by Elodie Colt
“That’s what I told my brother, too, which is why I took his phone and locked it up in my desk drawer,” Nick says in a fake musing tone.
“Ah, that’s why he hasn’t called for the last five minutes.”
There’s a scraping sound at the other end of the line, and I can practically see him scratching his chin.
“Can we meet for coffee or something?” he asks.
I look down, jamming the tip of my Converse into the ground. “I’m not in the mood for a chat.”
“Could have fooled me,” he mutters. “Listen, there’s a lot you don’t know about—”
“Exactly,” I slice in. “I don’t know shit about Nathan, contrary to him keeping a spy on retainer to watch me picking my nose through my fucking bedroom window.”
“Fair enough, but…”
The rest of his words fade into nothing as a dragonfly drops down from the sky to land on my left hand. Every tendon in me stiffens as my gaze follows a green body down to an electric-blue tail. The dark marks on its iridescent wings vibrate with the fast flaps as it tapers its black, ball-like eyes at me. I stumble back a step.
“Crawly…” I mutter in astonishment. How can it be that my favorite dragonfly is still alive?
“What?” Nick says from the other end of the line. “Come on, Ella. Let’s meet at a café and talk things out. You can’t be angry at Nathan forever.”
Crawly tips its head as if scrutinizing me before he soars into the air and vanishes in the cloudless sky. Snapping my gaze back to the lake, I blink.
That was a sign. You can’t ignore it.
“Ella?” Nick repeats when I babble something incomprehensible into the speaker.
“Okay,” I croak when I find my voice again. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”
Nick is already seated at one of the black bistro tables when I enter the Italian Pasticceria in Downtown Manhattan (because ‘café’ wouldn’t do the upscale place with baristas scurrying around in bow ties justice).
Inhaling the scent of freshly brewed coffee and molten caramel, I weave through the modern-diner-feel place and take one of the padded seats opposite Nick. He closes the newspaper he’s been reading and sets it aside while I grab a chocolate cookie from the plate next to his cinnamon-vanilla-cream-whatever latte and fling it into my mouth.
He grins, opening the buttons of his suit jacket and reclining in his chair. “Coffee?”
“Depends. Can I get a regular cappuccino here without all that stuff?” I point at the colorful sprinkles and the little mint leaf on top of his bowl-like glass.
“Should be doable,” he says, snapping his fingers to get the waiter’s attention and place my order.
I drum my fingers onto the table as I listen to the faint whir of a frothing machine in the background while Nick slurps his coffee, shooting me a glance from under his lashes.
He licks the foam from his lips before he says, “You know that my brother is madly in love with you, right? As in crazily, violently, psychotically in love?”
“Clearly,” I deadpan despite the warmth spreading in my chest. “For whatever fucked-up reason, I seem to have this impact on men. They lose their sanity and turn from nice guy to creepy stalker within the blink of an eye.”
He broods over my words for a moment. “While I don’t approve of how Nathan handled the situation, I can’t blame him for his actions. He was worried sick when he found out that Sokolov was still in the picture. He would have never gone to such lengths if he hadn’t feared for your life. All things considered, it wasn’t the worst choice he made, was it?”
“Maybe not, but it shattered my trust in him. That, and the fact that I’ve unknowingly signed up for a competition with his ex.”
He shakes his head. “Aiko is a loose cannon that Nathan hadn’t seen coming. He’s trying to keep her at arm’s length, but she’s too egocentric, exuberant, and disgustingly jealous to stay out of his life. My guess? She took the job for Sharipova because she smelled an opportunity to reconcile with Nathan, and he doesn’t know how to keep you out of the line of fire.”
I lean back to make room for the waiter who places a cappuccino in a curvy-handled cup and a glass of water in front of me.
“Well, he could start with not pushing me into the line of fire.” Steam rises up my face when I take the cup and slurp the froth. “After all, she egged him on about me allegedly stealing a ring.”
Nick’s gaze travels to my ringless fingers. “You’ve got this all wrong, Ella. He doesn’t think you stole from him.” Leaning forward, he props his elbows onto the table. “Why didn’t you tell him where you got the ring from? It might have cleared things up from the beginning.”
“Why didn’t he tell me why he even considered the possibility that I wore his ring?” I counter.
“It is a yellow gold ring with an alexandrite in the middle and diamonds surrounding it, yes?”
I huff, cocking my head to the side. “Yes. Just like thousands of others that presumably exist on this planet.”
Nick chuckles under his breath. “No two jewels are exactly alike, Ella. We can tell the difference, and Nathan knows that ring better than any other jewel in his gallery.”
“Why?” I ask, flicking a nail against my cup. “Because someone snatched it from his treasured sixth nook?”
Nick pinches his chin, his gaze on the table. “The number six only plays a small part in this story. The ring went missing shortly before our father went to prison fifteen years ago. It wasn’t the most valuable piece in Vincent’s collection, but it was his favorite. His own creation, you know? He’d unearthed the alexandrite from Russia’s Ural Mountains himself. When we realized that the ring was gone, the NYPD turned the entire building upside down. The investigation lasted months, but we never found the thief. It was only after Vincent returned, more than a decade later, that he admitted he took it himself to give it to someone dear to him.”
I listen to Nick’s story with keen interest, sipping my coffee.
“Let me get this straight…” I set my cup back down. “The ring got lost fifteen years ago, a long time before I even knew that Nathan Crawford existed when I still lived on the other end of the world, and he’s accusing me of stealing a ring from him that was never stolen in the first place?”
“He’s not accusing you of anything, Ella,” he repeats, slowly pronouncing each word. “But maybe, just maybe, the same ring that Dad gave away all this time ago, found its way back to you, as impossible as it may seem.”
I snort, shaking my head at the absurdity. But then something starts to move in my brain, slowly grating on my memories like the bean grinder whirring in one of the backrooms. My mouth slackens, and I practically feel the whoosh as all the color bleeds from my face. Time slows down, the noises of scraping spoons and ripped-open sugar packets fading into the background. I zone out to dig up a mental image of Mom’s goodbye letter, a jagged lump lodging in my throat as I reread her imaginary handwriting.
Something splashes in the distance, and it’s only when hot liquid sprays onto my fingers that I notice the cup of coffee shaking in my hand.
“…alright? You’re as pale as a corpse,” Nick’s voice drifts through the haze in my brain, tearing my gaze up to a pair of blue eyes widened in concern.
Gulping, I set down my cup with a loud clank.
“Excuse me for a second,” I mumble before I dart to my feet to flee to the restroom and have an epic breakdown in private.
Barging into the first stall, I shut the door behind me and collapse onto the toilet seat. My hands slam against the metal wall on either side, just for something to hold on to.
…but something happened later on that made me decide you were better off not knowing who your real father was…
A heist that sent him straight to jail, perhaps?
…a wonderful man with his heart in the right place, but sadly, also a criminal…
Because he hijacked a plane and robbed millions of diamonds?
…he was
a cheater…
A cheater because he already had a family when he met Mom? A wife, and maybe two sons on top?
“No. Please, God, no…” I drop my hands to draw the front of my shirt into a fistful of fabric.
My mouth goes so dry, it feels as if my windpipe has grown thorns, and I stumble out of the stall as black dots blur my vision, shooting for the basin. Despite the chills shaking my core, I splash cold water all over my face and neck. I rip a paper towel from the box next to me and drag it roughly down my cheeks before I look at my reflection in the gilded mirror. A glassy sheen of terror covers my eyes, my pupils are dilated as if I’m on LSD, and a vein on my forehead pumps in sync with my racing pulse.
The door opens behind me, and a middle-aged woman with a screaming toddler in her arms, with splashes of what looks like hot chocolate all over his romper, slips in. I quickly school my features, hoping not to look as if I need a defibrillator, and make room for her in front of the basin. Her mumbled thanks barely registers as she starts cleaning up her kid, and I skulk out the door, forcing myself to calm down and save my massive crackup for later.
Nick jumps to his feet when I approach the table. “Shit, Ella, are you okay? I was ready to go looking for you.”
“I’m fine.” I flash a somewhat convincing smile, waving it off when I sit back down. “The chili I had for lunch was a tad too spicy. Just a queasy stomach, is all.”
More like close to puking out my guts, but I wash down the nausea with a few gulps of water.
Nick sends me a probing gaze before he resumes his seat. “You’re sure?”
I mm-hm into my glass, knocking back the last drops and setting it back down.
Now, do this subtly, Ella.
“Uh, getting back to our conversation from earlier…” I plaster a hopefully inconspicuous expression onto my face. “Who did your father give the ring to?”
His face falls slightly when he says, “As far as I know, to a woman he had an affair with.”
…he was a cheater…
The lump in my throat grows bigger. “Do you know her name?”
“I just know that she was Russian.”
I pinch a spot of flesh on my thigh so hard, the pain shoots down to my toes, but at least it keeps the scream ready to erupt locked in my sternum.
“Does Vincent have other children, too? With that woman?”
He cocks his head to the side, analyzing me. “Where does that question come from?”
From the black, gooey knot slowly squeezing its tendrils around my heart.
I try to appear unruffled when I say, “No reason. You said he cheated on your Mom. The woman must have meant a lot to him if he gave her that ring. I was just curious how far he went.”
“Far enough to keep us in the dark until recently.” Nick heaves a sigh, sagging back in his chair. “Yes, he got that woman pregnant. He’s got a daughter, as far as I know, which means I have a half-sister somewhere out there who, most likely, has no idea she’s got a sibling.”
She does know now…
“Vincent didn’t know about the child for a long time,” he goes on, oblivious to me crumbling opposite him. “Turned out the woman wrote him a letter when he was in prison to tell him he doesn’t deserve to know the kid’s name, and that his daughter would never know about him, either.”
Oh, how Mom loved to write letters…
My heart goes haywire in my chest, each pump turning into a painful sting. I bite the inside of my cheek so hard, the tang of blood coats my tongue as I stare at Nick.
He always seemed so weirdly familiar—the shape of his jaw, the curve of his nose, the color of his lips.
As if we’d met before. As if something connected us that I couldn’t decipher.
Now I know why.
Nick Crawford is my half-brother which makes…
Vincent Crawford my real father.
18
Ella
Lucky me, Zoya called right when I thought I was going to puke out my guts on Nick’s suit, and offered me a quick exit strategy to escape his wary stare. I broke every street limit on my way home and missed a red light, too consternated and clearly a potential hazard for every driver, cyclist, and dog-walker in New York.
When I arrive on Sunrise Avenue, I shoot up Zoya’s driveway so fast I almost burst through the garage, and kill the engine at the same time I jump from my seat. Once inside the house, I toss my helmet into a corner, hurry up the stairs, and yank open my closet to pull out Mom’s shoebox.
With shallow breaths, I slump to the floor and flip the lid open to delve through her belongings. Beneath a stack of recipes on wrinkled paper and old-as-shit jewelry, I find her goodbye letter. I sag back against my bed, scanning her neat handwriting with tears blurring my vision.
Why I am putting myself through this torture? Maybe in hopes of finding something I misunderstood. Maybe in hopes of finding a sentence, a word, a fucking comma I missed. Anything to invalidate the cruel, gut-wrenching truth creeping up my heart like poison.
But no matter how often I reread the lines, no matter how much I twist and turn the words, the message stays the same. My eyes slide closed, tears running down my cheeks as the letter floats from my hand. There’s still the slither of a chance that I’m wrong, but something tells me that a DNA test would only confirm my fear.
My fear that Nathan is… yeah, what? My step-brother?
Fuck, if I know. Fact is, Vincent adopted him, so we’re not biologically related—six Hail Mary’s to God above for that, or I would have killed myself straight away.
“I can’t believe it…” I mutter, pulling my phone from my pocket.
My fingers shake as they fly over the keypad, and a trembling exhale rattles over my lips when Google Images bombards me with a myriad of pictures.
Vincent Crawford—the notorious art stealer. The search engine is jam-packed with images of him. Galas, fundraisers, photo shoots, interviews, and the occasional getting-breakfast-from-the-shop-around-the-corner-in-sweatpants paparazzi shot—the founder of Crawford Crescent is as dominant on the Internet as every Hollywood star. He flashes a charming smile in each of them, his salt-and-pepper hair combined with various styles of beards. A George Clooney persona with laugh-lines around the eyes and age spots on his forehead that make him only more handsome with the years.
My restless fingers whiz over the touchscreen until they stop over an older image where his face was still wrinkle-free and his hair jet-black, with chops down his ears. I bring the phone closer to my eyes. The resemblance to Nick is unmistakable.
And the resemblance to me?
I scramble up to look into the mirror on the inside of the closet door, flicking my gaze from my phone to my pale face. I can’t tell what makes us look alike somehow. Not the eye color, for sure. Maybe the nose and the lips, and something else I can’t quite pinpoint—the same alikeness in our expressions that struck me each time I saw Nick.
I hop over to Vincent Crawford’s Wikipedia entry to check his birthday and do a quick calculation in my head. Mom was twenty-nine when I was born, and Vincent was thirty-three back then. Not substantial evidence, but I know that Mom lived in the US for some time before she conceived me. Chances are she met him there before she returned to Russia. Not sure when that happened exactly, but I know it was around the time she was pregnant.
But what about Roman, the man I believed to be my father for so many years? They weren’t married for a long time, but she must have already been carrying me when she met him. Fuck, did Roman know he wasn’t my real father?
“Are you really that cruel to me, fate?” I mutter to my pitiful reflection as the gears in my brain kick into motion.
If Vincent Crawford is my real father—as unthinkable, preposterous, and beyond the realms of possibility it sounds—this would mean a brain-fucking, earth-shattering, heart-breaking shift in the whole Crawford/Jenkins/Benson family dynamic. I haven’t met Vincent in person yet, but when I do, I doubt I can keep up the act for long. If not
him, then Brooke would kick me out of the company without so much as a blink. I mean, who wants to have the vivid product of their husband’s affair living under the same roof? Nick and Zoya might be cool with all this, but what about Nathan?
“Yeah, what the fuck about Nathan…?”
He would break up with me on the spot when he finds out. As much as he wants to believe he harbors nothing but hate for his father, I know this hate only overshadows the hurt of what Vincent did to his family. Deep down, he wishes he was Vincent’s flesh and blood. Then I tag along, a random woman from another continent he dated because an algorithm told him to do so, and slap the cold-hard truth into his face.
My eyes glaze over as I crumple to the floor once more. Producing a heavy exhale, I pluck the alexandrite ring from the shoebox, twisting it between my fingers. The purple and turquoise shades sparkle in the sunlight leaking through the blinds, throwing streaks of colors over the space.
God, I’m so stupid… Selfish, narrow-minded me hasn’t even considered the possibility that Nathan had every reason to hold me accountable. I’ve been so busy questioning his loyalty to me, accusing him of putting his trust in his ex, blaming him for invading my privacy instead of thanking him for saving me, that I totally missed the big picture.
My fingers form a fist around the jewel, tightening until my knuckles turn white. The ring means more to Nathan than to me. It belongs to him. I have no right to keep it, just as I have no right to keep the truth from him. Our relationship would crumble underneath this secret, built upon brittle pillars of excuses and lies and cover-ups, always on the verge of collapse.
And me? I would strut into the gallery every day, shooting Nick tight smiles, pretending we’re not related, and talking business with Vincent, hoping he wouldn’t notice me staring into his eyes as I feebly try to figure out how mine came up dark-brown while his have the color of a melting glacier in Antarctica.
