6. Theo
Theo
There was no denying it. In every possible sense, I was screwed.
I gripped the table, staring at Liv. She sat still, clutching her mug, color burning high in her cheeks. “Well,” she said at last, voice strangled, “that complicates things.”
“You’re a Carter,” I said, stunned. “I slept with a Carter.”
Last night, when we’d come in, I’d barely taken notice of our surroundings.
I’d been too focused on Liv. But this morning, when I’d looked around on my way into the kitchen, I knew she’d come from money—or made a good bit of her own.
This house wasn’t just decorated; it had been put together by an interior designer.
I’d spent enough time in wealthy fuckers’ homes, negotiating deals over dinner, to know the difference.
Which meant this house and everything in it had been bought by Carter money, whether Liv had earned it or not.
I’d slept on sheets their money had paid for, drunk their fancy coffee.
Had sex on their thousand-dollar coffee table.
Great sex. Maybe the best I’d ever had. Which only made things worse.
“What a mess,” I muttered, repressing the desire to kick something. The tastefully distressed kitchen cabinets, maybe.
Liv drew a deep breath, blue eyes wide with dismay. In her sweatpants and T-shirt, with her red hair tousled and her face scrubbed clean, she looked nothing like the sophisticated siren I’d met at the bar last night. But I didn’t find her any less desirable, God help me.
In a place like Atomic, pretty women were a dime a dozen.
But there’d been something different about Liv.
I’d been drawn to her, in a way I couldn’t pin down.
Maybe it had been the glint of fire in her eyes, the sense there was a hell of a lot more to her than a gorgeous face and a body to match.
Or maybe it was the way she’d seemed so moved by my music, she’d put her drink down to listen.
Even across the room, I couldn’t help but notice.
I’d been with my share of women, but nothing that lasted beyond a night or two.
I’d done a cost-benefit analysis and failed to see the value in it.
If there was one thing I’d learned growing up, it was that commitment didn’t get you anywhere.
People made promises, and then they left.
I had no desire to ever feel that powerless again.
Instead, I’d thrown myself into my work.
Money was a shield for me, a way to defend myself against the helplessness that had reverberated through my family when they’d fought to get Lily Dressler back and lost. All because some rich bastards had bought off the lawyers and the judge, then threatened my great-grandmother with a lawsuit if she ever tried to see her daughter again.
They’d destroyed her, and she’d never been able to forgive them...
or herself. The rest of my family had scattered to the winds.
Four generations later, I was still dealing with the fallout.
And now I’d had sex with one of them. Repeatedly. Told her she was made for me, for Christ’s sake. Goddamn sang to her.
Liv cleared her throat and leaned forward, pushing her coffee aside. “So. May Dressler was your great-grandmother. Which makes Lily—”
“My great-aunt,” I said, pausing in my circuit of the kitchen as a sickening thought occurred to me. “Oh, Jesus. Tell me I didn’t just have sex with—”
She read the horrified look on my face correctly and sighed.
“I’m adopted, Theo. So even if Grandma Ella were really Lily Dressler, we wouldn’t have committed incest, if that’s what you’re afraid of.
But it’s a moot point, anyhow. She’s not Lily Dressler.
She never was. The whole thing was an awful misunderstanding. ”
I came to a halt in front of her. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” she insisted.
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation.
Ten minutes ago, I’d been figuring out the buttons on her NASA-level coffeemaker and wondering if I could convince her to go for Round Five before we went our separate ways.
Now she’d dropped the bomb that she was part of the family that had wrecked mine, and here I was, trying to persuade a Carter that she was wrong about the fundamental event that had shaped my life.
“How can you say that?” I kept my voice low, controlled, but it was an effort.
“Because I know.” She was looking at me in bewilderment, like I’d lost my mind. For a multitude of reasons, this look was on my short list of pet peeves.
“You don’t,” I said. “You only know what you’ve been told. If you’d just listen to me for a minute, be open-minded—”
Her eyebrows rose. “Open-minded about the idea that my family conspired to steal your great-aunt, and then covered it up? That they’re kidnappers who perjured themselves on the stand? Come on, Theo. It sounds ridiculous. Because it is.”
I put my head in my hands, trying not to say something I’d regret. This was an opportunity, after all. When would I ever get another one like it? But when I sat up, her amusement had vanished, replaced with an expression that pissed me off even more.
“What happened to Lily was a terrible tragedy, and I understand why your family would want someone to blame.” She reached across the table to touch my hand, her eyes wide with understanding...and pity. “Sometimes that’s easier than accepting the truth. But trust me. My family didn’t do this.”
I’d spent my childhood with people looking at me just like that: the guidance counselor who’d scraped up money for me to go on field trips, the piano teacher who’d given me lessons for free after my mom showed up drunk to my recitals.
I’d worked my ass off so no one would ever give me that look again.
But here Liv was, giving me the poor-Theo treatment anyhow.
I couldn’t help it. I snapped. “Don’t therapize me. I’m not crazy!”
Liv recoiled, her eyes wider than ever. “I never said you were.”
“You implied it. You’ve got faith in what your family’s told you...well, so do I. And I don’t think you should be so quick to dismiss the idea that I might be right, just because you don’t like the way it sits with you.”
She peered at me like I was a rabid raccoon she’d cornered in her garage, figuring out the best way to keep me at bay before she tossed me out. “I never implied you were crazy. This is a touchy issue for you, which I get. But can you please sit back down so we can discuss this like adults?”
Of all the patronizing, condescending things to say. Was she calling me a child?
“I’m not sure that I know how adults discuss things, Liv.
” My voice was quiet, but threaded with anger.
“Perhaps my context is a bit different than yours. For instance, did the adults in your family smack you around whenever the mood struck them? Neglect to show up for your high school graduation because they were too busy drying out? Have no clue how to be a mom because their own mother was too fucked up over losing her sister to risk caring about someone else again? Because that’s my experience.
So forgive me if I don’t have the best frame of reference. ”
It came out more venomous than I’d intended, and Liv’s mouth fell open.
“Wow. That’s quite the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act you have going on there,” she said, giving me a disgusted once-over.
“What happened to the suave guy I met last night who swept me off my feet and serenaded me? Was it all an act?”
I clenched my jaw, more irritated than ever. “No act,” I bit out. “Just...last night I didn’t know I was sleeping with...”
“Who? The enemy? Because you sure didn’t think that when you had sex with me on your piano. Or in my bed. Or on my coffee table. Or against my—”
Like I wanted to be reminded. “No need for the recitation,” I interrupted her. “I was there.”
“Uh huh. Maybe you slept with the enemy. But I definitely slept with an asshole.” Her lips pursed after the word left them, as if it tasted bad.
Last night, I might have found this adorable.
But this morning, all I could think was that her rich-ass parents and the pretentious boarding schools she’d doubtless attended had told her that foul language was evidence of ill breeding.
God knew what she would’ve made of the way I’d been raised, in the depths of Brooklyn where cursing was an art form.
Probably she would never have looked at me twice back then, much less taken me to bed. It made me want to swear like a sailor.
She got to her feet, hands on her hips, and glared. “This is a shock. I get it. But what’s your freaking problem? Why can’t we talk about it like two reasonable people?”
“My problem,” I said, meeting her eyes dead-on, “is that years ago, the Carters treated my great-grandmother like no more than an annoying fly. An inconvenience. By contrast, my family was crushed. It’s paid dividends down every single generation, including mine.
My childhood was a goddamn shitshow because of it.
And there you sit, refusing to even entertain the idea that your precious great-grandparents could’ve been in the wrong. ”
“Listen to yourself!” Her voice rose, cracking. “Do you really believe my great-grandparents stole a child...and then lied about it? And what about the court system, the media? Everyone just let them get away with it?”
I rarely lost my temper, and for good reason. But once I did, it was well and truly AWOL. “That’s exactly what I think they did, Liv.” It came out as a growl. “And so would you, if you weren’t so blinded by your family’s privilege that you’d actually look at the evidence.”
“I’m a therapist, in case you forgot,” she hissed, edging out from behind the table.
“Looking at the evidence behind people’s emotions and figuring out how to help them integrate the two is my job.
And I’ve never seen any proof to substantiate the claim my relatives stole a kid that wasn’t theirs.
I’m sure it was devastating for your great-grandmother to lose a child, but—”
“She lost a child twice. The first time, when Lily wound up in that goddamn orphanage. And then the second time, when her daughter came back, and a bunch of wealthy, powerful motherfuckers insisted the girl was theirs.” I had a death grip on the counter, my knuckles white.
“Your great-grandparents knew the truth. They bribed the lawyers and the judge. They threatened my great-grandmother. And they kept her kid from her.”
She stopped in front of me, eyes fixed on mine. “That’s a whole lot of accusations to level without anything to back them up. If you’re so sure, where is your proof?”
“Where’s yours?” I retorted.
Snatching her mug off the table, she strode over to the machine and refilled it.
Then she set it on the counter with a thump and looked up at me, making an obvious effort to be conciliatory.
“Let’s be reasonable about this, Theo. What’s the point in leveling baseless accusations?
It’s not like they had DNA testing back then. ”
“Then get the evidence now,” I countered. “Seems easy enough to me.”
“Get the—you mean ask my grandmother—” She shook her head.
“Theo, a DNA test may be simple, but the implications of the results aren’t.
They’re like a...like an earthquake. One big impact, and then a heck of a lot of aftershocks, rippling through an entire family.
It’s not something you do off the cuff, no matter the circumstances.
Getting the ‘evidence’ from my grandmother, as you put it, would be a lot of things.
But one thing it wouldn’t be is easy. She’s extremely sensitive about this situation. ”
“And you think my family isn’t?” The words came out in a snarl, and Liv flinched.
I raked my hands through my hair, bringing my voice under control with an effort.
“This ruined my great-grandmother’s life.
She fell apart. And the rest of her kids paid the price.
The defining story of my family is how the Carters fucked us over.
How they manipulated an impoverished immigrant into giving up her child. ”
Liv bit her lip. “It wasn’t… They wouldn’t…”
Despite everything, her anguished tone tore at me.
I rubbed my chest, trying to dismiss the sting.
“You’re so determined they’re innocent? Then prove me wrong.
My Grandma Susi’s still alive. She’ll take a DNA test in a hot minute.
Talk to your grandmother. Get her to do the same.
And then you’ll have all the evidence you need. ”
She swallowed hard. “And if I don’t?”
Maybe I should’ve thought before I spoke next.
But deep in my head was the voice I’d never been able to get rid of, the one that said See, this is what you get for liking a woman.
For waking up with the hope that maybe you could turn a one-night stand into something more.
“If you don’t,” I said grimly, “then we have nothing else to say to each other. And I’ll know that I was right.
Your family bribed the judges and deep down, you know it, too, or you’d agree to ask your grandmother for the test without thinking twice.
Just like I did, because I know my family has nothing to hide. ”
She flushed again, this time with fury. Fighting the urge to take the words back, I strode down the hall to her bedroom, got dressed, and walked out.