryway’s walls, depicting every generation from the settlers up to present-day Alistair.
It’s remarkable how much of a resemblance their legacy shares.
He leads us to the dining room, where a table, long enough to seat ten or more, is wrapped in white linen and dressed with all the necessary cutlery for a three-course meal.
A set of two waitstaff stand on either side of the room, one pair closest to the kitchen.
The other, I assume, is nearer to the bar to get whatever we need, whenever we need it.
Mom and Mr. Crawford take their seats at the head of the table; Colter and I move to the foot. He pulls out my chair, and slides me in with the same dying chivalry his dad greeted me with.
It doesn’t take long for Mom and her lover to fall into the usual honeymoon phase clichés. Chuckling and whispering between themselves, brushing their hands together and otherwise showing all the signs of being in love.
Colter doesn’t speak right away. Turning to face him, I see why. He’s staring at me again in the same intense manner as he did at the door. But it’s different now. His gaze doesn’t feel like an inspection; it’s more like a kid who has just seen Santa Claus at the mall for the first time.
“You should take a picture,” I say. “It’ll last longer.”
“I prefer things that move.”
My heart skips unsteadily at his strange reply.
The way his smoky golden eyes follow my every move, I can see why he said it. I don’t think he’s blinked once since we sat down. And somehow, frighteningly so, I’m undisturbed by his gaze. I find myself drawn deeply into it, the way a flame lures a wayward moth to its death.
“I’m sure I’ve seen you before,” he says, out of the blue, and after a few nerve-wracking minutes have passed. He digs an elbow into the table and rests his chin on the palm of his hand.
“Certain of it.”
He speaks with a confident vagueness, not allowing any emotion to cross his annoyingly handsome face. It’s like he’s saying words just to say them, with no particular purpose.
“Maybe you’ve seen me at one of Mom’s conferences? I join her sometimes for moral support.” Well, there’s the first lie.
My appearances at Mom’s work gatherings and social calls aren’t for her to find strength in having her daughter there.
She brings me along to portray an image of strong family values, as a hard-working single mother.
Having one without the other would taint their view of her, after all.
Prioritizing her child over work would call her devotion into question, but the reverse would see her labeled as negligent and self-serving. Neither will do.
The world has to see Mom as perfect. Anything less would be a travesty.
His chin flicks left to right. “That isn’t it.”
Colter falls silent again as if to put some thought into it.
I do the same, but not long enough to find a meaningful answer.
I’d have remembered meeting him somewhere before.
He’s one of the very few celebrity figures, in Midnite City and outside of it, who has caught my interest and held it for an embarrassingly long time.
I can’t even remember why, but the longer I sit here contemplating, the less it seems to matter. A teenage crush can’t be turned into a reality when he’s about to become my stepbrother.
“You’re the chick who was on TV a few years ago,” he says with the enthusiasm of someone who’d just had their eureka moment. “You told anyone who would listen about your time with Tom Henderson. You tried stealing the spotlight from his grieving family…—”
Asshole.
Of course he remembers it like that.
A tight, nauseated knot forms in my belly and releases tendrils of heat throughout my body. My face turns several shades darker, and tears instantly line my eyes at his sudden, and rudely conveyed memory.
Embarrassment is an understatement. I want to keel over and die of shame.
It’s been so many years since that night, and yet, it’s still stored in the memory of someone who has far too much going on in his life to bother with such trivialities.
I turn away from him to hide my body’s uncalled-for reaction.
Not because I’m worried that he’ll see me turning red-faced and flustered, but because of the realization that’s hitting me hard and heavy.
This is how I’ll go down in history. An attention-seeking chick who tried to steal the spotlight in this city’s dark hour.
“How did you think it would work?” he asks, leaning back in his chair.
I stutter out a syllable, but cut myself off by shaking my head. I’m not ready to fight this battle.
“No, seriously.” His voice becomes cold as ice. “I want an answer.”
“Because…” I let the word do a lot of heavy lifting while I consider the outcomes.
Something compels me to speak, but I can’t figure out what.
I have no need to prove myself to Colter, or to feel like a fool for his amusement.
But what if I’m mistaken in his intention?
Maybe he genuinely wants to hear my account, and if he does, there’s always the possibility that he will become the second person who believes me.
When I come to a conclusion, instead of saying it happened, I answer. “I was a kid. I didn’t know any better.”
“Fucking mental,” Colter says.
And suddenly all those warm feelings his lingering eyes conveyed vanish behind a thick wall of ice.
“Is this going to be a problem? Are we going to have a problem?” I don’t know where the questions come from.
The hostility with which he mentioned Tom Henderson unnerved me. It left me wanting to speak, so that I don’t have to relive the past. But he’s the one who put them in my head, knowing full well that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to ask.
“No,” he says flatly. “I don’t suppose we will.”
“Why bring it up at all?”
“Because it’s where I remember you from.” His voice is steady. Completely neutral. Unfazed by the fact of kicking me into a freefall of emotional torment.
It doesn’t matter whether I did it to seek attention or it was the truth. He knew bringing it up would fluster me. Anyone would feel the same.
I snap my head back toward him, narrowing my eyes to insist on showing him I won’t roll over for him.
“So, you asked as some kind of power play?”
A brow lifts above his unblinking eyes. “Grasping at straws won’t do you any favors here, Lilith.”
One of the servers interrupts us with a bottle of champagne in hand. He doesn’t say a word, going about his task of filling two flutes three-quarters full. He’s gone as quickly as he came, but my desire to fight Colter on a subject that still haunts me walks away with him.
“We’re not doing this.” I shift my attention to Mom and Mr. Crawford on the other side of the table. They look happy.
Never thought I’d feel it tonight, but I’m jealous.
“No,” he repeats in the same cadence as before. “I don’t suppose we will.”
Colter raises the glass to his lips, pondering his next line while savoring his drink.
“There’s something about you, Lilith. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I reach for the glass but refuse to drink from it. Look at what drinking in an unknown environment did last time…
“You intrigue me.” His eyes sink down my body and the sharp point of his tongue slithers along his lower lip.
“What?” Heat crawls up my neck and settles in my cheeks. My heart starts pounding against my ribcage as unsteady breaths catch in my throat.
His response, a wicked smile that sits uncomfortably on his face.
I shove my chair back, and it scrapes loudly against the floor. Noticing it, Mom jumps to her feet.
“Lilith? Is everything alright?” she asks, rushing over to our side of the table.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, putting as much distance between me and him as possible.
I get directions to the bathroom from one of the staff, and rush down the hall on wobbly legs that are threatening to collapse.
Nothing about what Colter said should’ve caused this reaction.
And yet, my body sensed there was more to it than simple words.
It felt the need to run, the way it should have all those years ago.
This time, I’m going to listen. To find my footing and run before I get caught in something I can’t escape.
Because I can already tell, Colter Crawford is trouble.
And I’ve got a feeling he’s about to show me what kind.