I feel like we’re separated by an ocean and I look at him helplessly.
He stares at me pointedly.
You’ve got this.
I take a breath.
I’m actually fine for the first twenty minutes of dinner. My mother is chatting across the table with Brand, my father focuses his attention on Nate, and I’m left pushing my food around my plate, but I’m perfectly happy with that. As long as he leaves me alone I’m happy with that.
Until William walks into the room.
I feel like the temperature drops twenty degrees when he enters, and a chill runs down my spine. I stop chewing, I stop breathing.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Camille,” William apologizes without a smile.
Ice water pumps through my veins at the sight of his face.
It’s strange. I’ve known him my entire life, and while he made me uneasy throughout my teen years, I never knew why. I never knew that I should fear him… until last year.
“It’s fine,” my mother answers, her distaste apparent. “You didn’t get back to me, so I assumed that you weren’t coming. Let me get you a place setting.”
She rises gracefully, and William circles the table to me.
“I’ll sit by Nora,” he announces.
My skin crawls as he bends and kisses my cheek.
Don’t touch me, you ugly Fucker.
I want to burn it off. I want to race out of the room, go straight to the kitchen, dig out some matches and set my face on fire….all to burn off his lip prints.
“Hello, my dear,” he murmurs as he sits down next to me. “You’re hard to get a hold of.”
I’m numb, frozen to my seat and all I want to do is bolt from my chair. William rests his arm on the back of my seat, his fingers lightly touching my back. As if he owns me. As if he has the right.
Across the room, Brand watches me like a hawk, his gaze intense, his eyes frozen to mine.
Are you ok?
I take a breath.
Yes. I nod, barely moving.
He stares at me still, unconvinced, ready to come to my aid.
He’s right. I’m not ok.
I’m not ok.
But I have to pretend like I am.
Appearances are everything.
I keep eating, ignoring my father and Nate and William. I keep eating, keep pretending that this isn’t happening, that I’m not at the same table, breathing the same air as the man who raped me mere months ago.
The man who raped me and then my father either didn’t believe me, or didn’t care.
My ears roar.
“Nora?” my dad raises his eyebrow. I can tell from his tone that this wasn’t the first time he said my name.
“Yes?”
My cheeks flush.
“William just asked you to go sailing with him tomorrow. He’d like to discuss the Chicago deal with you. Answer him, please.”
I look up at William and find him watching me with aging eyes. The wrinkles around his mouth tighten as he waits for my answer.
My stomach rolls.
I’m gong to throw up.
I swallow hard.
“You are the expert about that deal,” I say carefully. “I haven’t officially even started yet. William, you should discuss it with my father at this point.”
My father shoots daggers with his glare, but I ignore it and sip at my water.
I can do this.
Brand is still watching me, still waiting to come to my aid. But he can’t. Because this is a family affair. There’s nothing anyone can do.
“I’d rather discuss it with you,” William says, taking a swig of Scotch. “You’re more agreeable than your father. But if tomorrow doesn’t work for you, we’ll do it another time.”
I glance into his eyes and his are icy, dangerous. He’s pretending to be understanding now. It won’t last. When I’m alone with him… when I’m alone with him… when I’m alone.
My breath catches and I can’t take another one.
I’m frozen.
My mother comes to my aid.
“Nora, if you’re finished, can you come to my room? I’m taking a trip to France in a month or so and I’d like for you to look at something.”
Thankfully, I nod.
Yes.
Thank you, God.
William stands when I do, and he presses my hand as I leave, his thumb biting into the pad of my palm. Hard. A warning.
Don’t try and run from me.
Gratefully, I trail after my mother down the hall and I feel William staring at me as I leave. I don’t look back, instead, I numbly stop in the bathroom and scrub my hand where he touched it before I join my mother in her room.
Silently, I pray that Brand will be all right with the piranhas back in the dining room.
My mother brings several items from her closet and searches my face.
“Are you all right?”
I nod. “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
Because she doesn’t know. Because I’ll never tell her. It’s too awful. Too humiliating. No one can ever know.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened? I know something did.”
I paste a smile on. “Everything is fine. William is just… William.”
My mother nods, unconvinced.
“He’s difficult,” she agrees. “He always has been. He… er, he was slightly in love with me when I was dating your father, back when I first came from France.”
I stare at her in shock.
“Slightly in love? How can someone be slightly in love?”
My mother smiles tightly. “He was in love with me. He made some unwanted advances. I put him off. I was still in love with your father, you see.”
Her words are so telling. She was still in love with my father then, unlike now.
“If he ever harms you, you must tell me,” she instructs softly. “Don’t go to your father. Come to me.”
Her eyes are steely and determined, an expression I’ve never seen in them before. I stare into them, mesmerized.
“And what would you do?” I ask softly, before I can help myself.
“I would do what any mother would,” she says firmly. “I would take care of it.”
Her words send chills through my heart, because her face tells me she means it. Which further steels my resolve to never tell her. I can’t have her doing something crazy and getting into trouble because of me.
I shake my head, even though I desperately wish I could spill it all to her.
“No, it’s fine,” I assure her, every word a lie. “He hasn’t hurt me.”
Lies.
My mother walks to her closet and pulls out several new items of clothing. “I’ll be going to France in a month or so, darling. Would you like to go? You can get away from here. A break.”
She’s hopeful as she waits. But the only thing I can think of is Brand. I’ve only got a couple of months with him. I can’t waste them by going to France, as much as I’d love to get away from here. Permanently, actually.
I shake my head.
“Any other time and I would, maman,” I tell her. “But I can’t leave right now.”
She studies my face. “I see,” she says softly. “You can’t leave Brand Killien. I don’t blame you.”
She lays her clothes on the bed and pulls me over to look at them.
“There’s a lot to be said for strength and honor,” she tells me firmly, turning me around to look into my face. She pushes back a tendril of hair. “Money isn’t everything. In fact, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized… money isn’t anything.”
I shake my head and point to the pink outfit. “That one. And what are you talking about?”
She smiles, because she knows full well that I’m following her point.
“If you love someone, don’t let money or lack of money, stand in your way. Being a good person is far more valuable.”
It is. I know it is. And that’s the reason that I can’t truly be with Brand. He’s far t
oo good for me.
But I smile. “I know, maman. But why are you telling me these things? Your life has turned out okay, has it not?” I decide to go with the pretense that they’ve always kept, and that I’ve pretended to believe for the past decade.
She looks away, and for the first time, she doesn’t smile and gush about my father. Instead, she simply says, “Things aren’t always what they seem, my sweet.”
Her voice, so sad, startles me. “Are you ok?” I ask quickly. She smiles.
“Of course. I will be.” She glances at the clothing again. “So you think the pink over the coral?” She changes the subject and I let her.
Because things aren’t always what they seem and she doesn’t want to talk about it.
That’s ok. She’s got her secrets and her feelings and her sadness, and so do I.
So I certainly understand the need to pretend.
I smile. “The pink. It complements your eyes.”
And that is how we behave, almost always. Forget the issues, focus on the mundane. It’s how we’ve always survived.
Chapter Sixteen
Brand
Five minutes after Nora leaves with her mother, Maxwell approaches me.
“Come have a scotch,” he instructs me. It’s not a request.
I decide to humor him. What he has to say might be interesting.
I limp to the sidebar where he pours me a scotch. I down it in one gulp, thumping the glass onto the bar, and turning back toward my seat.
“Thanks for the drink.”
He grabs my elbow. I pause and stare pointedly at his hand and then at his face.
He lets go.
He’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid.
“Leave my daughter alone,” he says bluntly. “I know you’re having fun playing house, but you’re not what she needs. Just bow out gracefully.”
I turn back, his words stiffening my spine.
“I’m not what she needs?”
Maxwell shakes his head. To my left, I see Nate and William from my periphery. They’re trying to pretend they aren’t listening, but I know they are.
“You don’t have the first clue what she needs,” her father tells me icily. “You can’t possibly. You’re from another world, Killien.”
I almost laugh. “I was exactly what she needed last week when I pulled her from the wreckage of that café. You know, when you were standing outside not doing a thing to help.”
His jaw clenches and I see a vein tick in his forehead.
“She’s twenty-three years old. She doesn’t know what she needs. You’re clouding her vision. If you really cared for her, at all, then you’d leave her alone and let her focus on what’s important.”
Again, I almost laugh.
“She’s twenty-three years old. She’s old enough to know what she needs. Perhaps you’re the one who should leave her alone and let her figure it out.”
I start to walk to my chair again, but his next words stop me cold.
“I own her, Killien. And I’ll never let you be with her. Know that right now.”
His words are ice and I whirl back around, but Nate jumps from his chair and rushes to defuse the situation.
“I’m sorry, Brand. My father is overwhelmed with work right now—under a lot of stress. I’m sorry. Please… come sit with me and tell me about the Rangers. It must’ve been damn fascinating.”
I stare into Maxwell Greene’s face, at his emotionless eyes, at his fixed mouth. He’s a man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. I instantly take back my earlier thoughts that taking care of yourself is the smart thing to do. I never want to be Maxwell Greene.
I walk past him without another word, following Nate back to the table. William gets up to join Maxwell at the bar, leaving Nate and I alone.
“What is going on with this family?” I ask bluntly. “Nothing matters but business?”
Nate smiles an empty smile. “So you’ve caught onto that, huh?”
Like Nora, Nate has his mother’s blue eyes, but instead of red hair, his is blond, cut short. He’s tall and slim, and unlike Nora, I sense an ambitious hunger in him. With Nora, it’s like it’s something that makes her tired. She’s used to trying to please her father, but it’s not something she enjoys.
Nate seems to not only accept it, but thrive on it.
I nod. “Yeah. It’s pretty apparent.”
Nate chuckles. “Well, it’s been drilled into our heads since we were babies. Be a Greene. Do what it takes, and all that. The business has been passed down from generation to generation for several hundred years. Our family came over with Columbus, you know. We’ve got big shoes to fill.”
I glance over at Maxwell and William. They’re chatting quietly, in intense conversation. Probably discussing mergers and acquisitions and how to eat their competition for breakfast.
“What did your dad mean when he says that he owns Nora?” I ask suddenly. It was such a strange thing to say. Nate instantly looks uncomfortable.
“He shouldn’t have said that. He only meant… there’s a contract, we both have one. When we finished high school, we were given a contract to work at Greene Corp in exchange for our college tuition and trust funds. No big deal.”
No big deal?
“You had to sign a contract for your birthright?” I can’t even keep the shock out of my voice. I was right. Maxwell is just as fucked up as my father was, every bit as controlling.
Nate nods, nonplussed. “It was no big deal, particularly because we’ve known since we were kids that we would work for Greene Corp. It’s what we were born to do.”
I drop the subject because clearly Nate doesn’t see how fucked up it is.
Instead, I tackle a new one. Nate is being forthcoming with information, so I might as well push my luck for more.
“What’s the deal with William?”
Nate glances at me.
“What do you mean?”
I nod toward William and Maxwell. “He seems very…attached to Nora. And very…. I don’t know.”
Nate chuckles. “Yeah. He’s intense. He’s always been that way. And as far back as I remember, Nora’s been his favorite. He never got married and had kids of his own.”
Yeah. The way William had been looking at Nora wasn’t fatherly. But I