Chapter 12
I realized I was moving, but my feet weren’t on the ground. The world rotated sideways, a slow, gentle roll, and for a split second I thought we were back on the plane. Or in a dream.
I then detected the cold bite of frost through my jacket, the jostle and hold of strong arms. This was real.
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids had the weight of wet sandbags and the first attempt failed.
The second got me a blurry flash of night sky, lit in that familiar high-contrast way that wasn’t possible in a big city like Boston or Chicago.
A squinting view of a porch light in the distance alerted me to the fact that we, presently, had arrived in Texas and were approaching Alaric’s front door.
It occurred to me, in a dim, underwater way, that Alaric had carried me bridal style out of the car.
I heard voices—Alaric’s, low and steady above me, and another, probably Brad’s, soft but insistent behind us. I tried to follow the conversation, but all I caught was the suggestion of “—I hope she—” and “—fine, I’ve got her—” before the cold air bit harder and my horizontal angle shifted again.
By the time we got to the porch, I was considerably more awake. I could feel the weird curvature of my body, my knees locked in their own private argument about whether to stay bent or straighten out and take over. My shoes were about to fall off.
I also realized, with slow horror, that I might’ve been drooling onto the lapel of Alaric’s jacket.
He made it to the threshold, then paused, shifting his hold on me just enough that my sense of gravity, space, and time returned.
“Please, put me down,” I muttered, the words barely clearing my lips. “I’m awake.”
Alaric looked down at me, hesitated, then complied. He set me down gently so that I could, with great dignity, stagger upright and then promptly toe off my shoes in the entryway of his cozy house.
I made for the nearest sofa, and was about to collapse onto it when I caught sight of the bar. The bar. A shrine to bad decisions and overcorrections. It called to me.
Rerouting, I ignored the hum of voices behind me (Alaric, and the driver, Brad, quietly conferring about something I would almost certainly refuse to care about in the morning), and zeroed in on the liquor bottles.
I reached for the clearest, most threatening-looking vodka, unscrewed the cap, and poured half of a rocks glass.
The label was some Cyrillic thing I’d never seen before, with a gold-leaf seal and a band of embossed velvet around the neck. Clearly expensive. Maybe even rare.
I drank it in one go. The vodka hit my tongue and I braced for the burn. But there was no burn, just a smooth slide of impossibly clean flavor.
“Huh.” I inspected the bottle again. Vodka wasn’t meant to be sipped, as a rule. But I would sip this vodka.
I was so impressed, I immediately poured myself a second and raised the glass to my lips.
Before I could drink, my movements stalled at the sound of Alaric’s voice from somewhere behind me. “Pour me one, too, please.”
Turning, glass in hand, I found standing just inside the front door, hands in his pockets. He looked tired. Brad wasn’t anywhere I could see, and a second later the faint crunch of tires on gravel told me he’d left for the night.
Alaric stepped fully into the room while I dutifully poured him a glass, then walked it over to him, maintaining a careful, measured gait. I didn’t wish to spill theoretically thousands of dollars of potato juice on the floor.
He accepted his drink, nodded his thanks, and sat down on the sofa opposite where I stood, folding himself into the space with a minimum of wasted movement. I also sat, pulled my knees up, and stared into my drink.
We simply existed together for a while in one of our lengthy silences, and I realized this had become comfortable.
When had our stretches of staring, waiting wordlessness become serene?
Had it been before or after the hot chocolate and the tales of Alaric’s favorite food?
Perhaps it had been the hug on the roof, his trickery after, or the heavenly kiss on my forehead.
So many times since yesterday, we’d shared quiet. Or, I guess, technically, the day before yesterday. It was now past midnight.
Alaric sipped from his glass, watching me over the rim in a way that reminded me cats staring at lasers. Focused. Interested. Invested.
I sipped my own drink, savoring the clean, glacial flavor.
Look at me, savoring flavor. It only took six years, and an exploitative contract enforced by my former childhood nemesis. . . and crush.
I felt my lips hook up at the sides as I stared at Alaric.
I’d called him my nemesis way back when, but I hadn’t recognized or accepted that I’d had feelings for him until very recently.
Perhaps one of the reasons I’d been so vehement about labeling him as my nemesis was because of the feelings.
Hatred could be harnessed for strength. But admiration and attraction? Those made me weak.
“I’m sorry I took you there tonight without knowing the whole story.” He was the first to speak. “I am. . . very sorry about that. It was thoughtless of me.”
I waved the apology away.
Some people were like a cut that refused to heal. Duke Weston fell into this category. The more you thought about it, or gave it any attention, the more aggravated the laceration became.
Long ago, I’d decided I was done with Janet Marley and Phillip Rye. Besides, I’d already had my revenge. Thus, I rarely, if ever, allowed myself to think about either of them.
If I did, if I allowed even the tiniest period of contemplation about all the various ways they’d hurt me, I suspected I’d find the wound still fresh, the tear even deeper and more jagged than their original cut.
But Gladys Campbell was another story.
She was the real reason I wanted to get back to my stable existence in Chicago.
I didn’t want another situation over the next two days where I would be confronted by sudden and inescapable grief.
I’d structured my entire life to avoid it, especially after Viv died.
It was just my bad luck that Janet and Phillip had initiated their betrayal around the same time as Viv’s sickness, and I’d discovered them cheating the week after my sister’s funeral.
Therefore, I’d decided something about the remaining term of our contract, and there was no point in waiting to tell Alaric. “Listen. I’ve decided that I’m not going to close down the Weston Company and lay everyone off.”
His lips parted but he didn’t speak at first. My announcement had definitely surprised him.
I’d resuscitate the Weston Company using my independent contractor team in New Haven.
They could fly down here, handle everything.
There was no need for me to have direct oversight for such a small, insignificant project.
Not when I wasn’t getting anything tangible—like revenge or massive profits—out of it.
I would call it my good deed for the decade in honor of my old mentor, Gladys Campbell, and leave it at that.
When Alaric did finally speak, it was with a careful, almost reverent disbelief. “You’re not?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m going to invest in it and try to turn it around. Once it’s restructured and safe, I’ll probably sell it. But I’ll make sure it’s not preyed upon in the future, to the best of my ability.”
He blinked. “You will?”
I shrugged, pretending it was no big deal, even as my capitulation rippled dull and cold with mild resentment beneath my skin. “And if you need me to write that on a scrap piece of paper or a napkin or something as an IOU, I will.”
He laughed—soft, a little stunned. “That’s—that’s fantastic.”
I gave him a moment to absorb my news. Hopefully, after this brief conversation, we’d part and never have occasion to speak again.
This man seemed to know me too well, saw too much, and understood everything.
I didn’t want someone like him in my life.
Who would want a mirror like that? Always shoving a reflective surface in my face, never allowing me to move on from my choices and bad luck.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mission accomplished. Good job. You convinced me to change my mind and it only took you a day and some intense emotional manipulation.” Sarcasm my only shield, I gave him a little bow of surrender. But just the neck. “So, can we go ahead and end this?”
After tonight, I planned to forget about him and these emotionally grueling twenty four-hours.
He blinked again, frowning, and set his glass down on the low table between us. “What do you mean? End what?”
“This.” I gestured, vaguely, at the air between us. “The contract. The participation. You got what you wanted, right?”
“I got one thing I wanted, correct. But not everything.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, what else do you want? Please don’t tell me I have to let Duke off the hook, too. Let him keep his mansion?”
Alaric leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, scooting to the edge of the sofa cushion. “Of course not. You can demolish his mansion and kick him out if you want. I won’t stand in your way.”
“Then what else do you want?” I grit out, feeling subtle tendrils of desperation unfurl low in my stomach. I couldn’t go through another day like today. It was too much to ask of anyone, let alone a miserly hermit like me.
He smiled faintly at my display of grumpiness. “If I tell you, if I explain, then I definitely won’t succeed.”
I felt like throwing my hands up. “That makes no sense. I’m willing to negotiate here. Just tell me what it is and I’ll see what I can do.”
He seemed to think about it, then shook his head, resolute. “No. I’m sorry, no. The contract stands. We still have two days.”
Glaring at him, a flush of heat crept up my neck. I huffed a bitter laugh, tears pricking at the edges of my vision. Obviously, I blinked them back.