Begging for It

by Lilah Pace

  Weirdly, I feel like I’m looking at . . . a costume. She wants the world to see her as a fragile child, though I don’t know why. My first assumption would be that it’s for her own comfort, but I don’t think that’s the case here. No matter how perfectly this look has been assembled, Elise seems ill at ease within it.

  Then again, the situation they’re all in is reason enough for discomfort.

  “Who’s this?” Elise says, looking me up and down.

  Jonah’s hand brushes against my shoulder. “Elise, this is Vivienne Charles. Vivienne, my sister Elise Hale. ”

  “You’re going to love Vivienne,” Maddox promises. His mood seems to have lifted with the change of subject. “She’s great. ”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Pleasure to meet you, Elise. ”

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  She smiles, but the expression is stiff. I realize Maddox didn’t say I was going to love her.

  “When is Rebecca phoning in?” Jonah says as we step into the living room.

  “About—ten minutes? Let me put out some wine and cheese. ” Maddox sighs. “We could use the wine, at least. ”

  Unsurprisingly, Maddox’s house is as spectacular as his nightclub. While the view beyond the windows dazzles, it’s the interior I like best. I see the same sort of earthy colors as in the Orchid, but paler—more sand than stone. The furnishings look to be made of reclaimed wood, or are restored antiques recovered in modern fabrics. Everything looks classic and yet comfortable too. On the floor is a batik rug; on the walls are bookshelves, laden with well-loved novels. This is the home I’d expect for a novelist or a scholar of means, not a nightclub owner. “Your place is gorgeous, Maddox. ”

  “Thank the decorator. ” He points toward Elise. “She did the club too. ”

  I’m startled. Elise looks like she’s deliberately divorced herself from any sense of style—and she’s a professional decorator? Then again, this apartment is proof that she knows her stuff. I guess a talented professional always tries to think like her client. “You translated Maddox’s spirit,” I say. “That’s amazing. ”

  “Oh. ” Her smile gentles. Only then do I realize some of her reserve is insecurity. “Thank you. ”

  “Just wait until she opens her own design business,” Maddox says as he puts a large cheese board on the coffee table in front of the taupe suede couch where we’re all sitting. “Soon she’ll be a decorating star. Maybe we can wrangle you one of those HGTV shows. ”

  I laugh. “You know, I could see it. ” Certainly Elise is beautiful enough for TV. She just needs an injection of glamour.

  Elise ducks her head, runs her hand along the bare nape of her neck. “I’m not in any hurry. ”

  Sounds normal enough, but both Jonah and Maddox stare at her. After a moment, Jonah sighs—disappointed, but not surprised. Maddox is the one who’s angry. “You said this year. Which is only a couple days from being next year, but I figured, hey, it takes some time—”

  “I have certain advantages at Chapel and Associates, you know?” she says. Each word sounds brittle, on the verge of breaking. “Corporate accounts, health insurance—”

  “Come on,” Maddox snaps. “You’re a millionaire, Elise. What the hell are you worrying about insurance for?”

  It’s not Elise who answers; it’s Jonah. “She doesn’t need it. Griffin does. ”

  As soon as Jonah pronounces the name Griffin, Elise snaps. “How many times do I have to have this conversation today? Don’t we have other priorities?”

  Maddox looks like he’s ready to argue, but Jonah speaks first. “You’re right. This isn’t the time. ”

  Normally Jonah wouldn’t back off so quickly, especially not when he feels as strongly as he seems to feel about Elise’s significant other. But I think he actually backed off because they have so much other family business to deal with. The longer I look at Elise, the more I understand her look. She doesn’t try to hide her fragility; she demands that the world see it and acknowledge, on some level, that she has been broken.

  “Fine, fine. ” Maddox surrenders. “It’s almost time anyway. ” He opens his laptop and sits on the sofa on the other side of Jonah. As soon as he signs in to Skype, we get the signal for an incoming call. Maddox hits the key to answer, then grins. “There you are. ”

  “Here I am,” says Rebecca.

  My first, uncharitable thought is that Jonah got the looks in the family. Not that Rebecca’s hideous or anything: Plain is the word my mother would use. Her features strongly resemble Jonah’s, only more delicate—long face, strong cheekbones, dark hair contrasting with fair skin and pale eyes, though hers are blue instead of gray. She wears a simple white tank top, her hair in a messy bun, no makeup, and a rose-gold pendant around her neck, in the shape of a crescent moon. There’s absolutely nothing about her that would make anyone look twice.

  She’s a botanist at work in the field, you ass, I remind myself. Probably she’s been digging in tropical heat for hours by now. Should she have worn Versace for the occasion?

  Then Rebecca returns Maddox’s smile, and in that one instant I realize—when she chooses, Rebecca Marks can be radiant.

  Her voice is shaded with static; it’s not a great connection. “Hi, everyone. Who’s the newcomer? You don’t look like a lawyer. ”

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  “She isn’t,” Jonah says. “This is Vivienne. ”

  “Oh. Hi, Vivienne. ”

  “Hey there. ”

  So, Jonah told at least one of his sisters about me, and she must have liked what she’d heard. Rebecca’s eyes shift between me and Jonah knowingly, but she doesn’t derail the conversation to tease him. Instead, her smile fades as she says, “All right, let’s go ahead and spoil our day already. What’s going on with Carter?”

  “Short version,” Maddox says, “Jonah was questioned in regard to—some crimes in Austin. He’s innocent, which we would know anyway, but Vivienne here can absolutely confirm for us and for the police, since she was with him across town at the time. But Carter doesn’t believe Vivienne, or he doesn’t want to, because he thinks he can use this to his advantage. ”

  “You mean he wants to use the morality clause to rob Jonah of his part of the trust,” Rebecca says.

  Elise nods. “Precisely. ”

  “He’s doomed to failure, obviously,” Maddox continues. “However, he could cause a lot of trouble for Jonah in between. ”

  “What else can he do?” I ask. “Legally, I mean. ” Other than offering Jonah the buyout, it seems like Carter has nothing else to try.

  “Not much, but he can feed the story to a tabloid or TMZ,” Elise says. “He’s done it before. There’s not one of us he won’t rake across the coals if it earns him a few lines of sympathetic press. If he went public with this? Jonah would have to live with all the shame of a conviction, even though he’s done nothing. ”

  Maddox swears under his breath. “Basically, he’s blackmailing Jonah for something Jonah didn’t do. ”

  “He thinks I’m guilty. ” Jonah’s expression is grim. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m innocent. In the end, nothing’s going to happen to me. I’d rather this were kept secret, but I don’t want any of you putting yourselves on the line to protect me from—harassment, nothing more. ”

  “And show Dad he can divide-and-conquer us?” Maddox retorts. “No way. We stick together no matter what. ”

  “That’s the only thing he ever taught us,” Elise says, too lightly. “And it’s the only lesson he never wanted us to learn. I love it when we prove he doesn’t actually control our entire lives. ”

  Jonah shakes his head. “Carter controls the board of trustees. That’s enough. ”

  Rebecca leans forward, her oval face filling the laptop screen. “You guys aren’t thinking strategically. ”

  They all stare at her, genuinely taken aback. I can believe that this soft-spoken, no-nonsense scientist doesn’t get into the family drama often—and I’ve already heard them talking about how har
d they try to keep her out of it. Right now, however, her blue eyes are bright, and the flush in her cheeks testifies to the emotion pent up inside.

  Jonah finally asks, “Strategy?”

  “The best defense is a good offense,” Rebecca says. “We have to go after him. Screw with his head for a change, and see how he likes it. ”

  Elise sighs. “As much as I like the sound of that—and I like it a lot—what are we supposed to go after him with? Say he made up all the stories about Mom? We know he didn’t. ”

  “We could come up with something,” Maddox says. A frown line appears between his eyes. “Say he—he came to us with some plan to go around the board of directors? Like he’s screwing with the business? There’s a meeting of the Oceanic board tomorrow; he’s planning to fly out of town immediately afterward. Instead we could go in there, bust it up, turn them against him. ”

  “I don’t know enough corporate law to make that convincing. ” Jonah’s voice is heavy. “You’re more of a businessman than I am, Mad, but I doubt you could pull it off either. ”

  In disbelief, I look from one to the other. Why isn’t anyone suggesting the obvious? Then it hits me—to them, it isn’t obvious. It wouldn’t have been obvious to me either, until very recently. Not until I fell for Jonah and learned this painful, precious lesson: Honesty is the only way out. No matter how deep it cuts, no matter how much you bleed, the truth can still save you. It’s the only thing that can.

  “Guys?” I begin. They all turn toward me; obviously nobody expected me to chime in, but nobody tells me to butt out either. “If you want to take Carter down, you can’t use his methods. You have to be better than that. More fearless. ”

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  “What do you mean?” Elise says. Jonah straightens, no doubt realizing what I’m about to say. I give him one second to stop me if I’m going too far—and I might be. But he doesn’t say a word.

  So I take a deep breath and finish. “Carter’s prepared to go public with a lie? Then we tell him you’re prepared to go public with the truth. ”

  It’s as if a lightning bolt crashed into this room. All of them gape, and my hair stands on end, as if charged. Maddox manages to speak first. “When you say the truth—”

  “She means the truth,” Rebecca says. Her blue eyes blaze through the computer screen. As quiet as this woman first seemed to me, now I see the steel in her. “We tell the world what he did to our mother, what he did to us. We tell everyone what really happened inside Redgrave House. All of it. ”

  Elise starts shaking her head no, but she looks toward Maddox for guidance. Maddox says, “You realize there’s no taking that back. Ever. ”

  “That’s the point, Mad. ” The fury in Jonah’s face is close to joy. Closer to danger. This is Jonah the predator, the one who gets off on power, domination and control. I’ve only ever seen him like this in bed. It scares me as much as it turns me on. “That’s exactly what Vivienne is saying. If we want to defeat Carter, half measures won’t do. No temporary fixes. No, we have to go nuclear. We have to destroy him. ”

  Seventeen

  We walk back into the Hale Hotel Group building the next day, barely pausing at the security desk. “We’re going up,” Maddox says to the guards—not unpleasantly, but in a tone that doesn’t allow for argument. I’m alongside Maddox, while Elise brings up the rear. Her deliberately childlike appearance is even more strikingly odd in this building, where she contrasts so strongly with the polished black stone around us.

  Jonah’s three steps ahead of everyone else. The nearest guard only manages to unlock the turnstile in the moment before Jonah strides through it. His shoulders are braced like a boxer preparing to go back into the ring.

  I hope that’s a metaphor. I’m not sure. The scarcely bottled tension within Jonah is clearly on the verge of exploding.

  Only after the elevator doors shut around us does Maddox mutter, “I’m not as sure about this as you guys. ”

  Jonah looks at him, his eyes like steel. He doesn’t want anyone to get in his way—not even his beloved brother. “If you’re having second thoughts, say so now. ”

  “I’m not going to back down,” Maddox insists. The glowing numbers over the doors mark ever-higher stories; I swallow to pop my ears. “Just making sure we’re all clear this is going to be the biggest shitshow any of us has ever seen. ”

  Elise sighs. “I’m not looking forward to being hounded by the paparazzi either. But it’s not going to come to that. Is it?”

  Jonah turns toward them. “You both need to be clear on this: If Carter calls our bluff, we’re going through with it. ” He emphasizes every word, like separate shots from a gun. “If either of you backs down, that’s it. We’re done. And once Carter thinks he can get away with this, he’ll believe he can get away with anything. ”

  “He has gotten away with everything. ” Elise sounds sharper, harder—more knowing. I think this is the first time I’ve heard her true voice.

  “Until now. We stop it here. ” Jonah looks at his two siblings, whose uncertainty is far clearer in this small private space. Grandstanding for the crowd is one thing; facing down something harsh one-on-one is a hell of a lot harder. I watch his expression change as he finally remembers himself for a moment. “I realize you’re taking this step only to protect me. Thank you for that. ”

  “It’s not just for you. ” Maddox’s laugh breaks off, awkward and unfinished. “Like you said, if this doesn’t work, we’re all done. You’re just the first one on Dad’s chopping block. He still means to break us eventually. Each and every one of us. So we stand up now. ”

  A silence falls. They’re going ahead with this—I know that—but I also know how completely freaked-out they all feel. Even Jonah. His fury masks deeper, less obvious emotions, but by now I understand this man enough to realize what he’s enduring inside. I felt some shadow of it when Jonah confronted Anthony—the first time anyone confronted my rapist about exactly what he’d done to me. I felt exhilaration, yes, and power too, but also a sick kind of fear. Before that I knew the boundaries of my suffering as well as a longtime prisoner must know the dimensions of his cell. When the truth came out, I realized everything would change. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the pain you already know.

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  As it turns out, things seem to have changed for the better. Yet I didn’t know it when we stood on my parents’ lawn, my heart pounding as Jonah finally saw Anthony for what he really was. Then I felt as if I had just been pushed over a cliff.

  And even I have never had the strength to confront Anthony myself, in my own voice, the way they’re about to confront Carter Hale.

  “Sometimes—” I begin, and they all three stare at me. “Sometimes there are secrets we keep to protect other people. But sometimes there are secrets we have to tell to protect ourselves. ”

  Maddox nods, but absently. He’s so focused on the confrontation ahead that he can’t really hear me. Elise, however—it’s like she’s on the verge of anger, asking me where the hell I get off, lecturing her on how to deal with this. I couldn’t blame her if she felt that way. But even as she opens her mouth, I see comprehension sink in. Elise might not have discovered exactly what happened in my past, but she knows we share enough for me to understand.

  Jonah’s gray eyes meet mine. I expect to see the same empathy there, maybe mixed in with his anger for Carter. Instead what I see is a fury that goes so deep it frightens me. It’s as if, in this instant, Jonah has forgotten how to feel anything but hate.

  I used to think he was so cool, so untouchable. But now I wonder whether Jonah is like one of the dormant volcanoes he studies—solid as stone, proud as a mountain, seemingly implacable but with a fire deep within that could erupt at any time.

  I reach for his hand—his touch would reassure me—but that’s when the elevator stops and opens the door with a chime. The show is on.

  We can hear Carter’s voice from the boardroom as we walk down the hallway. Various
scurrying interns and secretaries part to clear our way like the Red Sea around Moses. “If we call a shareholder meeting, within the—” Carter’s drone shifts up an octave as he sees us walk in. “What are you doing here?”

  “Final negotiations,” Jonah replies.

  Carter laughs. “You’re in no position to negotiate. ”

  But Jonah isn’t so easily baited. “We’ll see. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I apologize for the intrusion. This won’t take long. ”

  A dozen people in polished business suits stare at us like we just spilled out of a clown car. Clearly most of them know who Jonah, Maddox, and Elise are, but none of them have the slightest clue why we’ve shown up today. Carter looks down at the tablet in front of him, like some data for review is more important than anything we could possibly say.

  Jonah addresses the room. “Mr. Hale has made a buyout offer for my share of the trust, which would give him a controlling interest in Oceanic. Although he’ll deny it, he intends to release false information about me if I don’t accept the offer. ”

  Carter looks up then, squinting at Jonah. He believes in Jonah’s guilt so deeply that he can’t comprehend the confidence he sees.

  As for Jonah, he sounds . . . reasonable. Measured. He has banked down his anger so that he can get close enough to deliver the killing blow.

  “Should Mr. Hale take this step,” Jonah continues, “my siblings and I will feel obligated to release some completely true information about Mr. Hale. It will be personal. It will be graphic. If it weren’t for the statute of limitations, it would be criminal. And it will be, without question, the biggest scandal this company has ever seen. We are all prepared to sign affidavits, to speak to the press, and to testify in court if necessary. You should understand—if it comes to that, there is very little question that this board would be compelled to ask Mr. Hale to step down as CEO. ”