Chapter 23. Alex
ALEX
The film of sun that glows through my curtains paints Ophelia in a sepia wash, flooding the room in a soft, warm light. After a couple of weeks of gray, rainy mornings in the city, this one feels like a luxury.
I shut the bathroom door quietly, then slip into some shorts and beneath the covers, unlocking my phone.
The tabs open on my search engine are an accurate representation of the inside of my brain.
Brochures for houses in New York, Edinburgh, and London.
Architecture course information for Yale.
Doctors for my mom and schools for the girls in New York and the UK.
A whole host of cooking schools for Mia.
A desperate search for something, anything that’ll change Fleur’s mind about trading college for modeling with her shitty boyfriend’s dad as an agent.
My mind has become spaghetti. No real direction or plan. Just chaos and a need for change. So many decisions, and yet I’m paralyzed by all of them.
Ophelia stirs beside me, grumbling something incoherent into the pillow.
A week of waking up like this, and I never want it to end. It’s the elephant in the room: the fact that Sorrowsong’s Easter break is coming to an end and the end-of-year exams are barreling toward her.
She’ll have to leave soon.
I swipe my thumb over her cheek. I can’t count her freckles, no matter how hard I try. There are so many, all piled up on top of one another over her nose and cheeks.
Her lashes flutter open, eyes puffy from sleep. “Hey.”
I swipe the hair from her face. “Morning. Sleep well?”
She pouts, eyebrows creasing in a frown. “You know for a fact that I didn’t sleep well.”
“Funny. I seem to remember it was you begging for another round last night.”
She rolls onto her side so her face is buried in my chest. “Yeah, well, you’re old and misremembering things.”
I trail my fingers down the dip of her spine, enjoying the feel of her against me. The dark cloud inside me is quiet. “I actually found a gray hair yesterday.”
She makes an appreciative hum in the back of her throat.
“You’ll be so hot when you go gray … are you going to the gym?
” she mumbles. Sunlight kisses her breasts, paints her thighs, burnishes her hair to a fiery shine.
There’s something so beautiful about her.
It’s not the most original word, but it’s the one that flashes through my mind every time I look at her.
“Already been.”
She pulls away, looking genuinely disgusted. “You people sicken me.”
“I couldn’t sleep, anyway.”
She props herself up on her elbow, suddenly more awake. I shamelessly let myself drink in the view. “Bad mood day?”
“No, I’m feeling good. Just hard to sleep in late with you beside me.”
She bats her lashes at me. “Because I’m too pretty?”
She may be being ironic, but it’s exactly that. If I had my way, she’d never sleep. I spread a line of kisses over her chest, enjoying the way her hips rock when I swirl my tongue around her nipple. This is a dangerous game. I’m going to be late. “Nah, it’s the snoring.”
She pulls the duvet over her head in a rage. Leaving to go to work has never been so impossible. I don’t know how anyone does it. “I’m never wearing lace again.”
“No,” I plead, pulling it off her, the sound of her laughter echoing around the room. “This is too harsh a punishment.”
It’s been three days since Ophelia bought herself a set of lingerie on a shopping trip with the girls that I wasn’t invited to. I’ve bought her two more since, and added Ophelia in red lace to the list of things I have but will never deserve.
I press my mouth to hers, taking her face in my hands and swallowing her soft sigh. She sinks her fingers into my aching biceps, her tongue parting my lips. I swear thinking rational thoughts wasn’t this hard ten minutes ago. She hooks her leg around mine, my thigh resting between hers.
The shameless grind of her hips against the hard muscle of my leg makes me smile.
I think Ophelia must obsess over my thighs almost as much as I obsess over hers, my name a gasped breath from her lips.
I graze my teeth along the shell of her ear, so desperate to sink myself into her that it hurts. “So wet, Ophelia.”
“Only for you,” she breathes, condemning me to an unproductive day of daydreams behind my desk.
In the future I cling onto, this is how all my days start.
“I have to go,” I manage, in what might be the greatest display of self-sacrifice in history.
Any other meeting I’d toss aside in favor of a lazy morning in bed with Ophelia, but not this one.
The first appointment in my diary today is months in the making.
When I started weighing my options for my replacement, Mike was the only person I was considering.
Today I’ll ask Luis if he wants my job. I’ve caught an almost-costly mistake from Mike three times in as many weeks and seen him fly off the handle in meetings in a way that makes me wince, reminding me of terrible nights at home with my father.
“No,” she whispers, like I’ve betrayed her.
I sink my teeth into her shoulder. Hard. “Later.”
I’M TWENTY PAGES deep into reviewing a contract from our legal team for a new deal with a French airport—a deal that has taken me about three times as long to close as it should’ve—when Ophelia calls.
I glance at the time. Fuck. Seven p.m. has long gone. I text Jacqueline and apologize, telling her to head home.
Ophelia’s voice is a welcome comfort, soft and husky through my AirPods. “Mr. Corbeau.”
I can’t even force a smile through the guilt that crushes my chest. “Miss Winters.”
“How’s work?”
“I completely lost track of time.”
“That’s okay. Are you feeling less stressed?”
“Yeah, I got a lot done today with the French deal and the press conference.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
But it isn’t all that matters. In fact, it’s exactly what shouldn’t matter.
“How’d it go with Luis?”
“Good. Very good. His vision for Green matches mine.”
“And Mike?”
I lean back in my chair and stretch my arms above my head. That’s a conversation for tomorrow that I’m really not looking forward to. “Haven’t told him he’s not getting the job.”
“How do you think he’ll take it?”
“Terribly, I imagine.”
“I’d cry while telling him.”
“I might, at this rate.”
“I need to head back, Alex.”
I put my pen down, shutting my eyes. I knew she’d say this, eventually. It’s been looming over us for more than a week. “You don’t have to,” I say, fighting that unreasonable part of me, the one my father nurtured, the one that wants to lock her in my basement and not let her leave.
“I know I don’t.”
I want to be so selfish. To tell her she doesn’t need money anymore, or to go back to that house near Inverness. That I could get her into any university, anywhere. Pay off her tuition fees. Pay for a new house.
But it’s against everything she stands for. She’s trying to build her own identity.
She takes my silence as a question, explaining her decision.
“I’ve thought about staying, Alex. I have.
But I have prayed and prayed for friends, for a chance at a career, for a life that isn’t fueled by revenge.
A life that belongs to me. I have a friendship group, a scholarship, a place on the swim team. ”
“I know.”
“I owe seventeen-year-old Ophelia better than giving that all up.”
Like I have, twice.
My conversation with my mother weighs heavy on my mind.
For a horrible, unkind second, I almost think she’s lucky to have so much freedom.
Then I think about the hug Josie gave me as I walked out the door, the coffee my mom delivered to my bedside table, the way Mia always leans out the window to say good morning, the way it’s those seven women who have given me purpose for the past twenty-four years, and I feel disgusted with myself.
I remember the way the cold in that house of hers had sunk its way into the foundations, the cardboard boxes of possessions that Ophelia had packed up alone. The untouched double bedroom at the top of the stairs. The word lucky sours on my tongue.
“I didn’t mean that you have done that,” Ophelia blurts out, when the silence stretches on.
“I know, baby. You’re right for going home.”
“Worst case, it’s just over two years long distance. We can manage that. I could come here once I’ve graduated, maybe.”
All those houses I’ve looked at in the UK float through my mind. But I don’t know if the girls would agree. And my mom needs stability, not another huge life event. God, what I wouldn’t do to live close to Ophelia.
Being five inches from her makes me grumpy, let alone three thousand miles. But she’s right. With a lot of late-night phone calls and long showers, maybe I could survive it.
“You can take a jet home.”
“I’m going to just try to fly on a normal plane.”
“I’ll help you book a flight later.”
“Thank you. I love you,” she says, voice wobbling. She’s upset. I start packing my things straight away.
“I love you, too. Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I started my period. Charlotte made me an anklet.” Her voice cracks, her next sentence revealing what’s really the matter. “I killed Laura. I think of her every time I feel happy.”
“Shall I get you a hot chocolate on the way back?”
I hear a muffled sniff. “Yeah. Maybe that’ll fix me.”
“If it doesn’t, we’ll find something else.”
I keep Ophelia on the line until I have to get into the elevator, promising I’ll see her soon.
Mike gets in one floor down, giving me a quick nod. He presses the button for the garage, even though I’ve already pressed it. “Congrats on the contract.”
“Thought we were never going to land that one.”
The elevator plunges into silence as it descends. Mike whistles a quiet tune, flashing me a quick glance. “How are things going with that girl of yours?”
It’s an odd question. In fact, there’s an odd atmosphere in the elevator. Mike’s jaw is so tense that I’m surprised his molars haven’t turned to dust. “It’s going fine.”
When Mike leans forward and hits the button for the sixth floor, which is only ever used for storage and by the janitors, I catch the faintest whiff of alcohol on his breath.
As the red floor number on the small screen behind him ticks down, an alarm bell rings somewhere in the back of my mind.
My skin prickles with awareness, that horrible, suffocating feeling of dread creeping up my throat.
Something isn’t right here.
It all happens in a flash. I lunge for the red emergency override button, but Mike’s fist crashes into mine and then comes flying at my face. I block his punch, but the force slams me into the mirror behind us, the explosive pain across my back so sharp that my vision turns white.
His next swing at me is sloppy, easy for me to dodge.
His fist shatters the cracked mirror, sending shards of glass to the floor.
I land a harsh blow to the left side of his face, slamming him against the other end of the elevator.
He thrashes when my hands grip his neck, the ring on his finger cutting across my cheek.
But I don’t let up. Not when a life with Ophelia is at stake.
“Did my father put you up to this?” I grit out, as his punches lose strength. The elevator rattles to a stop on the maintenance floor, but I don’t release him.
“You were never planning to make me CEO, were you?” he wheezes, the grip of my fingers stealing his oxygen away.
“I’m sure as fuck not going to now.” He gasps for air, begs for his life. I tighten my hold on him. “Answer the question.”
His eyes flick over my shoulder at the sound of the dented doors scraping open, and the fear in his expression melts into something like relief.
A rough hand clamps a cloth over my mouth; my next inhale feels like a ball of fire barreling down my airway and into my lungs, chemicals against delicate skin. It feels like the whole office building lurches sideways.
Somewhere in the haze that floods my brain with confusion, I hear my father’s voice.
And that’s when I realize this isn’t some newfound anger about the CEO job. This is a far more elaborate plan.
I swing my head back, feeling it connect with flesh and bone behind me, but the hand over my mouth doesn’t move.
“Missed me, son?”
Even though the world is swimming, the words my father hisses in my ear permeate the thick fog. A sharp pain amid a dull, pixelated ache.
Nausea churns my stomach. I feel just as helpless as I did when I was a child.
I’m no good to them dead.
It’s the sentence I’ve whispered to the mirror on the worst of my days, in the lowest of my moods. It kept me alive then, and it’ll keep me alive now.
Consciousness slips between my fingers, and all that I can think of as the world fades to black is that strange, wonderful girl I left at home.