Chapter 53
Trips
My father gave me a bed, but that doesn’t mean I got any sleep.
Today is it—the next twenty-odd hours will determine the rest of my life. And as badly as I want to hold on to the hope that’s been hovering near my heart, I can’t grasp it.
There are too many places where the plan could fail. Too many moving pieces I can’t even see. So much trust put on people I have hardly spoken to for the last six months.
God, I hate trusting. I feel so out of control I’m practically shaking as I finish my shower, not knowing what else to do while Clara is being poked and prodded a few rooms down the hall, transforming into the perfect society bride.
Having the wedding at the mansion is meant to be a consequence, the smaller guestlist a message to the masses that I’m less important than my brother.
But I also know it’s because my father needs to control the environment. He knows we haven’t given up. But he also knows he holds all the cards.
How can we play when our hands are empty?
His frustration with the guys has been clear the few times he’s met with me.
He’s suspicious because Walker and RJ just go to class and go home.
He’s livid that he’s been unable to find Jansen or Emma.
Clara and I are growing difficult to predict, and I wish I’d been able to listen to their conversation last night.
I still don’t get why he’s put this much effort into us, though. Not clearly. Why Clara? Why let the two of us stick together when he could partner me up with the daughter of some shady business associate?
I’d whispered that question to Clara a few nights ago, worried about what was coming. And watching her eyes drift to the wall like she didn’t want to see me when she answered, told me I wouldn’t like her guess.
“I think your father loves you, in whatever twisted way he’s able to feel that emotion, but he also can’t give up control of you. Therefore, he’s giving you what you want. He’s giving you me. Only he can’t do that without the leverage he so desperately needs to feel secure.”
I hadn’t liked that answer then, and I still don’t like it now.
My father is nothing but a monster. A lifetime of evidence of that fact is laid out across my skin and within my shattered psyche.
But what she said stuck with me, twisting in my gut.
I don’t want any fucked-up version of love he has to give. I want him to suffer like he’s made me suffer. He needs to disappear, either off the face of the planet or out of my life. I don’t care which.
Putzing around with my hair, I style it like I know my father likes it, wanting to tug the strands out of position the second I get it straight.
Not knowing what else to do, I pull on the tux that was delivered to me this morning.
It showed up with a cup of coffee and a breakfast I’ve hardly touched.
Then I stand in front of the mirror, staring at the monster my father made: me.
I look like a hard man, someone who doesn’t laugh, someone who feels nothing but hatred and violence.
The scars on my knuckles speak to that violence, and the ice under my brows backs it up.
The breadth of my shoulders doesn’t fit with the wealth I know waits downstairs, making it even more clear that I’m the beast, not the master.
I don’t look like a man who would love. Who would trust. Who has people he can count on or can make him smile.
Swallowing back the bile my empty stomach serves me at the revelation, a knock on the door warns me before Falk steps through, a second tux in his hands. “Your groomsman is at the gate. I’m supposed to sit in with you.”
I nod, not able to speak. Not right now.
“You look good,” he says, hanging Walker’s suit in the empty closet beside the bathroom.
“Thanks,” I croak.
“Nervous?”
I huff out a breath, folding myself into the too-small chair beside the bed. “Something like that.”
“For what it’s worth, I think the two of you are a good match.”
We are. But she’s not just a good match for me.
With Walker, she welcomes excess into her life in a way she can’t allow herself alone—an openness to experiences and sensations that I know I’ve been an unintended beneficiary of.
With RJ, she’s willing to open up, to be honest about her thoughts and feelings, to be vulnerable without risking being smothered by the rest of us trying to fix her problems.
And with Jansen, she’s free to laugh and play, something that is so foreign to me I always feel like an outsider when I watch them together. But because Jansen is Jansen, he drags me into the chaos with them, and as much as I grumble, I also like that I’m included.
I don’t want to be the cold, broken man I see in the mirror.
I want more.
With her.
With them.
I never figured I’d be willing to share my woman, whenever I found her—hopefully after my father died and I got out of his unbreakable grip. And once I realized I wanted Clara, but that she wanted more than just me, I figured that was it.
Then I almost killed her.
There’s no coming back from that. At least, there shouldn’t have been. Even when she made space for me, I tried to stay separate, partly as penance and partly to keep her safe.
But she wouldn’t let me stay away, knowing that’s not where I wanted to be, and not where she wanted me either. And whatever Clara wants, she works like hell to make happen.
She built closeness, intimacy, and fucking love that I never thought I’d have. Now that I have it, there’s no way in hell I’m giving it up.
It made me realize I need more than just Clara for this life to work.
I need Walker to remind me to enjoy the good shit we’ve got. To push me to relax sometimes. To feel the good, not just the bad.
I need RJ to stand by my side, to look forward and see the risks coming for us, and to create guardrails to keep us all safe. I need him because he sees problems like I do, and is just as willing to make tough choices to keep our family safe.
I need Jansen to teach me how to play. I don’t really know how to yet, and I want a chance to figure it out.
But most of all, I need Clara. To be the center of my world, of our world.
To fight with me, to push me to grow and change, to challenge me mind, body, and soul.
Today, I get that. If nothing else, I have her.
But now that I can see it, I want it all. I don’t want to settle for less.
The door cracks open, a guard ushering Walker into the room.
With his polite, bland mask in place, he smiles and nods at Falk before giving me a bro hug, exchanging pleasantries with no hidden meanings.
His presence will be distraction enough.
He changes into his tux; we straighten each other’s ties, and we each take a few sips of the scotch my father delivered to the room.
Walker’s eyes close at the heavy peat scent and soft burn of the liquor.
It’s exactly what a wedding day is supposed to look like, even if the three of us are all wound tighter than a garrote.
Another knock comes about an hour before the ceremony begins, the door shoved open before I can tell whoever is on the other side to enter.
Trevor strides in wearing a matching tux, his arm free from its sling, the still-healing stumps of his fingers hidden in bougie white gloves.
His eyes glint with a secret that I don’t care to dig out of him.
“Father says it’s time to mingle,” he announces, not even greeting Walker or me.
I want to fight the order, but I know my role, and it’s exactly this. Distract my father by being perfectly boring, Walker playing the same role by my side. It’s the last thing he’d expect.
We go down to the ballroom, where I shake hands and receive congratulations, not recognizing many of the old men nor the young females on their arms. Trevor smiles and laughs beside me, knowing the name of everyone at my wedding better than I do—these people are his people, my father’s people, not mine.
My only guest is the man standing on my other side, showing the room nothing but a mask of an innocuous man, someone pleasant and empty who’s not worth remembering. The opposite of who he really is.
The only moment the mask drops is when he sees yet another beautiful young woman on the arm of an older man, her purple braids tied up in an elaborate knot on her head, her rich brown skin glowing against the lavender of her gown.
“Do you know her?” I risk whispering.
He shakes his head but doesn’t seem convinced by his own motion. “I don’t think so. But she seems familiar.”
Marking her out as a question for later, I survive the hour of shmoozing until it’s time for the ceremony.
I take my place, and I wait.
Trying not to laugh when at the top of the aisle, Walker steals Mattie from my brother so he’ll have the spot right beside me, I find some of my nerves fading.
Summer catches on immediately and takes Trevor’s arm as my not-brother tries to hide his anger.
It feels good, light in a way I wasn’t anticipating today.
It’s a move I’d expect from Jansen, but not the moody artist on my team.
He wanted to stand beside me, so he made it happen.
Stubborn fucker.
My thoughts stumble to a halt, though, when the orchestra begins the processional. As the gathered crowd stands, I can’t help the squeeze of my lungs.
Because even if this is fake, it’s real—so real that watching Clara descend the stairs into the ballroom leaves my eyes watering, my breath short, my goddamn heart in a vise.
She might be stuck in a starched and demure lace gown, swathed in jewels she’d rather pawn than wear, walking through a crowd of strangers to what could very well be her doom, but she still looks like a goddamn queen.
Beautiful. Regal. Oozing power and grace, the swift shift of her eyes belying a fierce intellect, and the set of her jaw, one of a born fighter.
Gorgeous. Bold.
Mine.