CHAPTER EIGHT
Julian’s attitude has evolved. It won’t ever go back.
His eighteenth birthday has unlocked something.
Lachlan wonders if the music and dancing awoke it, or maybe Lachlan letting him stay for that extra one hour and five minutes.
When Lachlan approaches him now, Jules still clearly despises him, but there’s something new beneath it. His tone is silky, his expressions sly, and ever since the conversation in the car, he carries himself with the unsettling air of someone who knows more than he should.
Mimi is playing with Lachlan’s bootlaces while they talk in Jules’ bedroom.
When it comes to explaining what lies ahead, Lachlan chooses to be as honest with Jules as possible. It usually yields a slightly better path to walk. Jules doesn’t seem remotely surprised by the instructions he’s given.
Charming. Lachlan cannot imagine this pain in his ass being charming.
‘I know what he wants.’ Jules looks at Mimi, gaze softening. ‘I’ll behave.’
Lachlan has to trust that he will.
?
Over the next few weeks, Lachlan divides his time between preparing for the “party”, which increasingly resembles a royal coronation rather than a birthday, and dealing with constant demands from private security teams requesting blueprints, patrol patterns and monitoring access ahead of their arrivals.
Luckily, this is one area in which Fenwick excels, and his competence smooths the tension between them considerably.
Whatever else, he’s Penhalyx’s man, and these people set to arrive might be friends of the family but Lachlan and Fenwick quietly agree that they pose a potential threat, so Fenwick constructs an info-packet for their security teams that gives away nothing but temporary surface access, all of which will be swiftly changed once these people leave.
Lachlan works on tightening the East Wing.
He speaks with Jules, trying to convince him to wear the threads. It’s the first time he asked him how he knew about them.
‘I could feel it,’ Jules explains like he’s stupid for asking. ‘All the extra static shocks, sometimes I could even hear the frequency whine.’
‘How did you disable your old bracelet?’ Lachlan asks, sitting with Jules, Blaire and Mimi for lunch, but he needs to start normalising testing food before she eats anything at the party, so he’s trying to make a game of it. Mimi points to her sliced banana and giggles when Lachlan takes a bite.
‘Wouldn’t you love to know,’ Jules says and Lachlan notes the slightly elongated stretch on the word love, the way he rarely blinks. He’s a confident kid, to the manner born, though he’d likely skin himself to be free of it.
‘Can I try?’ Blaire asks Mimi who pats her hand and tells her, ‘No,’ in a firm but kind way.
Blaire has been trying to bond with Mimi, with mixed results.
Mimi tolerates her presence and can even be friendly with Blaire in passing but Mimi Penhalyx only really trusts her brother and Lachlan, who she still sometimes calls Daddy in a secret whisper, giggling when he corrects her.
‘Gotta go pee,’ Mimi announces proudly after a beat, and this is something she’ll let Blaire help with, so Lachlan waits until they’re both gone before he grasps his communicator and presses two buttons at once, creating a brief static field of oppressive radio silence for Jules and Lachlan to speak privately.
‘You know why he’s bringing her to the party?’
Jules darkens. ‘I know, yeah.’
‘I need to be sure you’re going to behave. If he orders me to punish her—’
‘You won’t hurt her,’ Jules counters quickly, and it’s confident, yes, but he’s testing too. ‘You love her. I see it.’
Calmly, Lachlan says, ‘I don’t love anyone.’ He dislikes the strange twist behind his ribs. ‘And Fenwick would happily carry out any punishment in my stead. Are you going to behave?’
‘Perform, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Jules seems to be considering things eighteen-year-olds should never have to consider. ‘I know better than to embarrass him in front of his friend. Just promise me you’ll keep her safe from them.’
‘From the guests?’
‘They’re fucking vampires,’ he seethes quietly. ‘If you stay with her the whole time, I’ll be good. I know what he wants from me anyway.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course.’
The unpleasant niggling suspicion cannot be quashed. ‘Will you tell me?’
‘Maybe.’ Jules cocks his head. ‘How about we trade for information?’
‘All right. You go first.’
‘Are you gay?’
‘Bisexual,’ Lachlan corrects, always seeking to be honest with Jules. ‘What does your father want from you?’
‘For me to charm his friends, to be a pretty little toy who lights up the room and stirs hunger in the oldest form of evil,’ the kid says with polished, jade-green cynicism.
‘They’ll want to touch me, and he’ll want me to let them,’ he tells Lachlan, slower.
‘They’ll put hands on me, cup my cheek, thumb over my lips, tell me how I’ve grown.
’ He waits a beat, then asks, ‘Did he give you permission to fuck me?’
Oh God.
Lachlan is an exceptional liar, he knows he could pull off a deception based on the wording (Penhalyx technically did not say that) but there has to be trust to keep the bubble unburst so he takes a breath, speaks quietly and says, ‘He gave me permission to manage you in that way, yes.’
‘Then why haven’t you?’
‘Aside from the obvious, did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to be caught up in this kind of thing?’ he says, seeking a new tactic, hoping it lands.
Jules frowns lightly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘To say nothing of the age gap and the fact that you’re my charge, does my consent mean nothing?’
‘Your consent… you’re the fucking adult!’
‘And I don’t want you.’
‘Bullshit. Everyone wants me.’
‘I don’t. You’re a child.’
‘I’m not a fucking child, stop saying that! I’m eighteen.’
‘You’re my charge.’
‘You know what I hear when you say that? That I’m a Ming vase, a painting, a fucking Basquiat behind bulletproof glass!’
Lachlan thinks of that contract he signed months ago.
Julian Sael Penhalyx, the Asset.
He’s not far off.
‘You,’ Lachlan says, voice tightening, ‘are a child, Jules. Maybe not to them, maybe not even to him, but you are to me. This isn’t ever going to go where you’re pushing. I’m older than you—’
‘Barely six years.’
‘I’m your bodyguard, and no matter what anyone else thinks, you’re a child to me, a kid. A pain in my ass, a fucking annoyance, but a kid. I would die for you, because that’s my job. Do you understand?’
Jules’ cheeks blossom rosy. ‘Say that again.’
Lachlan pitches an eyeroll. ‘You heard me.’
‘Say you’d die for me again.’
‘I would die for her too. Do you think that’s sexual?’
It’s a low blow, but it dulls the shine in the kid’s eyes enough for Lachlan to unclick the twin buttons and restore normal frequency traffic, privacy gone.
‘You’ll behave,’ he tells Jules, tone lower once more. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
‘Fine,’ Jules agrees, calmer now that Blaire has returned with Mimi. ‘But I want something in return.’
‘What?’
‘I want Mimi to be allowed outside in the grounds.’
?
‘I can’t believe it.’
Blaire sighs, runs a hand through her black hair, wavy curls that sit in a face shaping bob. ‘You really never noticed?’
‘It rains all the fucking time in Varrow. I just thought…’ He trails off, didn’t really give it much thought, truth be told. Even now, he can’t quite accept it. ‘She’s been outside, though, right? She has to have been outside.’
‘No,’ Blaire corrects, ‘she hasn’t. Clara even requested it, but Mr Penhalyx insisted that if ventilation was sufficient and there was plenty of sunshine in the playroom, then that was good enough.
She’s not allowed to leave the Estate even just for the grounds.
When Jules tried to take her out, he was punished. ’
‘How was he punished?’ he asks in a barren whisper.
‘I wasn’t here for it, but Clara told me he was put on strict lockdown.’
‘I’m calling him.’
‘That’s a mistake.’
If it was anyone else, he’d ignore the warning, but he trusts Blaire as much as he trusts anyone, on par with Carrigan and maybe above at this point, so he stops in his tracks, rubs his eyes.
‘She needs sunshine. She needs fresh air, fucking hell, she’s a little kid!
’ he barks at no one who deserves it. Penhalyx deserves it.
He deserves a nail gun in the face except he’s not here, it’s just Lachlan and staff and Jules and the little girl he… loves.
Lachlan loves Mimi, despite trying not to, since the day he carried her around when she got sick. He wants her to have sunshine, mud, flowers and bees, to see a real rainbow.
Never been outside… he can’t fathom it.
Blaire surveys him worriedly. ‘When was the last time you took a day off?’
He can’t remember. ‘I need to plan for the party.’
‘You should go spend time with your family. Take a day.’
‘No, you don’t underst—’
‘This is a job,’ she says, rising to stand. ‘Take the day. Get your head clear. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk security.’
?
He takes a day off.
It’s hideous.
Lachlan has paid his mother’s medical bills but still has a chunk of change leftover from his hazard pay. He could go anywhere, do anything, but he just wants to go back and be with the kids, make them safe, figure out a way to get that little girl into the natural world somehow.
Blaire is right. Carrigan is too.
It’s a job. He shouldn’t be this involved.
The worst part of it is that he knows Penhalyx wanted this, deep down.
That Mimi is not only Jules’ kitten, but his.
Lachlan forces himself to drive to see his mother. It’s a mistake. He’s in a bad mood. The nurse who greets him at the door doesn’t recognise him.
When asked who he is, Lachlan is tempted to snap, I’m the one who pays you, but keeps cool and polite, says he’s Jocelyn’s son.
‘Oh, I thought you were serving overseas,’ the nurse says, smiling warmly anyway. ‘Do you want some coffee?’
‘Uh, yes please.’ The house is newly upgraded to help his mom with whatever she needs, less stress for Margot. ‘How’s she been lately?’
‘She went for a walk on her own yesterday!’ the nurse tells him. ‘It was such a nice day.’