26. Elyse #2
I’m quiet for a moment. “It’s not a matter of trusting,” I say finally. “It’s just—I don’t want to burden you with my problems.” It’s more than that, really. I don’t ever want him to think I’m dropping hints about our dire financial straits or that I’m some kind of gold digger with a sob story.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he says. “No one has more secrets than my family. But you could never be a burden. You can share anything with me.”
I decide right here and now that I’ll tell him the nuts and bolts of our situation but none of the financial strain. “My sister had an accident a few months back,” I say in a rush. “She got knocked off her bike by a hit-and-run driver.” I glance up at him to see his face draining of color.
“Jesus,” he says in a strangled voice, coming to a halt in front of a closed door. “That’s horrific. Did they catch the driver?”
I shake my head. He’s staring at me in horror.
“You’re kidding me. Was she okay, though?”
“I mean, she lived, but not really. She shattered her hip and her pelvis. She’s had major reconstructive surgery but the rehab is seriously tough. She has a little girl—”
“Your niece. I remember.”
“Yeah. Fleur. She’s five. So obviously, that made things more complicated.
We all agreed together that they’d move back in with my dad, because his place is single-story, and that I’d move back home, too.
It made sense. There’s a lot of stuff she needs help with that you don’t want your dad getting involved with, if you catch my drift. ”
He’s staring down at me. “Jesus, that’s so rough. So you’re all living together…”
“… in my childhood home. Got it.”
“Where were you living before?” he asks, turning the knob and opening the door so we can enter a spacious, wood-paneled study.
“Hell’s Kitchen. But, honestly, it’s kinda nice to be home, you know? I don’t mind it. We’re in Bayonne, and we’ve lived there all our lives. We have a good support system. Sometimes it’s nice to be out of Manhattan.”
“Tell me about it. So… how is everyone doing? Your sister? Your dad?”
“We’re good.” I give a decisive nod as if I’m trying to convince us both.
Barely solvent, but good. “My sister is working from home. I take her to PT. My dad and I juggle the school run for Fleur around work—he has an auto repair shop nearby. Everyone pitches in, and it just about works. I honestly think it’s been good for Dad in a weird way, having the house full of his girls again.
” I don’t mention that, for every extra ounce of joy it’s brought him, it’s probably added a pound of stress.
“Yeah.” Sinclair turns me so he can slide a hand beneath my hair and tilt my face up. It feels like he’s studying me hard, reading my face like a polygraph. “How long since your mom passed, again?”
“Three years.” I screw up my face. “So it’s good for him, to keep busy. But that’s why I haven’t been able to sleep over. It’s hard, with Sylvie still so deep in recovery.”
“I get it.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I can’t even imagine. Is Fleur’s father in the picture at all?”
“No,” I say, and he shakes it again.
“How did you get away, in the end?”
I smile up at him. “My mom’s best friend moved in for the weekend.
She and her husband are family—he’s worked with my dad for over thirty years.
Anyway, Auntie Glo—that’s what we call her—is sleeping in my childhood twin this weekend, right next to Sylvie, so she can help her go to the bathroom and shower.
She’s brought mountains of food and has big plans.
I think she might just be an angel sent from heaven. ”
“I am so very glad,” he says, his hand moving through my hair, “that you have someone in your life you can lean on, because it sounds like everyone else is leaning on you.”
“No, that’s not it,” I protest. “Honestly, it’s a team effort. It’s just good that I mainly work in the evenings, because it frees up my days to be available. And I do my casting calls when Fleur is at school, so it’s all good. It works.” Just about.
But he’s shaking his head. “And now I’m demanding all of your time, too. It’s the last thing you need.”
“You kind of make it worth my while,” I whisper, beaming at him.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Just about.” I want to tell him that my evenings in his apartment have brought me back to life, that they’re the most selfish, indulgent, heavenly thing about my entire existence. But I don’t.
“Well then,” he says, “I’m glad I managed to lure you away to my evil lair for a couple nights. Sounds like it’s about time you took a break.”
“I’m glad, too.”
He bends and presses the softest kiss to my mouth. “Speaking of evil lairs, this is Voss HQ, location for generation upon generation of evil masterminding.”
I look around. It’s a very impressive space, slightly dark, given all the wood paneling. But impressive, in any case, heavy on oil paintings (more sailboats) and carved wood. In the center of the room sits an enormous desk, topped with green leather, its gilded borders mostly rubbed away.
“It looks like a regular rich-person study to me,” I say.
“Such an innocent. You have no idea. My parents—particularly my mother—and my grandfather and his father have ruined a million lives from that desk right there.” He releases me and walks over. “See this stamp?”
I go to join him. On the desk is an old-timey ink pad and rubber stamp. “Please tell me it’s not an Alchemy stamp. That would be too weird.”
He throws back his head and laughs. “No. Far worse. It’s a Voss stamp. Look.” He opens the ink pad and presses the stamp onto it, hard. “Hand.”
I hold mine out, and he stamps me in the same way that I stamp him each night at Alchemy, only, when he removes the stamp, it’s not a red “A” but an ornate black “V” surrounded by a crest-like shape. I stare down at it.
“It’s official,” Sinclair says. “You’re Voss property now. I own you.”
I smile up at him. I like the sound of that.
He puts down the stamp and picks up another one, turning it over so I can see the underside.
It’s the same image forged in brass. “This is the proper one,” he says.
“The wax version. When my mom wants to silence someone, or erase someone, or ruin a life, she uses the wax. God forbid a letter shows up in your mailbox with a wax Voss seal on it. You know you’re done for. ”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” I say, searching his face. Suddenly, the room feels colder, more ominous.
Something shutters over his face. “Just remember, you don’t secure a place like this in society without being willing to do what it takes.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, “but you’re not like that, right?” Every instinct in my body tells me Sinclair is a straight-down-the-line kind of guy, whatever sins his ancestors have committed to get him here.
He gives a little laugh, but it doesn’t sound like he’s amused. He turns my hand over so that the stamp is hidden and, dipping his head, presses a long, slow kiss to my palm. When he lifts his head, his face is brighter.
“The point is, there are some pretty freaky ghosts in here, so we should probably exorcise the place.”
I think I see where this is going. “Any idea of how we do that?”
“Yeah, and it’s a good one.” He pats the edge of the desk suggestively. “I’m going to need you to hop up here for me like a good girl.”