Chapter 29
She wondered what had changed. She wondered if Cas had gotten tired of playing games, merely texting his feelings, and wanted to finally declare them, out loud, in person, to her face.
Maybe he wanted to ask her on a real date. Maybe he wanted to actually touch her again like they had on the yacht, his real, human fingers on her real, human skin. The thought of it sent chills through her. She could see it all. Cas Loeffler in her arms … in her bed … hers and hers alone.
From the sidewalk on Bull Street, she pushed open the gate, and then the side door that led into a hallway in the garden level of the house. She was sweaty and out of breath. Maybe she should pop into the bathroom before she met him, if she could feel her way through the blackness …
“Ingrid.”
She yelped out loud in surprise. He was right here, standing only a few feet away from her.
“You came.”
She stopped, her skin prickling in gooseflesh. Because it wasn’t Cas’s voice that spoke to her out of the dark. It was Rill’s.
“What’s g-going on?” she stuttered. Where was Cas? What the hell was Rill doing here, waiting for her?
“Follow me.”
“I can’t. I … it’s too dark.”
A low light appeared. The glow of a phone screen, a dozen feet down at the end of the hallway.
Immediately it began to move away from her.
Into a room—the altar room. She followed the light.
When she reached the door, she pushed it open and entered the room.
There was a candle burning, just one, in the center of the altar she and Sailor had set up.
Rill was standing just behind it, the shadows from the flame making him flicker in and out like an apparition.
“Beautiful,” he said in a husky voice. “As beautiful in candlelight as moonlight.”
“Cas just texted me that he wanted to talk, so I—”
“I know what he texted you, Ingrid. I’ve seen all your texts.” He paused. “I found him down here, waiting for you, and sent him back upstairs.”
She was quiet, nearly suffocating from the acute intensity of the shame. She felt like a child who’d been caught doing something naughty. Only she wasn’t a child, and neither was Cas. And both were perfectly free to do whatever they wanted.
“I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings or embarrasses you,” Rill went on gently.
“That’s not my goal. But you have to understand.
I can’t have him … interfering with you.
He is immature and untrustworthy, and he will hurt you.
I know my son. And believe me, I’m doing all I can to encourage him to let go of all these childish obsessions.
To get out of his head and live in the real world and learn to work like the rest of us.
Experience life. You understand, Ingrid.
You work hard, harder than anybody else in this family.
I see how you’ve kept your grandmother’s business alive.
Her legacy. She would be so proud of you. ”
Ingrid said nothing.
“I won’t let Cas ruin what you’ve accomplished. What you’ve built. For you … but also for Edie.”
“He wanted to see me—” she began.
“I know you’d like to think that. But I won’t risk it. I can’t. I care too much about you.”
In the candlelight, he stepped closer to her. Looking down on her with the gentlest of expressions, he took her hand.
“I was too young and foolish to see it all those years ago, but Edie was right. She and I didn’t belong together.
She did me a favor by turning me down. And now I’m doing the same favor for you.
I love my son, Ingrid, but you deserve so much more, and so I’ve told him to leave you alone. Ordered him, actually.”
Instinctively, she backed away from him. Glanced down at the candle. Had Cas lit it for her? Had he planned to finally take her in his arms and kiss her here in the altar room? She felt an immense sadness wrap around her.
“You want to say something.” Rill watched her.
She felt bereft. Stripped of all she’d been hoping for. She wanted Rill to know what she thought of him. How much she despised him for what he was doing. But she couldn’t speak around the sob caught in her throat.
“Talk to me, Ingrid.”
“It’s not your place,” she burst out, “to control your children. You want to keep Sailor from running the company, and you want to force Cas to do it instead, even though it would make him miserable. You think you’re doing what’s best for them, but you’re only going to push them away.”
He grinned. Not the reaction she expected.
“You’re so much like her,” he said. “So sure of your point of view. But you’re wrong, Ingrid. You’re dead wrong. This family? My children? They are my world. And I will die before I let anyone come in and upset the balance I’ve achieved.”
The balance.
There it was again. That phrase, Edie’s words, echoing in her ears, slapping her in the face.
She felt a twinge of guilt. What was she really doing here? Trying to fulfill her grandmother’s final wish? Or was she just using it as an excuse to get the one thing that she’d never fully had but always wanted?
A family.
She stared at Rill, furious, but his expression was so tender, so unguarded, that she couldn’t help but be touched in some small, hidden part of herself. A tear slipped out of her eye. A soft, nearly silent, sob. She dashed at it, angry, humiliated.
“Oh, Ingrid. Please don’t cry,” Rill said. “I see you. I can see you want to be one of us.”
She shook her head, but he knew he’d hit on the truth.
“That’s why I’m telling you this. This is what family does, Ingrid.
We tell each other the hard truths. We look out for each other.
We protect each other. I’m just trying to protect you.
Will you trust me?” He held his hand out to her, and she stared at it.
She could see his palm, the lines that creased the soft flesh.
One in particular.
Via Lascivia. The line that rose from the bracelets of life between the mounts of Venus and the moon, indicating addiction, sexual and otherwise. Edie had called it “the line of lust.” Rill’s was a deep groove that intersected with his lifeline.
She looked back up at him.
Rill, who flirted as easily with her as with his hired help. Rill, who was messing around behind Scoot’s back with somebody else when Sailor was just a kid. Maybe it wasn’t just the attention he liked. Maybe there was something deeper there. Something destructive.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash above them, then yelling and thunderous footsteps. Reflexively, they both leaped apart and gaped up at the ceiling.
“What the fuck is it now?” Rill growled.
“Mother!” It was Sailor’s voice, carrying all the way down from the first floor, specifically, the front hall, to the altar room. There was now a cacophony of voices and the clatter of feet.
“Mother, come back! Someone! Mrs. Leimberger! Help!”