Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Martine Lilian Herron
I’m supposed to be in bed.
The command was simple: go to our room, take a bath, and then get under the covers and wait for him like a good little wife. And the moment the sound of the car tires faded into the distance, I slipped into the bath.
I wanted to be good, and I did. I tried to climb into bed and wait in the safety of our scents. I wanted to curl up and cry from the worry of my husband being out searching for my once dead and now missing brother, but I couldn’t.
I doused myself with bubble bath and lay in the warm bubbles until my skin wrinkled and the knot in my chest loosened.
But the persistent ache in my chest craved the comfort of cosying up with my friend. I needed to be with someone who I knew shared my pain and my worry just as viscerally.
So now, Dale and I are in the library. The fire is roaring, flames licking the grate with that luxurious, greedy hiss.
Dale and I are stretched out like two spoiled cats on the oversized velvet couch, swaddled in silk pajama sets and thick cashmere blankets.
Hers is midnight blue, mine a soft ivory that feels soothing and expensive on my skin.
Only the best from my husband.
She took a bath, too, and her skin finally has some color. Her smudged and messed-up makeup is cleaned off her face, and a bit of her usual devilish wit has returned. I see the faithful Dale thawing out under the worry that’s twisted up her features.
The staff keeps trying to feed us, but neither of us will eat. We’re too worried about the men, where they are. How much they accomplished.
Are they hurt? Do they need us? I can’t stomach anything other than worry, and yet the staff continues to try to comfort us with luxurious pastries and overbearing help, like worried mothers.
First, it was a tower of pastries stacked high and glazed, dusted with sugar.
Then it was a full tea service that we let go cold; the idea of Earl Grey and milk curdling in my stomach was something I couldn't force myself to endure.
Then, there were small finger sandwiches, stacked neatly on a platter, taunting us with their whipped cream cheese and perfectly sliced cucumbers.
“No,” I say, waving off the tower with a flick of my manicured fingers. “Bring us ice-cold gin martinis with a twist.”
The butler hesitates for half a second too long. I stare at him over the rim of my blanket until he disappears.
Dale snorts beside me. “This is so fucked.”
Neither of us can rest, pausing off and on for long moments of staring off into space to sniffle and cry.
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” I mutter quietly. That statement conveys all that I can give. Because I can’t, my husband is off on an impossible task to find my horrible uncle, and my brother, who, god knows what state he’s in. I can hardly stand it.
If it were about inheritance, Uncle Douglass could have it.
I don’t want any of it, and I know Ford is cunning enough to find a way to get it back from him.
Because now that he’s not dead, the inheritance would possibly belong to my brother?
I can’t be sure; I’m too confused to know what will happen with matters as serious as titles and the transfer of estates.
Hayden made a shocking point at our hastily arranged wedding, suggesting that I receive half of the Herron Empire. Although I don’t know what that entails, considering my daily experiences and the luxuries of our lifestyle, I understand that I’ll never want for a thing.
When the martinis arrive, they’re ice cold and perfect. Dale takes hers with both hands like it’s a chalice and takes a large gulp. I sip mine slowly, letting the gin melt across my tongue, the lemon peel bright and bitter.
After two small sips, I think fuck it and knock the whole damned thing back, immediately motioning for another.
We don’t talk much at first. The silence is warm here. The fire crackles, the gin loosens something in my ribs. There’s a knot in my gut that won't release until my husband and brother are home.
How far I’ve come from hating Hayden to sitting here, wrapped in a ball of worry, desperate for his safe return. When I met him, I despised his arrogance. I wanted to slap the smirk off his face. Now I can’t bear to be in a room without him. I feel like I can’t breathe without his instruction.
The first time he made me kneel, I wanted to vomit on his perfectly polished shoes. My body reacted as if it were rejecting the moment, a violent surge of emotion that I could barely contain. I remember how much I shook with fury and humiliation at his control.
But that hatred didn’t last. It twisted into something deeper the moment he touched me with purpose. He turned me into his through force, through dominance, through depravity I never knew I was capable of craving. And I have never loved him more for it.
He stole me, stripped me of my life, my choices, my name. And in that ruin, I bloomed and became something I never would have recognized. I became his.
It may have been insanity to succumb to the beast that is Hayden, but I fell into his obsession.
I allowed his desire for me to own and dominate my thoughts.
I became addicted to his infatuation. His fascination with me revealed a side of self-appreciation I never thought I was capable of.
I have never felt as powerful as I do under his deluded gaze.
It’s only our second round when I start to feel the flush in my cheeks.
The second martini disappears faster than the first, and I can feel it now—soft at the edges, a slow unraveling. My limbs are loose beneath the blanket, my thoughts fuzzed with gin and exhaustion.
I rub my feet together, trying to soothe myself through the worry. Dale sits silently, staring off into the fireplace with a glazed-over look.
The fire throws gold light across the room, and for a moment, I let myself pretend this is just an ordinary afternoon. That I’m not married to a man who would burn the world down for me, and that my brother isn’t a ghost coming back from the dead.
But it never lasts. The gnawing feeling returns, reminding me that my husband is off somewhere, enacting vengeance for my messed-up family dynamic.
I stare into the flames, my glass balanced on my stomach. “Do you think he’ll find Ford?”
Dale looks up from where she’s curled at the other end of the couch, eyes still glassy, cheeks flushed. “Hayden?”
I nod. We’re both tired and confused. I refuse to look away from the fire and sip at my gin, praying it makes all of my problems fade.
She shrugs, too slowly. “If anyone can, it’s them. I know they’ll find him. I know they'll find Ford.”
Her voice is quiet, bitter around the edges. I sit up slightly, narrowing my eyes.
“You’ve not been okay since learning Ford might be alive,” I state the obvious, the gin blurring my ability to combine words with grace.
“He was—” Dale cuts herself off, swallows hard. “He was important to me, and I know I haven’t mentioned, but Dex too…”
I don’t look away when I hear my brothers’ names. I won't. “What happened between you three?”
Dale’s gaze drops to her empty glass. She spins the stem between her fingers, then stops. She sets it on the table, and within moments the footman replaces it with another.
“Are you sure you want to know?” She asks hesitantly, and finally, I take in her face, for real this time. I see the pain, I know the worry, I take in the redness in her eyes and the puffiness of her cheeks, and I know. I need to know.
I nod.
“It was messy,” she says finally. “Ford used to come to my flat at Eulogia in the middle of the night, drunk or furious or both. Always needed something he couldn’t ask for out loud.”
“And you gave it to him?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Of course I did. He’s Ford,” she says. Like I would understand, forgetting he’s my brother.
There’s silence again—the fire crackles. Somewhere in the distance, a door closes—just the staff, I tell myself.
“And Dexter?” I ask, my voice quieter this time. I'm unsure of what I’m about to hear, but I know I need to nonetheless.
“It was complicated,” is all she says, leaving me more confused than when we started. It’s as though neither of us can bring ourselves to talk about Dex.
“What if Ford comes back and he’s not the same?” I whisper. “If Hayden’s right and Ford’s alive…what if he’s been twisted by whatever the Brotherhood had him do? Or whatever my uncle might have done?”
Dale doesn’t speak at first. She just watches the fire, her lips slightly parted, her hand tightening around the stem of her glass. I think she might stay silent, might bury whatever it is she’s been carrying. But then she exhales—long, slow, shaky.
“We both know there’s nothing that could break Ford. He was always being pulled in a thousand directions, and remained as cold and controlled as ever,” she says softly, perfectly encompassing Ford's anger in a single sentence.
I don’t interrupt. I can tell she needs to say it out loud. But I can hardly stop myself when the words spill out anyway.
“The idea of my protector, my cold savior, Ford, having feelings for someone is hard to comprehend. He was always so focused on maintaining our father's approval that I never thought he would have time for something emotional.”
Plus, he was always so flippant about women. Sleeping with entire sports teams and having a league of women waiting for a phone call back.
“For a long time, he hated me,” she continues, her voice sounding worn and brittle. “He thought I was a distraction. Some spoiled, desperate brat. He said it himself every chance he got.”
She pauses to take a sip of her martini, her hand trembling slightly.
“But then…there was a night,” she swallows, eyes flicking toward mine. “It was maybe six months before he was killed. Or disappeared. Whatever.”
“What happened?” I ask, almost afraid to hear it.